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Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
Civil Disobedience and Other Essays is a collection of some of Henry David Thoreau's most important essays. Contained in this volume are the following essays: Civil Disobedience, Natural History of Massachusetts, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Winter Walk, The Succession of Forest Trees, Walking, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples, Night and Moonlight, Aulus Persius Flaccus, Herald of Freedom, Life Without Principle, Paradise (to be) Regained, A Plea for John Brown, The Last Days of John Brown, After the Death of John Brown, The Service, Slavery in Massachusetts, and Wendell Phillips Before Concord Lyceum.
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1866
About the author
Henry David Thoreau
2,016 books6,324 followersHenry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
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Want to read
February 18, 2017Last time I reviewed this book, my review was rapidly deleted and I received a mail explaining that "if I continued to post content like this, my account might come under review for removal". Okay, let's see what happens this time round. Like millions of people round the world, I am appalled at what Trump, Bannon and the rest of their team have done in the eleven days since Trump became President of the United States. This is clearly no more than the beginning. I want to oppose them. But what can I do? I'm not even a US resident.
Let me think aloud for a minute or two. I started off by deciding that I wouldn't unnecessarily pay any money to the US: no trips to the US, as few purchases as possible of US products. Presumably this has some tiny effect, but it's not very dramatic. Of course, if enough people did it then you'd see things happen; I notice that Mexicans are already starting to boycott Mcdonalds and Starbucks. It would still be nice to accelerate the process.
It's now well-established that the internet is a powerful tool for organizing collective action. Already, there are hundreds of petitions, marches and demonstrations being set up that way. I'm wondering what options are available if people want to coordinate economic action against Trump's regime. For example, I don't think the following apps would be impossible challenges to build:
1. A shopping app which optimised its search so as to give as little money as possible to the US. Part of the problem with organising a boycott is that it's hard to know which things are actually American. The app takes care of that; it has a crowdsourced database of information which lets it quickly decide that Brand X will send 34% of the money you pay to the US, but Brand Y only 12%. Of course, American patriots will be able to use it in reverse, sending as many dollars as possible to US companies. It'd be interesting to see which pattern of behavior was more common.
2. A phone app which refused to take calls from any US-made phones. If the app is switched on, an attempt to call you from an iPhone just gets a polite message saying that the owner only accepts calls from non-US phones. Once again, needless to say, patriots could use it in reverse.
There's already a primitive app to boycott Trump businesses. I think we'll soon see this taken further. Please let me know if you come across anything interesting.
_______________________
Thinking more about what I can do here, the subject of international conferences occurs. As an academic, I typically submit half a dozen papers a year to various conferences in my field. The venues for these conferences are in nearly all cases chosen by an international committee after a bidding process. Many conferences are held in the US. A quick look around Google suggests that the US conference market is worth on the order of $100B per year.
Given the Trump administration's irrational and capricious policy of banning people from entry into the US, solely on the grounds of their nationality and literally at a minute's notice, it seems to me that it would be not be fair to potential attendees to hold an international conference in the US when other alternatives exist. I will be making this point to the various professional bodies with which I am affiliated.
Let me think aloud for a minute or two. I started off by deciding that I wouldn't unnecessarily pay any money to the US: no trips to the US, as few purchases as possible of US products. Presumably this has some tiny effect, but it's not very dramatic. Of course, if enough people did it then you'd see things happen; I notice that Mexicans are already starting to boycott Mcdonalds and Starbucks. It would still be nice to accelerate the process.
It's now well-established that the internet is a powerful tool for organizing collective action. Already, there are hundreds of petitions, marches and demonstrations being set up that way. I'm wondering what options are available if people want to coordinate economic action against Trump's regime. For example, I don't think the following apps would be impossible challenges to build:
1. A shopping app which optimised its search so as to give as little money as possible to the US. Part of the problem with organising a boycott is that it's hard to know which things are actually American. The app takes care of that; it has a crowdsourced database of information which lets it quickly decide that Brand X will send 34% of the money you pay to the US, but Brand Y only 12%. Of course, American patriots will be able to use it in reverse, sending as many dollars as possible to US companies. It'd be interesting to see which pattern of behavior was more common.
2. A phone app which refused to take calls from any US-made phones. If the app is switched on, an attempt to call you from an iPhone just gets a polite message saying that the owner only accepts calls from non-US phones. Once again, needless to say, patriots could use it in reverse.
There's already a primitive app to boycott Trump businesses. I think we'll soon see this taken further. Please let me know if you come across anything interesting.
_______________________
Thinking more about what I can do here, the subject of international conferences occurs. As an academic, I typically submit half a dozen papers a year to various conferences in my field. The venues for these conferences are in nearly all cases chosen by an international committee after a bidding process. Many conferences are held in the US. A quick look around Google suggests that the US conference market is worth on the order of $100B per year.
Given the Trump administration's irrational and capricious policy of banning people from entry into the US, solely on the grounds of their nationality and literally at a minute's notice, it seems to me that it would be not be fair to potential attendees to hold an international conference in the US when other alternatives exist. I will be making this point to the various professional bodies with which I am affiliated.
October 15, 2013
My censored review of this classic call to arms can now be seen at my personal blog.
It is a shame that this kind of thought-policing is okay with so many people. "I don't want to think about it" is a fast way not to have permission to think. At all.
But I suppose that's okay with a lot of people.
February 1, 2022
Thoreau fue un pensador cuyas obras y postura influenciaron o lo constituyeron en precursor, entre otros movimientos, del anarquismo, el ecologismo, y el libertarianismo. Una singular figura, se oponía ardientemente a la esclavitud en Estados Unidos, a las guerras de agresión, y esboza sus ideas en estos escritos. Thoreau esboza una furibunda crítica al Estado norteamericano, y al Estado como entidad organizada. De su prosa, se desprende un ardiente deseo de libertad y plantea preguntas que todavía al día de hoy resuenan: ¿Por qué hay personas que se oponen a la libertad? ¿Cuál debe ser la relación del individuo con el Estado? ¿Es legítimo seguir una ley, que aunque se ajusta a todos los mecanismos que la vuelven válida, sabemos es inmoral? ¿Debemos solventar con nuestros impuestos un gobierno que realiza actos que juzgamos inaceptables?
Es la clase de pensador que obtiene ardientes defensores y no menos ardientes críticos. Algunos dirán que la idea de Thoreau de una sociedad sin Estado es impracticable. Otros, que la idea de libertad varía de persona en persona, que no hay una idea universal de la libertad. Sin embargo, los filósofos plantean ideas que no requieren ser acompañadas de inmediato con un programa para su aplicación práctica: solo son guías, sugerencias para nuevas maneras de vivir y buscar significado a la vida.
Inevitablemente, su pensamiento permanecerá en el tiempo puesto que trata temas universales que nunca serán saldados de manera definitiva.
Solo por citar un ejemplo de mi país, Argentina: hace mucho tiempo que circula en Argentina, en diferentes sectores sociales y en las redes, la idea de una "rebelión fiscal": dejar de pagar masivamente los impuestos, ya que los sucesivos gobiernos no hacen un buen uso del dinero que recaudan con ellos. La Argentina se encuentra a la cabeza en el podio de los países con mayor carga fiscal sobre el sector formal de la economía en todo el mundo. Desde hace 25 años, los impuestos han aumentado continuamente y cada administración ha creado un nuevo impuesto que supuestamente sería transitorio, pero terminó siendo permanente. Por lo tanto, en teoría los gobiernos argentinos tienen todos los fondos necesarios para resolver los problemas sociales del país. Sin embargo, la pobreza en el 2021 alcanzó el 50%, y los argentinos no tenemos rutas decentes, salud pública eficaz, seguridad, baja inflación, absolutamente nada. La presión fiscal es tan alta que desalienta la inversión, la creación de empleo, y fomenta la ilegalidad. Sin embargo, los políticos insisten con un discurso separado de la realidad.
El dinero recaudado con los impuestos se va en dos vías: despilfarro y corrupción. De modo que la propuesta de Thoreau, que llevó a la práctica, de no pagar los impuestos, resuena fuertemente en mi país. Este es solo uno de muchos ejemplos que podría pensar.
A las claras, un pensador imprescindible que todos deberían conocer.
Es la clase de pensador que obtiene ardientes defensores y no menos ardientes críticos. Algunos dirán que la idea de Thoreau de una sociedad sin Estado es impracticable. Otros, que la idea de libertad varía de persona en persona, que no hay una idea universal de la libertad. Sin embargo, los filósofos plantean ideas que no requieren ser acompañadas de inmediato con un programa para su aplicación práctica: solo son guías, sugerencias para nuevas maneras de vivir y buscar significado a la vida.
Inevitablemente, su pensamiento permanecerá en el tiempo puesto que trata temas universales que nunca serán saldados de manera definitiva.
Solo por citar un ejemplo de mi país, Argentina: hace mucho tiempo que circula en Argentina, en diferentes sectores sociales y en las redes, la idea de una "rebelión fiscal": dejar de pagar masivamente los impuestos, ya que los sucesivos gobiernos no hacen un buen uso del dinero que recaudan con ellos. La Argentina se encuentra a la cabeza en el podio de los países con mayor carga fiscal sobre el sector formal de la economía en todo el mundo. Desde hace 25 años, los impuestos han aumentado continuamente y cada administración ha creado un nuevo impuesto que supuestamente sería transitorio, pero terminó siendo permanente. Por lo tanto, en teoría los gobiernos argentinos tienen todos los fondos necesarios para resolver los problemas sociales del país. Sin embargo, la pobreza en el 2021 alcanzó el 50%, y los argentinos no tenemos rutas decentes, salud pública eficaz, seguridad, baja inflación, absolutamente nada. La presión fiscal es tan alta que desalienta la inversión, la creación de empleo, y fomenta la ilegalidad. Sin embargo, los políticos insisten con un discurso separado de la realidad.
El dinero recaudado con los impuestos se va en dos vías: despilfarro y corrupción. De modo que la propuesta de Thoreau, que llevó a la práctica, de no pagar los impuestos, resuena fuertemente en mi país. Este es solo uno de muchos ejemplos que podría pensar.
A las claras, un pensador imprescindible que todos deberían conocer.
Want to read
January 30, 2017Gutenberg
Opening: [1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Goverment]
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.
February 5, 2011
Written for days past, written for today. Thoreau's discontent with the government is a present issue around the world... And it should be here. So many of our legislators, as in Thoreau's time, are not skilled at legislation and are so disconnected from the people and our needs. I think the title of the mini-book leads some to believe that Thoreau is completely anti-government - not true. He says time and again that a government that is worthy of his respect is one that he will live under. He also points out some of the good of the government of his time. A very quick read, it should leave you to question your involvement in/support of our current system. It did for me.
January 13, 2024
Della possibilità di seguire le vie ritenute lecite dallo stato per porre rimedio al male, non voglio sapere nulla. Richiedono troppo tempo e la vita di un uomo si consumerebbe prima. Ho altre faccende a cui dedicarmi. Non sono venuto al mondo soltanto per renderlo un buon posto dove vivere, ma per viverci, buono o cattivo che sia. Un essere umano non deve fare tutto, ma deve fare qualcosa.
Infrangi la legge. Fa' in modo che la tua vita si trasformi in un diverso tipo di attrito, in grado di fermare la macchina.
October 10, 2016
Not too sure what I just read but it did have the occasional interesting point I guess...
January 17, 2024
relectura: un libro que hace años cambiaría mi vida sin esperarlo, y fue un placer volver a leer "una vida sin principios" y "la desobediencia civil"
Qué manera tan sencilla y agradable de transmitir ideas políticas en estos pequeños ensayos, me encanto el estilo del autor para transmitirte sus ideas políticas de manera casi poética, donde la que más resalta es la de aprender a diferenciar entre la ley y la justicia.
“si tuviera que vender mis mañanas y mis tardes a la sociedad, no me quedaría nada por lo que vivir”
“requiere más de un día de atención conocer y poseer el valor de un día”
“¿Qué sentido tiene nacer libres y no vivir libres?”
“lo deseable no es cultivar el respeto por la ley, sino por la justicia”
“no vine al mundo para hacer de él un buen lugar para vivir, sino a vivir en él, sea bueno o malo”
“me cuesta menos trabajo desobedecer al Estado, que obedecerlo”
“como no habían podido llegar a mi alma, habían castigado mi cuerpo”
“la ley nunca hará libres a los hombres, los hombres harán libre a la ley”
“si queremos salvar nuestras vidas, debemos luchar por ellas”
“¿deben imponerse las leyes solo porque han sido aprobadas?”
Qué manera tan sencilla y agradable de transmitir ideas políticas en estos pequeños ensayos, me encanto el estilo del autor para transmitirte sus ideas políticas de manera casi poética, donde la que más resalta es la de aprender a diferenciar entre la ley y la justicia.
“si tuviera que vender mis mañanas y mis tardes a la sociedad, no me quedaría nada por lo que vivir”
“requiere más de un día de atención conocer y poseer el valor de un día”
“¿Qué sentido tiene nacer libres y no vivir libres?”
“lo deseable no es cultivar el respeto por la ley, sino por la justicia”
“no vine al mundo para hacer de él un buen lugar para vivir, sino a vivir en él, sea bueno o malo”
“me cuesta menos trabajo desobedecer al Estado, que obedecerlo”
“como no habían podido llegar a mi alma, habían castigado mi cuerpo”
“la ley nunca hará libres a los hombres, los hombres harán libre a la ley”
“si queremos salvar nuestras vidas, debemos luchar por ellas”
“¿deben imponerse las leyes solo porque han sido aprobadas?”
September 12, 2018
I was inspired to read this after visiting the Martin Luther King Junior memorial in Atlanta. Gandhi and MLK we’re both inspired by the ideas presented in Civil Disobedience.
My main takeaway is this...Question everything. Don’t take government as infallible truth. While Democracy is clearly the best form of government thus far in history, it is not perfect. If a government doesn’t grow, flex, and scale with societal and technological changes, it’s brittleness will cause it to break, similar to how a startup can disrupt an incumbent enterprise. As an American, I can take a stand against what I believe to be wrong with the State. This book reignited my political interest.
My main takeaway is this...Question everything. Don’t take government as infallible truth. While Democracy is clearly the best form of government thus far in history, it is not perfect. If a government doesn’t grow, flex, and scale with societal and technological changes, it’s brittleness will cause it to break, similar to how a startup can disrupt an incumbent enterprise. As an American, I can take a stand against what I believe to be wrong with the State. This book reignited my political interest.
August 26, 2021
เล่มนี้กระชับและอ่านง่ายกว่า วอลเดน (WALDEN)
ความเรียง 4 เรื่องนี้มีแนวคิดเดียวกับวอลเดนแต่ให้ความรู้สึกต่างกัน อ่า��วอลเดนเหมือนอ่านบันทึกส่วนตัวของธอโร แต่อ่านเล่มนี้เหมือนฟังปาฐกถาของเขาผ่านการอ่าน เพราะธอโรเรียบเรียงจากปาฐกถาที่แสดงในปี 1848 และช่วงทศวรรษ 1850
1. ต้านอำนาจรัฐ
ธอโรบรรยายแนวคิดของเขาที่ว่า "รัฐบาลที่ดีที่สุดนั้นย่อมปกครองน้อยที่สุด" และเหตุการณ์ที่ถูกจับขังคุกเพราะไม่ยอมจ่ายภาษี ซึ่งเขาถือว่าเงินจะถูกนำไปใช้ทำสงครามกับเม็กซิโกและล่าทาส (เหตุการณ์นี้เขาเขียนไว้สั้นๆ ในวอลเดน) การบรรยายบรรยากาศในคุกนั้น คนที่ชื่นชอบธอโรอ่านโดยไม่รู้มาก่อนว่าใครเขียนก็คงเดาถูก
2. ชีวิตที่ขาดหลักการ
วิพากษ์วิจารณ์วิถีชีวิตคนในยุคนั้นเช่นเดียวกับเนื้อหาบางส่วนของวอลเดน แต่เนื้อหาต่างกัน และธอโรเกริ่นนำว่าเขา "ตัดส่วนที่ฟุ่มเฟือยเพ้อเจ้อออก"
แนวคิดในเรื่องนี้ก็เช่นเดียวกับวอลเดนที่นำมาประยุกต์ใช้กับยุคนี้ได้ เช่น การเสพข่าวคราวตามท้องถนนมากเกินไปของคนยุคนั้น ซึ่งยุคนี้เปลี่ยนเป็น Social Media
"ผู้คนกระหายที่จะเก็บกวาดเอาขยะเหล่านั้นเข้าไปไว้ในจิตใจ ย่อมปล่อยให้บรรดาข่าวลือไร้แก่นสารและเหตุการณ์ไร้สาระเข้าไปอยู่ในสถานที่อันศักดิ์สิทธิ์ซึ่งคู่ควรก็แต่เพียงความคิดเ��่านั้น"
3. สีสันแห่งฤดูใบไม้ร่วง
บรรยายความงามของต้นไม้ต่างๆ ทั้งในป่าและเมือง ซึ่งใบจะเปลี่ยนเป็นสีสดใสที่สุดในฤดูใบไม้ร่วง และข้อดีของการปลูกต้นไม้ในเมือง ธอโรใช้ภาษาง่ายๆ แต่อ่านแล้วเห็นภาพชัดเจน ตอนท้ายมีแนวคิดเรื่องมุมมองและเป้าหมาย ซึ่งลึกซึ้งแต่เข้าใจง่าย เช่น
"การที่สิ่งต่างๆ ถูกบดบังไว้จากสายตาของเรานั้น มิใช่เป็นเพราะว่ามันอยู่นอกคลองจักษุ แต่เป็นด้วยเรามิได้รวบรวมจิตใจและสายตาของเราเข้าด้วยกันเพื่อค้นหามัน"
ในเรื่องนี้มีส่วนที่ผมแปลกใจคือ ธอโรเปรียบเทียบการชื่นชมความงามของธรรมชาติกับการชื่นชมความงามของผู้หญิง เท่าที่จำได้ผมไม่เคยอ่านเจอในวอลเดนและเรื่องอื่นในเล่มนี้เลย
"นักชีวพฤกษศาสตร์ได้อธิบายว่า 'มันเปลี่ยนสีเพราะมีการดูดซึมออกซิเจนมากขึ้น'... ทว่าข้าพเจ้ากลับสนใจในสีแดงระเรื่อของแก้มสาวมากกว่าที่จะอยากรู้ว่าเธอกินอะไรเป็นอาหาร"
4. การเดิน
เรียบเรียงจากปาฐกถา 2 ชิ้น คือ Walking และ The Wild บรรยายเรื่องการเดินในท้องทุ่งและป่าโดยมีสติอยู่กับการเดินเพื่อสุขภาพกายและจิตที่ดี อีกส่วนเกี่ยวกับป่า เช่น ข้อดีของเมืองที่มีป่า ซึ่งนอกจากความอุดมสมบูรณ์แล้ว "ในผืนดินเช่นนี้เองซึ่งเป็นที่ก่อเกิดของโฮเมอร์ ขงจื๊อ และมหาบุรุษอื่นๆ"
ตอนท้ายมีแนวคิดเหมือนคัมภีร์เต๋าคือ การใช้ชีวิตสอดคล้องกับธรรมชาติ และสภาวะอันสูงสุดไม่ใช่ "ความรอบรู้" แต่คือ "ความเท่าทันในความรอบรู้" การอ่านตอนนี้ต้องอ่านช้าๆ ค่อยๆ ตีความเหมือนอ่านวอลเดน
ความเรียง 4 เรื่องนี้มีแนวคิดเดียวกับวอลเดนแต่ให้ความรู้สึกต่างกัน อ่า��วอลเดนเหมือนอ่านบันทึกส่วนตัวของธอโร แต่อ่านเล่มนี้เหมือนฟังปาฐกถาของเขาผ่านการอ่าน เพราะธอโรเรียบเรียงจากปาฐกถาที่แสดงในปี 1848 และช่วงทศวรรษ 1850
1. ต้านอำนาจรัฐ
ธอโรบรรยายแนวคิดของเขาที่ว่า "รัฐบาลที่ดีที่สุดนั้นย่อมปกครองน้อยที่สุด" และเหตุการณ์ที่ถูกจับขังคุกเพราะไม่ยอมจ่ายภาษี ซึ่งเขาถือว่าเงินจะถูกนำไปใช้ทำสงครามกับเม็กซิโกและล่าทาส (เหตุการณ์นี้เขาเขียนไว้สั้นๆ ในวอลเดน) การบรรยายบรรยากาศในคุกนั้น คนที่ชื่นชอบธอโรอ่านโดยไม่รู้มาก่อนว่าใครเขียนก็คงเดาถูก
2. ชีวิตที่ขาดหลักการ
วิพากษ์วิจารณ์วิถีชีวิตคนในยุคนั้นเช่นเดียวกับเนื้อหาบางส่วนของวอลเดน แต่เนื้อหาต่างกัน และธอโรเกริ่นนำว่าเขา "ตัดส่วนที่ฟุ่มเฟือยเพ้อเจ้อออก"
แนวคิดในเรื่องนี้ก็เช่นเดียวกับวอลเดนที่นำมาประยุกต์ใช้กับยุคนี้ได้ เช่น การเสพข่าวคราวตามท้องถนนมากเกินไปของคนยุคนั้น ซึ่งยุคนี้เปลี่ยนเป็น Social Media
"ผู้คนกระหายที่จะเก็บกวาดเอาขยะเหล่านั้นเข้าไปไว้ในจิตใจ ย่อมปล่อยให้บรรดาข่าวลือไร้แก่นสารและเหตุการณ์ไร้สาระเข้าไปอยู่ในสถานที่อันศักดิ์สิทธิ์ซึ่งคู่ควรก็แต่เพียงความคิดเ��่านั้น"
3. สีสันแห่งฤดูใบไม้ร่วง
บรรยายความงามของต้นไม้ต่างๆ ทั้งในป่าและเมือง ซึ่งใบจะเปลี่ยนเป็นสีสดใสที่สุดในฤดูใบไม้ร่วง และข้อดีของการปลูกต้นไม้ในเมือง ธอโรใช้ภาษาง่ายๆ แต่อ่านแล้วเห็นภาพชัดเจน ตอนท้ายมีแนวคิดเรื่องมุมมองและเป้าหมาย ซึ่งลึกซึ้งแต่เข้าใจง่าย เช่น
"การที่สิ่งต่างๆ ถูกบดบังไว้จากสายตาของเรานั้น มิใช่เป็นเพราะว่ามันอยู่นอกคลองจักษุ แต่เป็นด้วยเรามิได้รวบรวมจิตใจและสายตาของเราเข้าด้วยกันเพื่อค้นหามัน"
ในเรื่องนี้มีส่วนที่ผมแปลกใจคือ ธอโรเปรียบเทียบการชื่นชมความงามของธรรมชาติกับการชื่นชมความงามของผู้หญิง เท่าที่จำได้ผมไม่เคยอ่านเจอในวอลเดนและเรื่องอื่นในเล่มนี้เลย
"นักชีวพฤกษศาสตร์ได้อธิบายว่า 'มันเปลี่ยนสีเพราะมีการดูดซึมออกซิเจนมากขึ้น'... ทว่าข้าพเจ้ากลับสนใจในสีแดงระเรื่อของแก้มสาวมากกว่าที่จะอยากรู้ว่าเธอกินอะไรเป็นอาหาร"
4. การเดิน
เรียบเรียงจากปาฐกถา 2 ชิ้น คือ Walking และ The Wild บรรยายเรื่องการเดินในท้องทุ่งและป่าโดยมีสติอยู่กับการเดินเพื่อสุขภาพกายและจิตที่ดี อีกส่วนเกี่ยวกับป่า เช่น ข้อดีของเมืองที่มีป่า ซึ่งนอกจากความอุดมสมบูรณ์แล้ว "ในผืนดินเช่นนี้เองซึ่งเป็นที่ก่อเกิดของโฮเมอร์ ขงจื๊อ และมหาบุรุษอื่นๆ"
ตอนท้ายมีแนวคิดเหมือนคัมภีร์เต๋าคือ การใช้ชีวิตสอดคล้องกับธรรมชาติ และสภาวะอันสูงสุดไม่ใช่ "ความรอบรู้" แต่คือ "ความเท่าทันในความรอบรู้" การอ่านตอนนี้ต้องอ่านช้าๆ ค่อยๆ ตีความเหมือนอ่านวอลเดน
November 13, 2008
He has some wonderful essays, although it must be remembered that he had few personal responsibilities & no family to support. He was too self-centered for a wife & children. I believe he is sincere, if impractical. I think he draws the lines rather tight for the real world some times, but maybe it is that attitude that allowed things to go so wrong since his day...
I've seen him labeled an Anarchist, but I believe he was a Libertarian. He wanted a better government that needed to govern less.
I've seen him labeled an Anarchist, but I believe he was a Libertarian. He wanted a better government that needed to govern less.
November 23, 2023
Pubblicato nel 1849, questo saggio fu un’importante testimonianza di quello spirito libero e individualista che fu Thoreau, anticipatore di quello che molto tempo dopo, grandi personaggi come Gandhi o Martin Luther King portarono alle estreme conseguenze. L’affermazione che è giusto non rispettare le leggi quando queste offendono la dignità e la coscienza dell’uomo ha una portata molto forte anche e soprattutto per una semplice lettrice come me. Non ho conoscenze filosofiche e storiche tali da poter commentare con dovizia di particolari quanto l’autore scrive, ma è evidente che, quando dichiara di anteporre assolutamente quanto gli suggerisce la coscienza alle leggi dello Stato, mi trova assolutamente d’accordo. Dichiararlo allora, nel 1848, porsi contro la pratica della schiavitù, contro la guerra aggressiva degli USA contro il Messico, non pagare le tasse per non finanziare queste atrocità, pagando con la reclusione questa sua scelta non ha fatto altro che aumentare la mia stima e anche il mio stupore per questo saggio che non conoscevo. Quando afferma che le punizioni, come la prigione, colpiscono solo il corpo dell’uomo, perché tale viene considerato il cittadino dallo stato, ma non colpiscono la sua mente, la sua libertà di pensiero e di coscienza, attesta una verità importante. La libertà di pensiero è inoppugnabile. Le leggi non devono intaccare la dignità dell’uomo; uno Stato che non è in grado di rispettare i diritti dell’uomo è destinato alla rovina. E di che cosa stiamo parlando ancora quasi duecento anni dopo?
July 23, 2022
This in Nonfiction/Politics. I have a love hate relationship with Thoreau's writing in general...not just with this book. Often I'm asking myself "What?" or I'm thinking, "This is a good point." He also tends to use the exact same words in all of his writings. He just works his favorite words right in.
It is amazing though, how much things have changed since Thoreau's sojourn on Earth....and how much things are still the exact same. Overall, this was just okay for me. This could have been 3 stars but I didn't care for the narration of the audio which seemed to amplify my other dislikes. So 2 stars.
It is amazing though, how much things have changed since Thoreau's sojourn on Earth....and how much things are still the exact same. Overall, this was just okay for me. This could have been 3 stars but I didn't care for the narration of the audio which seemed to amplify my other dislikes. So 2 stars.
August 13, 2012
Anti-system and other delusional ideas that will never happen.....just shut up and get a job you 30 year old teenager...
Civil disobedience was a quick read and to the point (much like my sex life). Henry David Thoreau states when the majority rules, in the case of democracy, rarely is the majority just. Democracy relies on physical strength in numbers, rather than what is just. He pretty much brings to question the next step beyond democracy as a political system. Which he envisions is the enlightened and conscience masses(yea, that will happen sometime soon). He also shows the problems in U.S. democracy and where they fail. Can we as people strive to something more than democracy? Can we question the sacred birthright of democracy in educational institutions or as autonomous individuals? Can I get out of bed in the morning??? Can I stop updating my facebook status every twenty minutes? Who cares...
Quite a good read, wish it was longer. After reading this, I will never vote again, (like it matter that I did before and like anyone cares). I have considered this for awhile and this book seals the deal. Putting the burden of responsibility on a stranger other than myself to decide things for me is ludicrous. After reviewing those I have voted for, along with my hopes in them, they have failed me miserably. They have done far more war, destruction, and opposite of all my actual hopes; why should I compromise myself for the majority?? Fuck that.... They have enslaved more than free. They have killed more than they love. This is true throughout world history. I have given a fair chance to those in power. Dont vote and dont pay taxes....If you want something done, do it yourself....
(I think what I just wrote was the most hypocritical and pretentious thing I have ever wrote; ignore it all! Who the fuck do I think I am!! I need a drink and a dose of reality....)
I thought the book might be more powerful, but I am glad to have read it. Not as boring or drawn out as Walden. However, just as delusional as Walden (seriously, people thinking for themselves!?!?! funny....) The only way out this shit hole is suicide and everyone knows it...
I hope my review makes me look "intelligent" and "dark" for potential love interests....
Anyways, heres some good quotes and points of the reading, like anyone gives a shit. Why do I write these, seriously, does anyone read my shitty reviews? Do I actual think I am creating something original with my self congratulating critiques?? I am a college dropout, god, Im so self important and pompous...
Ugh, I should consider taking anti depressants.... fuck it, I need another drink...
Because I know you wont read this book, because you're a lazy pseudo-intellect who wrote a paper in college that you thought was "great" on something no one cares about and have wasted your money (or parents money) and life up to this point; I have made it simple and convenient for you. Read the quotes to get the idea of the book.
You're welcome!
Quotes:
"But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on jutice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?"
"The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said, that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience."
"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies."
"Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail."
"There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men."
"But if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law."
"I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong."
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
"A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority."
"Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue."
"The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor."
"I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society, I am not the son of the engineer."
"The lawyer's truth is not the truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong doing."
"There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousands; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of setting, the much-vexed questions of the day."
Civil disobedience was a quick read and to the point (much like my sex life). Henry David Thoreau states when the majority rules, in the case of democracy, rarely is the majority just. Democracy relies on physical strength in numbers, rather than what is just. He pretty much brings to question the next step beyond democracy as a political system. Which he envisions is the enlightened and conscience masses(yea, that will happen sometime soon). He also shows the problems in U.S. democracy and where they fail. Can we as people strive to something more than democracy? Can we question the sacred birthright of democracy in educational institutions or as autonomous individuals? Can I get out of bed in the morning??? Can I stop updating my facebook status every twenty minutes? Who cares...
Quite a good read, wish it was longer. After reading this, I will never vote again, (like it matter that I did before and like anyone cares). I have considered this for awhile and this book seals the deal. Putting the burden of responsibility on a stranger other than myself to decide things for me is ludicrous. After reviewing those I have voted for, along with my hopes in them, they have failed me miserably. They have done far more war, destruction, and opposite of all my actual hopes; why should I compromise myself for the majority?? Fuck that.... They have enslaved more than free. They have killed more than they love. This is true throughout world history. I have given a fair chance to those in power. Dont vote and dont pay taxes....If you want something done, do it yourself....
(I think what I just wrote was the most hypocritical and pretentious thing I have ever wrote; ignore it all! Who the fuck do I think I am!! I need a drink and a dose of reality....)
I thought the book might be more powerful, but I am glad to have read it. Not as boring or drawn out as Walden. However, just as delusional as Walden (seriously, people thinking for themselves!?!?! funny....) The only way out this shit hole is suicide and everyone knows it...
I hope my review makes me look "intelligent" and "dark" for potential love interests....
Anyways, heres some good quotes and points of the reading, like anyone gives a shit. Why do I write these, seriously, does anyone read my shitty reviews? Do I actual think I am creating something original with my self congratulating critiques?? I am a college dropout, god, Im so self important and pompous...
Ugh, I should consider taking anti depressants.... fuck it, I need another drink...
Because I know you wont read this book, because you're a lazy pseudo-intellect who wrote a paper in college that you thought was "great" on something no one cares about and have wasted your money (or parents money) and life up to this point; I have made it simple and convenient for you. Read the quotes to get the idea of the book.
You're welcome!
Quotes:
"But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on jutice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?"
"The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said, that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience."
"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies."
"Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail."
"There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men."
"But if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law."
"I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong."
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
"A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority."
"Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue."
"The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor."
"I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society, I am not the son of the engineer."
"The lawyer's truth is not the truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong doing."
"There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousands; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of setting, the much-vexed questions of the day."
August 28, 2016
Because Goodreads is apparently cutting off my review, here is the rest of it:
Okay, so it took me 15 days to read a 90 page book but it's Fine.
The first of the essays included in this book is Civil Disobedience, which is of course one of Thoreau's most famous works. It was interesting but not really what I thought it was going to be. I get that the reason it is heralded is what he was discussing specifically in the text has wider applications but I was expecting something a bit broader I guess. I also had some trouble reading it as the language took some getting used to.
Next was Slavery in Massachussettes, which I guess left the least impression upon me? I don't really remember it at all, other than thinking that Thoreau very plainly stated his stance against slavery and also against hypocrisy.
The third essay was A Plea for Captain John Brown which was, I think, when I really started settling into the language and style. I enjoyed the anger he displayed, I think I am unused to thinking of older books and essays as being emotional but he is quite emotional in his case for the martyrdom of Captain John Brown. I did run up against my own lack of knowledge of Civil War era American history, which caused some confusion. I didn't even know what significance Harper's Ferry holds, so at first this essay was a bit lost on me. I think my biggest takeaway here was a desire to learn more about this time so I have greater context.
Next was Walking, which was where I really stared enjoying Thoreau. I also, at this point, started livetweeting my reading so here are my thoughts:
-Still reading Walking by Thoreau and man, he had a pretty good idea of what the future was going to look like.
-I wonder if my uncle is a Thoreau fan or if he's just come to the same conclusions independently.
-I just read a sentence in this essay that I legit do not understand. I have read it over 10 times and I don't know what the point is.
-This does not happen to me often and it is extremely frustrating when it does.
-Ah, I get it now. He is talking about being so in one's head that one forgets to notice the outside world but eventually the world returns.
-The problem I was having was I couldn't figure out if the train was a metaphor or not.
-I appreciate Thoreau but at the same time I feel like my time is better spent appreciating a sunset then reading him.
And that last tweet pretty much sums up my takeaway from Walking.
The last essay in this collection was Life Without Principal which, again, was not at all what I was expecting. I also livetweeted my reading of this one.
-When Thoreau prefaces an essay with "Let us consider the way in which we live our lives." I feel as though he is about to get snarky.
-He just admitted that he was grumpy one morning because he was stuck indoors and it inspired part of this rant.
-Is Thoreau read in school?
-The biggest disadvantage being home schooled gave me is not knowing what is taught in school, because I was busy learning other things. Which leads me to perpetually not know social things while at the same time over estimating what my peers were taught. Anyway, the point of this rant is, I very much wonder if 'Life Without Principle' is taught in school.
-"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." I very much doubt that something with these sentiments is taught to children today.
-Thoreau, railing against the 1% in 1863.
-Things I have learned about Thoreau: he didn't like paying his taxes, being indoors, slavery, or goldmining.
"It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day."
-"The newspapers are the ruling power." THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 1863.
Much like Civil Disobedience I was expecting this to be on a broader topic, maybe something a bit more cohesive, but in execution it was kind of a meandering series of observations. This not to say that the impact was not still felt. The other topic undertaken in this last essay was gossip and while I may disagree with Thoreau about what sorts of transient constitute gossip and which constitute something worthy of attention, I do find too much of today's society over preoccupied with affairs that will be inconsequential in a matter of hours or even within the span of time that it takes the teller to draw breath to repeat the story, and I do get very annoyed by this type of talk and try not to participate in it.
For further quotes I liked, the ending of his essay, "Why should we meet, not always as dyspeptics , to tell our bad news, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I do not make such an exorbitant demand, surely." This is the kind of positivity that I attempt to embrace in my own philosophy and so I appreciate it being reflected in someone so widely renowned.
Okay, so it took me 15 days to read a 90 page book but it's Fine.
The first of the essays included in this book is Civil Disobedience, which is of course one of Thoreau's most famous works. It was interesting but not really what I thought it was going to be. I get that the reason it is heralded is what he was discussing specifically in the text has wider applications but I was expecting something a bit broader I guess. I also had some trouble reading it as the language took some getting used to.
Next was Slavery in Massachussettes, which I guess left the least impression upon me? I don't really remember it at all, other than thinking that Thoreau very plainly stated his stance against slavery and also against hypocrisy.
The third essay was A Plea for Captain John Brown which was, I think, when I really started settling into the language and style. I enjoyed the anger he displayed, I think I am unused to thinking of older books and essays as being emotional but he is quite emotional in his case for the martyrdom of Captain John Brown. I did run up against my own lack of knowledge of Civil War era American history, which caused some confusion. I didn't even know what significance Harper's Ferry holds, so at first this essay was a bit lost on me. I think my biggest takeaway here was a desire to learn more about this time so I have greater context.
Next was Walking, which was where I really stared enjoying Thoreau. I also, at this point, started livetweeting my reading so here are my thoughts:
-Still reading Walking by Thoreau and man, he had a pretty good idea of what the future was going to look like.
-I wonder if my uncle is a Thoreau fan or if he's just come to the same conclusions independently.
-I just read a sentence in this essay that I legit do not understand. I have read it over 10 times and I don't know what the point is.
-This does not happen to me often and it is extremely frustrating when it does.
-Ah, I get it now. He is talking about being so in one's head that one forgets to notice the outside world but eventually the world returns.
-The problem I was having was I couldn't figure out if the train was a metaphor or not.
-I appreciate Thoreau but at the same time I feel like my time is better spent appreciating a sunset then reading him.
And that last tweet pretty much sums up my takeaway from Walking.
The last essay in this collection was Life Without Principal which, again, was not at all what I was expecting. I also livetweeted my reading of this one.
-When Thoreau prefaces an essay with "Let us consider the way in which we live our lives." I feel as though he is about to get snarky.
-He just admitted that he was grumpy one morning because he was stuck indoors and it inspired part of this rant.
-Is Thoreau read in school?
-The biggest disadvantage being home schooled gave me is not knowing what is taught in school, because I was busy learning other things. Which leads me to perpetually not know social things while at the same time over estimating what my peers were taught. Anyway, the point of this rant is, I very much wonder if 'Life Without Principle' is taught in school.
-"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." I very much doubt that something with these sentiments is taught to children today.
-Thoreau, railing against the 1% in 1863.
-Things I have learned about Thoreau: he didn't like paying his taxes, being indoors, slavery, or goldmining.
"It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day."
-"The newspapers are the ruling power." THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 1863.
Much like Civil Disobedience I was expecting this to be on a broader topic, maybe something a bit more cohesive, but in execution it was kind of a meandering series of observations. This not to say that the impact was not still felt. The other topic undertaken in this last essay was gossip and while I may disagree with Thoreau about what sorts of transient constitute gossip and which constitute something worthy of attention, I do find too much of today's society over preoccupied with affairs that will be inconsequential in a matter of hours or even within the span of time that it takes the teller to draw breath to repeat the story, and I do get very annoyed by this type of talk and try not to participate in it.
For further quotes I liked, the ending of his essay, "Why should we meet, not always as dyspeptics , to tell our bad news, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I do not make such an exorbitant demand, surely." This is the kind of positivity that I attempt to embrace in my own philosophy and so I appreciate it being reflected in someone so widely renowned.
December 13, 2019
Lo deseable no es cultivar el respeto por la ley, sino por la justicia.
La ley nunca hará libres a los hombres, son los hombres los que deben hacer libre a la ley.
Lo que importa no es que el comienzo sea pequeño; lo que se hace bien una vez, queda bien hecho para siempre.
Una minoría no tiene ningún poder mientras se aviene a la voluntad de la mayoría: en ese caso ni siquiera es una minoría. Pero cuando se opone con todas sus fuerzas es imparable.
La ley nunca hará libres a los hombres, son los hombres los que deben hacer libre a la ley.
Lo que importa no es que el comienzo sea pequeño; lo que se hace bien una vez, queda bien hecho para siempre.
Una minoría no tiene ningún poder mientras se aviene a la voluntad de la mayoría: en ese caso ni siquiera es una minoría. Pero cuando se opone con todas sus fuerzas es imparable.
August 29, 2011
I am a huge fan of Henry David Thoreau. I found Walden inspirational, and Civil Disobedience is a similar, thoughtful work. However, though the ideals are as clearly presented as any essay one could read today, the concepts inherent in this work are not even remotely possible. It struck me as almost amusing that Thoreau would have gladly gone to jail for his principles, but jail, and indeed all of institutions of the United States of America, would be unrecognizable in its present state to our founding fathers and those who first conceived of the notion of liberty. Thoreau, a highly educated man who could read texts in their original Greek and Latin, claimed to need nothing of physical comforts or delights. He espoused a desire to sit and think in jail, staring out at the stars, rather than capitulate to unfair laws and inequitable situations. Those who ran the jails in Massachusetts during his one day of confinement, released him happily, knowing he was simply a man who must espouse his principles, a man who posed no threat to his fellow man. It would be a far different story were it to happen today.
December 1, 2021
It was okay!
January 9, 2024
Men don’t make the world like they used to.
May 20, 2021
Piccolo saggio scritto nel 1848, immerso nel clima sociale statunitense dell'epoca e all'epoca, oltre la schivitù gli Usa erano impegnati in un conflitto con il Messico e il filosofo fu contrario a entrambi. Thoreau rigetta la schiavitù e non riconosce lo Stato che la permette e addirittura la perpetra e per affermare ciò smette di pagare le tasse e per questo va in prigione. Per poco eh, perché zietta paga per lui. quel poco gli permette di capire che le mura attorno sono solo fisiche, che le sue idee hanno gambe ideali e quanto comunque si sentisse più libero dentro che fuori. Considerazione: posso io pensare allo Stato come una pura Associazione e quindi non pagare il tesseramento se nell'ordine del giorno ci sono progetti che non riconosco? posso uscire da qualunque tipo di associazione, ma posso collocarmi al di fuori dello Stato per questo? Uno Stato come il mio, che ad oggi soccorre tutti, cittadini e non cittadini, forse male ma questo è lo spirito? Domande, sempre domande ed io non ho risposte, mai. vi lascio con questo, sempre dell'autore:
"Non vi sarà mai uno Stato realmente libero e illuminato, finché lo Stato non giunga a riconoscere l'individuo come un potere più elevato ed indipendente, dal quale derivino tutto il suo potere e la sua autorità, e finché non lo si tratti di conseguenza."
Mi sovviene che perché questo accada soprattutto gli individui debbano essere 'illuminati', ma ora secondo me mi infilo in un circolo vizioso, l'ennesimo.
"Non vi sarà mai uno Stato realmente libero e illuminato, finché lo Stato non giunga a riconoscere l'individuo come un potere più elevato ed indipendente, dal quale derivino tutto il suo potere e la sua autorità, e finché non lo si tratti di conseguenza."
Mi sovviene che perché questo accada soprattutto gli individui debbano essere 'illuminati', ma ora secondo me mi infilo in un circolo vizioso, l'ennesimo.
March 4, 2022
You know those cardboard boxes of free books people leave in front of their house? I usually peek in expecting a pile of yellowed Harlequins but once in a while spot a gem like this thin volume of essays by Henry David Thoreau. The title essay is great but my favorite is Walking and it’s a fiery piece on the philosophical, meditative, and creative benefits of… walking. My wife and I picked our house based on what we could walk to and I try and do most of my meetings walking. So this essay hit home. (Sidenote: Nassim Taleb also has a great essay on urban walking at the back of The Black Swan expanded paperback edition.) As Thoreau says: “We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.”
July 9, 2012
Wow. I really was interested to read this, but he comes off as a self-important ass. Either he knew very little about his world, or his ideas do not hold up to the test of time at all - each page is easy to disprove, and his ideas on liberty are dangerously myopic, possibly contradictory - he wants everything from government but refuses to give it anything (and I don't mean money). I would be surprised if anyone besides Libertarians who have a thought out position in politics could find this worth considering.
August 30, 2009
Despicable. Insipid. Nauseating. I could go on like this for a minute, but doubt you really need me to. Reading this at 15 set me up for a lifetime of not ever wanting to sound like Henry David Thoreau.
January 5, 2015
no que haya una sola cosa que yo pueda opinar sobre desobediencia civil que pueda mover a alguien a leerlo, así que mejor una cita:
"la meta de un buen gobierno es darle más valor a la vida; la de un mal gobierno, restarle valor."
"la meta de un buen gobierno es darle más valor a la vida; la de un mal gobierno, restarle valor."
June 13, 2018
Civil Disobedience: 5 stars
Slavery in Massachusetts: 5 stars
A Plea for Captain John Brown: 4 stars
Walking: 3 stars
Life without Principle: 4 stars
Slavery in Massachusetts: 5 stars
A Plea for Captain John Brown: 4 stars
Walking: 3 stars
Life without Principle: 4 stars
May 1, 2013
On "Resistance to Civil Government:
During the summer of 2010 I lived in Concord, Massachusetts - the home of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcott family. I went there for the town's history which began approximately 100 years before these transcendentalists existed and had hardly studied any of them, their movement, or its implications. I lived a mile from Walden Pond and had never read Thoreau's adventures there, a few blocks from the homes of everyone else listed and only came to comprehend what each of these individuals meant to our world through interactions with visitors to the National Park where I worked. Upon my return to the good ole PNW, I told myself that I would dive head first into exploring this history and connect its overwhelming presence to my experience in Concord - and, so, I've picked up "Civil Disobedience", originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", and began there.
Henry David Thoreau was a born, lived, and passed native of Concord. He thought of it as "the most estimable place in all the world", and rightfully so in my opinion. Born in 1817, Thoreau witnessed a Concord that had seen three major wars - one of which began on its soil - and had made a name for itself as a small, spunky, and fairly influential town in its nearly 200 years of existence. Sitting 18 miles NE of Boston, Concord had become a prosperous market town along the route into and out of Boston. In the 18th century at least (my primary era of study), it maintained an abundance of natural resources, such as meadow hay (used primarily for livestock feed), livestock, lumber, and just about anything that could be tilled in the soil. It had not only been the home of many influential characters over the years, but it had also become an influential character in and of itself as the hub of innovative ideas, such as the aforementioned transcendentalist movement as well as prominent liberal (as we use the term today), Unitarianism.
It was here in the town of Concord where Thoreau chose to take a stand against his country and the state of Massachusetts by refusing to pay taxes in protest to the fighting of Mexico for the annexation of Texas, widely assumed to increase slave territory. Thoreau found himself in jail for a single night in July of 1846 and fighting would continue for two years afterwards. "Resistance to Civil Government" was an essay written in response to this event in his adventurous life.
He opens with a ideological commentary on government and a call to every citizen to make a stand and demand the American government to be better. "Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? - in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?... I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right." I had never thought of government in quite these terms before, as the embodiment of the moral consciousness of the men who create it, the men for whom it is created. 'Government' in my mind has always been its own entity, a structural system which is made up of men elected to keep the peace and establish justice. But, as Thoreau points out, is it really a just system to have majority rule in the first place? No - I think not. His more libertarian view of government complains of my assumption of government exactly - as the entity becomes less about men and more about the system, it become a capital 'G' Government and more like a machine. Its presumed nature of goodness and moral consciousness is lost.
In this sense, it seems to me that the dichotomy between choosing to vote or not vote in today's world is still not enough to make an impact on our collective consciousness, that activism is the key to making right. "A wise man," Thoreau writes, "will not leave the the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." While his single protest was not enough to make any notable difference in the system nor in the minds of his contemporaries, it was enough for him to set an example of how a spark can ignite change if people will it. Simply having an opinion and stating it freely to those who would listen was not enough for Thoreau, but action was - and still is - the only means through which to make a difference towards right; "Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine." Unjust laws and injustice cannot be remedied if society is content to obey without protest. Apathy among the minority cannot by default assume the justice of the majority. Through example, Thoreau calls for change in that "if it [the machine of government] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine."
Government, having lost its essence of moral consciousness, is the antagonist in Thoreau's essay as well as his reality, more specifically when Government acts against common virtue while claiming to represent the common. In reference to legal human slavery, Thoreau uses the word "copartnership" to describe the relationship of a man to his government (ie, the state of Massachusetts) when neither chose to take a stand, implying that apathy is an active choice and that those who decline to act are just as guilty. "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." - How many just and honest men exist in Thoreau's worldview? Not many. Does this statement seem to be a bit extreme in addressing the realities of how our government works? Yes, I think so - but his point still stands. Those who speak without action have made no real change at all, but continue to abide by the system for fear of repercussions which Thoreau views as further government sanctioned injustices that can and should be fought by those honest and just men who see the truth of the matter.
Perhaps Thoreau's most moving and personal point for me is a lesson which I learned about 4 years ago in my young life, a lesson that had not and could not be taught by any familial example I had seen before. It sets me apart from my family and most friends to this day as a value that I hold dearly and try to live by even when realistic obstacles get in my way; "I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot with, - the dollar is innocent, - but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance." Economic protest is essentially what led to my current vegetarianism and my emphasis to purchase local goods as often as possible for the well-being of myself and my community. In Thoreau's day, he protested human trafficking and slavery within his own country; in our day, we are economically bound to support the same things elsewhere through outsourcing. There are too many middle men in today's modern world to truly see the progress of our dollars, though it is not hard to assume the worst and to try to counteract it accordingly.
The problem in his solution of protest and isolation is that our world has become too big to make sweeping changes from the ground up - it requires slow processes and masses of minority ideas working together to make small pushes of progress. It is incredibly easy to see the world and all of its problems and feel too small to make an impact and that it is too impossible to remove oneself from the fold and live a life of isolation. Thoreau had Walden, freedom to escape to an unclaimed forest and do with it what he would. Such a situation can hardly exist in present day. He wonders, "Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?" Today, we are watching this question play out in the Middle East, anxiously awaiting the answer of whether or not democracy can continue to be considered a higher form of government at all. He concludes, "There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." But if this is the case, how can we keep a society as free and as large as ours safe as well as free? Thoreau opposes a standing army, opposes the arm of the government meddling in the affairs of other independent nations, but modern society has clearly moved beyond that debate as being valid. Ideologically, his positions seem logical and reasonable to expect in a time far removed from our own. But that doesn't mean that they should be removed from discussion and remembrance all together.
What I take from this essay in full is that if there is injustice in the world, do your best to fight it. If you are unable or unwilling to be active in dispelling injustice, at least be conscious of its existence and strive to live an aware life. Too many people turn a blind eye to the problems of our world, which have multiplied near exponentially since Henry David Thoreau fought a more direct injustice 160 years ago. Battles are still worth waging if change is to follow - I fear, however, that apathy has become (or remained?) the majority and the protest of the few is the only means through which to create change.
"I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind."
During the summer of 2010 I lived in Concord, Massachusetts - the home of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcott family. I went there for the town's history which began approximately 100 years before these transcendentalists existed and had hardly studied any of them, their movement, or its implications. I lived a mile from Walden Pond and had never read Thoreau's adventures there, a few blocks from the homes of everyone else listed and only came to comprehend what each of these individuals meant to our world through interactions with visitors to the National Park where I worked. Upon my return to the good ole PNW, I told myself that I would dive head first into exploring this history and connect its overwhelming presence to my experience in Concord - and, so, I've picked up "Civil Disobedience", originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", and began there.
Henry David Thoreau was a born, lived, and passed native of Concord. He thought of it as "the most estimable place in all the world", and rightfully so in my opinion. Born in 1817, Thoreau witnessed a Concord that had seen three major wars - one of which began on its soil - and had made a name for itself as a small, spunky, and fairly influential town in its nearly 200 years of existence. Sitting 18 miles NE of Boston, Concord had become a prosperous market town along the route into and out of Boston. In the 18th century at least (my primary era of study), it maintained an abundance of natural resources, such as meadow hay (used primarily for livestock feed), livestock, lumber, and just about anything that could be tilled in the soil. It had not only been the home of many influential characters over the years, but it had also become an influential character in and of itself as the hub of innovative ideas, such as the aforementioned transcendentalist movement as well as prominent liberal (as we use the term today), Unitarianism.
It was here in the town of Concord where Thoreau chose to take a stand against his country and the state of Massachusetts by refusing to pay taxes in protest to the fighting of Mexico for the annexation of Texas, widely assumed to increase slave territory. Thoreau found himself in jail for a single night in July of 1846 and fighting would continue for two years afterwards. "Resistance to Civil Government" was an essay written in response to this event in his adventurous life.
He opens with a ideological commentary on government and a call to every citizen to make a stand and demand the American government to be better. "Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? - in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?... I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right." I had never thought of government in quite these terms before, as the embodiment of the moral consciousness of the men who create it, the men for whom it is created. 'Government' in my mind has always been its own entity, a structural system which is made up of men elected to keep the peace and establish justice. But, as Thoreau points out, is it really a just system to have majority rule in the first place? No - I think not. His more libertarian view of government complains of my assumption of government exactly - as the entity becomes less about men and more about the system, it become a capital 'G' Government and more like a machine. Its presumed nature of goodness and moral consciousness is lost.
In this sense, it seems to me that the dichotomy between choosing to vote or not vote in today's world is still not enough to make an impact on our collective consciousness, that activism is the key to making right. "A wise man," Thoreau writes, "will not leave the the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." While his single protest was not enough to make any notable difference in the system nor in the minds of his contemporaries, it was enough for him to set an example of how a spark can ignite change if people will it. Simply having an opinion and stating it freely to those who would listen was not enough for Thoreau, but action was - and still is - the only means through which to make a difference towards right; "Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine." Unjust laws and injustice cannot be remedied if society is content to obey without protest. Apathy among the minority cannot by default assume the justice of the majority. Through example, Thoreau calls for change in that "if it [the machine of government] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine."
Government, having lost its essence of moral consciousness, is the antagonist in Thoreau's essay as well as his reality, more specifically when Government acts against common virtue while claiming to represent the common. In reference to legal human slavery, Thoreau uses the word "copartnership" to describe the relationship of a man to his government (ie, the state of Massachusetts) when neither chose to take a stand, implying that apathy is an active choice and that those who decline to act are just as guilty. "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." - How many just and honest men exist in Thoreau's worldview? Not many. Does this statement seem to be a bit extreme in addressing the realities of how our government works? Yes, I think so - but his point still stands. Those who speak without action have made no real change at all, but continue to abide by the system for fear of repercussions which Thoreau views as further government sanctioned injustices that can and should be fought by those honest and just men who see the truth of the matter.
Perhaps Thoreau's most moving and personal point for me is a lesson which I learned about 4 years ago in my young life, a lesson that had not and could not be taught by any familial example I had seen before. It sets me apart from my family and most friends to this day as a value that I hold dearly and try to live by even when realistic obstacles get in my way; "I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot with, - the dollar is innocent, - but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance." Economic protest is essentially what led to my current vegetarianism and my emphasis to purchase local goods as often as possible for the well-being of myself and my community. In Thoreau's day, he protested human trafficking and slavery within his own country; in our day, we are economically bound to support the same things elsewhere through outsourcing. There are too many middle men in today's modern world to truly see the progress of our dollars, though it is not hard to assume the worst and to try to counteract it accordingly.
The problem in his solution of protest and isolation is that our world has become too big to make sweeping changes from the ground up - it requires slow processes and masses of minority ideas working together to make small pushes of progress. It is incredibly easy to see the world and all of its problems and feel too small to make an impact and that it is too impossible to remove oneself from the fold and live a life of isolation. Thoreau had Walden, freedom to escape to an unclaimed forest and do with it what he would. Such a situation can hardly exist in present day. He wonders, "Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?" Today, we are watching this question play out in the Middle East, anxiously awaiting the answer of whether or not democracy can continue to be considered a higher form of government at all. He concludes, "There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." But if this is the case, how can we keep a society as free and as large as ours safe as well as free? Thoreau opposes a standing army, opposes the arm of the government meddling in the affairs of other independent nations, but modern society has clearly moved beyond that debate as being valid. Ideologically, his positions seem logical and reasonable to expect in a time far removed from our own. But that doesn't mean that they should be removed from discussion and remembrance all together.
What I take from this essay in full is that if there is injustice in the world, do your best to fight it. If you are unable or unwilling to be active in dispelling injustice, at least be conscious of its existence and strive to live an aware life. Too many people turn a blind eye to the problems of our world, which have multiplied near exponentially since Henry David Thoreau fought a more direct injustice 160 years ago. Battles are still worth waging if change is to follow - I fear, however, that apathy has become (or remained?) the majority and the protest of the few is the only means through which to create change.
"I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind."
Read
February 12, 2024According to the Cult Hotline & Clinic, and Professor Margaret Singer (R.I.P.), the Berkeley psychologist, an expert on brainwashing who studied and helped authorities and victims against several Cults in the USA, there are estimated cult numbers in the US only, at around 5,000.
You must be wondering if I'm not mixing up books or losing my already poor witts; What do "religious" cults have to do with a social and political essay by an early 19th-century philosopher?
At first thought, nothing, but let's see some characteristics of the cults: (Here I received help from a psychologist friend; it was she who told me about Professor Singer and who provided me with the following data)
Characteristics of the cults:
A charismatic leader who leads us on a special path towards safety and salvation.
A mental looping discourse of “us” versus “them”.
Subtle techniques that focus on instilling stress, fear, anxiety and paranoia.
Information control.
Emotional blackmail.
Constant solicitation of a growing commitment.
As I see it those are the characteristics of the speech of any political party, in the last 100 years. We have here all the elements of the campaign techniques of professional politicians of TODAY…21st century.
Conflict, to varying degrees, between State and Citizen is, and always has been, the status quo of any country at any point in history.
Thoreau wrote his manifest in 1849, in it he addresses what he considered the Inherent Problems With Government:
Corruption: A government that is ruling the country can build laws to meet its own agenda and potential greed. The government which is supposed to do better for its subject that has forgotten its duty is bound to be corrupt.
Neglection of duties concerning Justice: Thoreau wants to show that the government does not have the power to maintain justice in the country because the makers of the government have made the justness of that government towards its subjects obsolete. For that, he made harsh comments about slavery, the native Indians and the American/Mexic war. When one-sixth of the population of a nation that pledged itself to be the refuge of liberty is a slave…In practice, the opponents of reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand southern politicians, but a hundred thousand merchants and planters, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave, whatever the cost. And, continues Thoreau, if a country is unjustly invaded and conquered by a foreign army and subjected to military law, I think it is not too soon for honest men to rebel. What makes this duty more urgent is the fact that the country invaded is not ours, but ours is the invading army. Another example is the law signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830 – the Indian Removal Act. - The law voted by the majority agreed that the Indians were dangerous to society when, in fact, Native Americans did not harm the whites as the withes harm withes. The only reason they were persecuted was that the "majority" were greedy and wanted their lands. President Jackson with the complicity of the majority of the U.S. citizens said that whites were superior to Native Americans and that the Indians, as a sub-human race, ought to be kept away from them. They claimed that they were doing the right thing because they represented the major voice of the country, in other words, the brute force. However, that does not make it right for Thoreau or Ralph Emerson and others who already started to follow the path of William Wilberforce; under a government justified by democracy, whether the majority is fair or foul, the minority is supposed to accept and adopt the decisions made without complaint. Thoreau doesn't accept that discard of those left "behind" powerless. The majority does not equal rightness. He argues that many of the world's problems come from the fact that in-power majorities make it impossible for minorities to have justice as well. He believed that an individual should exercise his conscience by refusing his involvement or complacency with the majority or a government that enforces unjust laws and suspect decisions. Civil disobedience is therefore necessary as the expression of an individual's conscience, the rule of Supreme Individualism. Thoreau believes that there is a higher Law than the laws of men and governments, which is the Law of consciousness, the “inner voice”; in other words, he believes in Transcendentalism (if in the line of Kant's thoughts, I can't say).
But it does not mean that he believes in anarchy. In his words, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Thoreau points out as a solution the replacement of a government, with a self-regulated society where the conscience of each one governs each one and prioritizes his conscience over the dictates of the laws, and then that society would be fair. “Must the citizen renounce his conscience before the legislator? After all, why should each of us be endowed with a conscience if we are simply going to be guided by laws and not by our moral compasses?" It is true that if a government does not recognize that its power and moral justification to exist derive from the Individual, then this government is but a mockery of justice and must be overthrown.
In "On Liberty" (1859), John Stuart Mill, argues that societies need a regulatory system of legal and political rights; of constitutional measures and mechanisms to prevent the innumerable vultures and their allies the lesser harpies, from oppressing and exploiting the citizens.
Government systems were created, first and foremost, to protect society from such “vultures” and “harpies”, but inevitably (and this is where such mechanisms fail) the government is assaulted and taken over by the “king of harpies”. Mill believed that only by imposing constitutional limits on government power could "vultures" be kept away from "Power". Stuart Mill comes with his essay to relaunch Thoreau's ideas but with more concrete proposals for solutions to the problems raised.
Thoreau believed that governments are hypocritical, unjust and cruel. From what I understood, he asked governments to withdraw from the exercise of power held and to abstain from society's affairs. He justifies himself by claiming that the government only exists because the people chose it to carry out their will, and it is very likely to be abused or corrupted before the people can put it to that end. The Mill's famous Vultures and Harpies.
My problem with this essay is that Thoreau criticizes, judges, denounces, and accuses, but at no point does he offer a real practical solution. He just knows that no government is impractical, and so he calls for “better government,” whatever that means to him. As for any of us to be guided by our conscience, well the problem is that there are a lot of people out there who have no conscience at all and therefore no moral or ethical code or any values; and without any sort of regulatory system, even a fallible one, we will be handed over to the wild beasts.
Governments can be corrupt, self-centred and mafia driven, but if we don't have any government, the idea that the conscience of each one of us is capable of replacing the System is frightening. Thoreau seems to forget or not realize that there are individuals who, with carte blanche, will replace the tyranny of the majority with the tyranny of the One. Ask Germany, China, North Korea, half of Africa or Russia (not to mention the all other countries that mock democracy, around the world) what that means!
If you replace the (bad…) machine of the State with an illusion, you will get chaos.
As a reflection on the relations between State and citizens, it is interesting, as a proposition to replace current government rules is naive in my viewpoint.
But like every philosophical and sociological essay, it provokes and demands that we question everything that is thrown at us and not accept any rubbish that is fed to us without question.
It's an essay to be read? No doubt. It's a small text that can be read in an hour or less and that, considered in the context of its time, is extraordinary. And we should read it and any other text we can lay our hands on, because in the immortal words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:
The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again.
It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth.
It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him, immortal thoughts.
It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry.
It was a dead fact; now, it is quick thought.
It can stand, and it can go.
It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires
Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.
Excerpt from The American Scholar,
You must be wondering if I'm not mixing up books or losing my already poor witts; What do "religious" cults have to do with a social and political essay by an early 19th-century philosopher?
At first thought, nothing, but let's see some characteristics of the cults: (Here I received help from a psychologist friend; it was she who told me about Professor Singer and who provided me with the following data)
Characteristics of the cults:
A charismatic leader who leads us on a special path towards safety and salvation.
A mental looping discourse of “us” versus “them”.
Subtle techniques that focus on instilling stress, fear, anxiety and paranoia.
Information control.
Emotional blackmail.
Constant solicitation of a growing commitment.
As I see it those are the characteristics of the speech of any political party, in the last 100 years. We have here all the elements of the campaign techniques of professional politicians of TODAY…21st century.
Conflict, to varying degrees, between State and Citizen is, and always has been, the status quo of any country at any point in history.
Thoreau wrote his manifest in 1849, in it he addresses what he considered the Inherent Problems With Government:
Corruption: A government that is ruling the country can build laws to meet its own agenda and potential greed. The government which is supposed to do better for its subject that has forgotten its duty is bound to be corrupt.
Neglection of duties concerning Justice: Thoreau wants to show that the government does not have the power to maintain justice in the country because the makers of the government have made the justness of that government towards its subjects obsolete. For that, he made harsh comments about slavery, the native Indians and the American/Mexic war. When one-sixth of the population of a nation that pledged itself to be the refuge of liberty is a slave…In practice, the opponents of reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand southern politicians, but a hundred thousand merchants and planters, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave, whatever the cost. And, continues Thoreau, if a country is unjustly invaded and conquered by a foreign army and subjected to military law, I think it is not too soon for honest men to rebel. What makes this duty more urgent is the fact that the country invaded is not ours, but ours is the invading army. Another example is the law signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830 – the Indian Removal Act. - The law voted by the majority agreed that the Indians were dangerous to society when, in fact, Native Americans did not harm the whites as the withes harm withes. The only reason they were persecuted was that the "majority" were greedy and wanted their lands. President Jackson with the complicity of the majority of the U.S. citizens said that whites were superior to Native Americans and that the Indians, as a sub-human race, ought to be kept away from them. They claimed that they were doing the right thing because they represented the major voice of the country, in other words, the brute force. However, that does not make it right for Thoreau or Ralph Emerson and others who already started to follow the path of William Wilberforce; under a government justified by democracy, whether the majority is fair or foul, the minority is supposed to accept and adopt the decisions made without complaint. Thoreau doesn't accept that discard of those left "behind" powerless. The majority does not equal rightness. He argues that many of the world's problems come from the fact that in-power majorities make it impossible for minorities to have justice as well. He believed that an individual should exercise his conscience by refusing his involvement or complacency with the majority or a government that enforces unjust laws and suspect decisions. Civil disobedience is therefore necessary as the expression of an individual's conscience, the rule of Supreme Individualism. Thoreau believes that there is a higher Law than the laws of men and governments, which is the Law of consciousness, the “inner voice”; in other words, he believes in Transcendentalism (if in the line of Kant's thoughts, I can't say).
But it does not mean that he believes in anarchy. In his words, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Thoreau points out as a solution the replacement of a government, with a self-regulated society where the conscience of each one governs each one and prioritizes his conscience over the dictates of the laws, and then that society would be fair. “Must the citizen renounce his conscience before the legislator? After all, why should each of us be endowed with a conscience if we are simply going to be guided by laws and not by our moral compasses?" It is true that if a government does not recognize that its power and moral justification to exist derive from the Individual, then this government is but a mockery of justice and must be overthrown.
In "On Liberty" (1859), John Stuart Mill, argues that societies need a regulatory system of legal and political rights; of constitutional measures and mechanisms to prevent the innumerable vultures and their allies the lesser harpies, from oppressing and exploiting the citizens.
Government systems were created, first and foremost, to protect society from such “vultures” and “harpies”, but inevitably (and this is where such mechanisms fail) the government is assaulted and taken over by the “king of harpies”. Mill believed that only by imposing constitutional limits on government power could "vultures" be kept away from "Power". Stuart Mill comes with his essay to relaunch Thoreau's ideas but with more concrete proposals for solutions to the problems raised.
Thoreau believed that governments are hypocritical, unjust and cruel. From what I understood, he asked governments to withdraw from the exercise of power held and to abstain from society's affairs. He justifies himself by claiming that the government only exists because the people chose it to carry out their will, and it is very likely to be abused or corrupted before the people can put it to that end. The Mill's famous Vultures and Harpies.
My problem with this essay is that Thoreau criticizes, judges, denounces, and accuses, but at no point does he offer a real practical solution. He just knows that no government is impractical, and so he calls for “better government,” whatever that means to him. As for any of us to be guided by our conscience, well the problem is that there are a lot of people out there who have no conscience at all and therefore no moral or ethical code or any values; and without any sort of regulatory system, even a fallible one, we will be handed over to the wild beasts.
Governments can be corrupt, self-centred and mafia driven, but if we don't have any government, the idea that the conscience of each one of us is capable of replacing the System is frightening. Thoreau seems to forget or not realize that there are individuals who, with carte blanche, will replace the tyranny of the majority with the tyranny of the One. Ask Germany, China, North Korea, half of Africa or Russia (not to mention the all other countries that mock democracy, around the world) what that means!
If you replace the (bad…) machine of the State with an illusion, you will get chaos.
As a reflection on the relations between State and citizens, it is interesting, as a proposition to replace current government rules is naive in my viewpoint.
But like every philosophical and sociological essay, it provokes and demands that we question everything that is thrown at us and not accept any rubbish that is fed to us without question.
It's an essay to be read? No doubt. It's a small text that can be read in an hour or less and that, considered in the context of its time, is extraordinary. And we should read it and any other text we can lay our hands on, because in the immortal words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:
The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again.
It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth.
It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him, immortal thoughts.
It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry.
It was a dead fact; now, it is quick thought.
It can stand, and it can go.
It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires
Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.
Excerpt from The American Scholar,
February 9, 2022
There is much food for thought in this book, especially at this time when politics across the globe seems to have gone completely awry. While I am a socialist at heart as any social sciences major is supposed to be (take this as irony as it is intended), I do believe that Thoreau makes some good points about the type of governments that we should want and how we should relate to them. For me it was especially poignant the part about the decision not to vote, which, according to him, makes one support the majority. In addition, he also said that voting just to vote is just as bad, since you had to put your heart into it and make sure that you follow through on what you voted for:
"All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority."
This is particularly salient since in Romania in the last decades there has been a growing trend of choosing not to vote as a means to express one's distaste with the political class. I have to say that I have some time fallen into that category of people myself, choosing not to care and considering that all things will be equally bad no matter what I voted for (so why vote?!).
I also have to say that I was impressed by how Thoreau dealt with the question of slavery and his courage to take a stand even if it did little to help the man in question. In general, I like men who live by their own principles, and while it might not have been always the case with Thoreau, he did feel like an acutely genuine person to me.
"All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority."
This is particularly salient since in Romania in the last decades there has been a growing trend of choosing not to vote as a means to express one's distaste with the political class. I have to say that I have some time fallen into that category of people myself, choosing not to care and considering that all things will be equally bad no matter what I voted for (so why vote?!).
I also have to say that I was impressed by how Thoreau dealt with the question of slavery and his courage to take a stand even if it did little to help the man in question. In general, I like men who live by their own principles, and while it might not have been always the case with Thoreau, he did feel like an acutely genuine person to me.
May 25, 2011
Brilliant! While I don’t agree with every thought of Thoreau’s (an original Libertarian?), how grand it is to read from someone who has a real thought! Every sentence could stand as an individual idea, a great quote. Each lecture is beautifully constructed and well argued.
He does seem, at times, slightly smug, but in the topics I found most convincing, I would rather call his smugness “righteous indignation.” Most telling, though, is the fact that his arguments are germane today.
As I read, I continually thought of a band of immigration bills debated and passed through the Utah Legislature this year which clearly went against the laws of our nation, but the intent of which was to solve a problem that the federal government has failed to do.
“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?” (from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience)
Having seen first-hand the abuses and exploitation used by The Fourth Branch of Government, I especially appreciated his censure of the press. With my religious background, I thoroughly enjoyed this particular statement:
“Among measures to be adopted, I would suggest to make as earnest and vigorous an assault on the Press as has already been made, and with effect, on the Church. The Church has much improved within a few years; but the Press is almost, without exception, corrupt. I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the Church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper. At any meeting of politicians,--like that at Concord the other evening, for instance,--how impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! How pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution! The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Bible which every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are continually dispensing. It is, in short, the only book which America has printed, and which America reads. So wide is its influence. The editor is a preacher whom you voluntarily support. Your tax is commonly one cent daily, and it costs nothing for pew hire. But how many of these preachers preach the truth? I repeat the testimony of many an intelligent foreigner as well as my own convictions, when I say, that probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the periodical press in this country. And as they live and rule only by their servility, and appealing to the worst, and not the better nature of man, the people who read them are in the condition of the dog that returns to his vomit (from Slavery in Massachusetts).”
Thoreau, in all his critiques of government, speaks not merely to government, for in fact, I’m sure he would argue that government cannot listen for it does not exist. Thoreau is actually calling to us, to the individual, to be on guard and cleanse the inner vessel.
“The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free (from Slavery in Massachusetts).”
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward (from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience).
I found a correlation with a beloved sermon from Elder D. Todd Christofferson called Moral Discipline. Note the message around 4:08: "Self-discipline has eroded, and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments."
***
Additionally, on a completely different vein, I found great peace and inspiration from his lecture Walking, especially with this introductory excerpt:
“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la Sainte Terre"—to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer", a saunterer—a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea.” (from Walking).
He does seem, at times, slightly smug, but in the topics I found most convincing, I would rather call his smugness “righteous indignation.” Most telling, though, is the fact that his arguments are germane today.
As I read, I continually thought of a band of immigration bills debated and passed through the Utah Legislature this year which clearly went against the laws of our nation, but the intent of which was to solve a problem that the federal government has failed to do.
“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?” (from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience)
Having seen first-hand the abuses and exploitation used by The Fourth Branch of Government, I especially appreciated his censure of the press. With my religious background, I thoroughly enjoyed this particular statement:
“Among measures to be adopted, I would suggest to make as earnest and vigorous an assault on the Press as has already been made, and with effect, on the Church. The Church has much improved within a few years; but the Press is almost, without exception, corrupt. I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the Church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper. At any meeting of politicians,--like that at Concord the other evening, for instance,--how impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! How pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution! The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Bible which every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are continually dispensing. It is, in short, the only book which America has printed, and which America reads. So wide is its influence. The editor is a preacher whom you voluntarily support. Your tax is commonly one cent daily, and it costs nothing for pew hire. But how many of these preachers preach the truth? I repeat the testimony of many an intelligent foreigner as well as my own convictions, when I say, that probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the periodical press in this country. And as they live and rule only by their servility, and appealing to the worst, and not the better nature of man, the people who read them are in the condition of the dog that returns to his vomit (from Slavery in Massachusetts).”
Thoreau, in all his critiques of government, speaks not merely to government, for in fact, I’m sure he would argue that government cannot listen for it does not exist. Thoreau is actually calling to us, to the individual, to be on guard and cleanse the inner vessel.
“The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free (from Slavery in Massachusetts).”
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward (from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience).
I found a correlation with a beloved sermon from Elder D. Todd Christofferson called Moral Discipline. Note the message around 4:08: "Self-discipline has eroded, and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments."
***
Additionally, on a completely different vein, I found great peace and inspiration from his lecture Walking, especially with this introductory excerpt:
“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la Sainte Terre"—to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer", a saunterer—a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea.” (from Walking).
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