Regardless, to condemn Brown to death in Thoreau's view demoted the far greater human destruction of life via the institution of enslavement Brown attempted to end. This does not seem so much to be a contradiction or a defense of violence but a tempering of the anger that Brown created in the hearts of many Americans, and an attempt to put the violent acts of Brown in the context of the equally violent actions of slavery.
Perhaps the main contradiction between Thoreau is not his praise of Brown and his advocating of his own pacifist, resistance to the Mexican War, and the value of civil disobedience, but his condemnation of slavery and praise of populism and a lack of government authority in "Civil Disobedience." The latter work's expressed defense of the popular sentiment as unilaterally guiding the government's will would not have ended slavery in the South. To follow this belief in majority rules to its logical extension is to entirely deny minority rights such as Black Americans.
Also, Thoreau's defense of his own moral principles, based on the transcendentalist upholding of the self and self-reliant principles, often came into conflict and contradiction with the popular will and common imagination of his own day, which was not nearly so pacifist, abolitionist, or radical. To respond with one's own principle when recalling Thoreau's motto that the government that governs best, governs least, one might say that a government that protects minority as well as majority rights in an active fashion commands more respect...
Civil Disobedience The Trial of Socrates The Athenians suffered a crushing defeat in 404 B.C.E. with the end of the Peloponnesian War. A Spartan occupation force controlled the city, and instituted the rule of the Thirty Tyrants to replace Athenian democracy. While a form of democracy was reinstated it lacked the acceptance of ideas and freedom of speech that had been such an integral part of Athenian society (Rogers). In Athens at this
Civil Disobedience Thoreau's Disobedience Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience not only gives a startlingly strong argument against paying one's taxes (which is in itself a difficult task), it also gives a subtle but clear image of Thoreau himself. In this essay, the reader discovers a writer who is at once romantic and cynical, idealistically self-sacrificing and fiercely self-centered, areligious and mystical. It would be tempting to portray Thoreau as inconsistent or somehow
John Locke's social theory not only permits disobedience but also a revolution if the State violates its side of the contract. Martin Luther King, Jr. says that civil disobedience derives from the natural law tradition in that an unjust law is not a law but a perversion of it. He, therefore, sees consenting to obey laws as not extending or including unjust laws. At present, a new and different form
3). For both Thoreau and King, the matter of unjust laws was urgent. In his speech delivered during the March on Washington, King stated, "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality," ("I Have a Dream"). A century earlier, Thoreau advocated the
I support the idea of sousveillance. I consider surveillance irrational; and sousveillance (being equally but more deliberately; humorously and ironically irrational, in imitating and mirroring surveillance) a valid protest. In my view, purveyors of hierarchal surveillance keep power by falsely convincing us they protect average peoples' interests. The opposite is true. Power for its own sake is nowhere among Aristotle's 'human virtues'. Sousveillance in fact reveals non-virtue in operation
.. becomes unjust" (Lincoln 158). Here, King is referring to the Civil Rights movement and its non-violent protest which in the minds of the lawmakers disrupted and desegregated society by allowing blacks to interrelate with the Southern majority who keenly believed in the separation of the races. In addition, King brings his argument against unjust laws full circle by declaring "One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly,
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