The Essay “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau Essay

In the “Resistance to civil government” essay, which was posthumously published as “Civil disobedience,” Thoreau explains the need to choose one’s moral sense over the conventional dictates of laws. He claims that the government’s power is based more on the influence that the majority possesses rather than on the desire to act legitimately and fairly, which makes it overall unreliable as a source of morality (Levine et al., 2017). He also claims that people’s main priority is to do what they consider justified and not blindly heed the law dictated from above. In other words, people should refuse to obey the law and create distance between themselves and the government if they see it being unjust. Despite the fact that an individual is not bound to commit his life to the world’s salvation from evils, he is nonetheless compelled not to partake in them.

I agree with Thoreau’s vision of justice, especially with the part concerning participation in injustice. The idea of making a personal decision to either oppose or not to participate is fundamental in this context. I believe it might be the perfect boundary for the level of interference people should make when they face it shorthand. With the consideration of taking the idea of disobedience to its maximum, an individual might soon find himself breaking the laws that might endanger other people’s well-being and invoke punishment, for example, incarceration. According to Thoreau, the ways of causing legal changes from inside the government, for example, voting or petitioning, are greatly unproductive (Levine et al., 2017). For me, this claim seems anarchistic and, to some extent, extremist; it serves as proof of the boundary effect of personal moral standards that every individual possesses. In this context, it becomes more significant to be aware of evil and contribute to the opposition in possible ways, avoiding overextension.

Reference

Levine, R. S., Elliott, M. A., Gustafson, S. M., Hungerford, A. & Loeffelholz, M. (2017). The Norton anthology of American literature. (9^th ed.). W.W. Norton.