Civil Disobedience and Other Essays (Thrift Edition)

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Civil Disobedience and Other Essays (Thrift Edition)

by Henry David Thoreau, Philip Smith (Editor), Stanley Applebaum (Editor)

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 8,102 ratings · 229 reviews

Thoreau has inspired generations of readers to think for themselves and to find meaning and beauty in nature. This sampling includes five of his most frequently read and cited essays: "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" (1849), "Life without Principle" (1863), "Slavery in Massachusetts" (1854), "A Plea for Captain John Brown" (1869) and "Walking" (1862).

paper, 90 pages

Published May 20th 1993 by Dover Publications (first published 1848)

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Sep 11, 2011 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, I'm still pondering what I think about this essay, so I'm not quite sure what I'd like to say about it yet. It is different than what I expected. I always thought of Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" as the work that inspired non-violent protests like 1960s sit-ins and Ghandi's hunger strikes--and it IS an inspiration, but it is not about those types of actions, as far as I can tell.

Thoreau, rather, suggests that people should just withdraw from an unjust government (and this, to Thoreau inc...more Well, I'm still pondering what I think about this essay, so I'm not quite sure what I'd like to say about it yet. It is different than what I expected. I always thought of Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" as the work that inspired non-violent protests like 1960s sit-ins and Ghandi's hunger strikes--and it IS an inspiration, but it is not about those types of actions, as far as I can tell.

Thoreau, rather, suggests that people should just withdraw from an unjust government (and this, to Thoreau includes his early/mid 1800's U.S. government), and have nothing to do with it. He recognizes the fact that a person can't concern himself with making the world better all the time or with solving every problem. But a man should be sure not to make it worse or to support in any way (via taxes, for example) a government which supports and promotes injustice. Even voting, he argues, is basically worthless. Essentially, he is saying that you can't reform the system by working within the system.

This, as I mentioned, surprised me. It is supremely individualistic, and I can't get the image out of my mind of a hermit-like Thoreau living apart from society. And I guess that is what bothers me about this essay. On the basis of a single individual, I suppose Thoreau's way of life could work...maybe...for him. How does he invision his system working on the broader scale? Maybe I'm unimaginative and stunted, but I can't imagine this working on a large scale.

People necessarily must, or at least naturally DO, work together and form societies. Laws and rules of how to live within the group naturally evolve. As a very basic example, how does a society choose to deal with criminals? Individuals taking things into their own hands seems, at the very least, inconsistent and provides no sense of security. Thus, any rules a society makes about how to react to criminals necessarily grow into "laws." Doesn't this lead, implicitly, to a government?

In other words, how is a society to live without even a most basic government? It seems that government by the people naturally and necessarily will arise on its own. As time goes on and societies get bigger and must interact with other societies, rules naturally form relating to how to interact with one another in a consistent and predictable manner, to promote, at the very least, the safety and well-being of its citizens.

I guess this is a long way of getting to my point that I don't know how it would be realistically possible for each individual to simply live according to his own moral compass, respecting the rules he wishes to respect and ignoring the others. If everyone were to actually follow this model, I do not see how chaos would not result.

To conclude, I think in more simple and limited sense, I agree with Thoreau on the benefits of "civil disobedience" as a means of promoting social change and as a form of protest. But I'm not sure I'm sold on this individualistic, I'll-do-as-I-want mentality as an ultimate way of life. (less)

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Nov 27, 2012 Vale rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, north-american-literature, philosophy-and-psichology

Sono nato troppo in alto per essere posseduto,
per essere il secondo, al controllo,
o l'utile servo e strumento
di qualsiasi stato sovrano del mondo.

L'idea del potere reale di un Governo è la più grande fandonia messa in atto dall'umanità. Purtroppo Thoreau è un genio ed è quindi destinato ad una visione del mondo troppo complicata per i suoi contemporanei e troppo moderna per la nostra contemporaneità.

Se quest'anno un migliaio di persone non pagassero le tasse non si tratterebbe di un'azione viol...more

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Sep 29, 2011 Riku Sayuj rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Was a wonderful experience to read it in parallel with The Prince.

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Sep 17, 2009 Jacq Jardin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't think I would enjoy reading this. I did, though, and I'm sure glad I picked it up. Written in a very articulate manner, the paper is enjoyable, convincing, inspiring and stimulating all at once. Thoreau's strong moral convictions and high respect for the individual are evident in each line. Some of my favorites are:

"Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."

"The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to...more

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Feb 21, 2010 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I would love to have met this man in person. What a brilliant wit and iron nerve to say what he did, when he did, and how he did, to whom he did. For the contemporary patriot who doesn't quite know where he stands, this work will test his devotion, and force an analysis of his political thinking.

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Apr 27, 2012 Robert Beveridge rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: every American

Shelves: favorites, finished, ebook, owned-and-still-own

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (CreateSpace, 1849)

I have put off releasing my best reads of 2011 list for all these months because I still haven't quite figured out how to review Civil Disobedience, which is #3 on it. You see, the problem is I've always kind of hated Thoreau, who is widely held responsible for the foundation of the modern ecological movment (I'm a diehard pave-the-earth guy and have been for decades). Because of that, I spent my reading time avoiding the guy, but when I...more Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (CreateSpace, 1849)

I have put off releasing my best reads of 2011 list for all these months because I still haven't quite figured out how to review Civil Disobedience, which is #3 on it. You see, the problem is I've always kind of hated Thoreau, who is widely held responsible for the foundation of the modern ecological movment (I'm a diehard pave-the-earth guy and have been for decades). Because of that, I spent my reading time avoiding the guy, but when I picked up a Kobo, with its 100 pre-loaded classic titles, I figured I'd start working my way through them. And thus I found myself reading Civil Disobedience, since it seemed like it would be preferable to Walden. My jaw hit the floor with the very first sentence, which contains one of my favorite quotes (“I heartily accept the mottot, 'That government is best which governs least'; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.”), and I kept being stunned as I kept reading. This is fantastic stuff. No wonder it's considered dangerous (Joseph McCarty proposed banning it, and even the study aid SparkNotes mentions that Thoreau's ideas would be “dangerous if universalized”).

It's also even more relevant today than it was smack in the middle of the nineteenth century. “All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or inefficiency are great and unendurable.” Indeed, during the early years of America, all men did; it is, in fact, one of the founding principles of the United States. But I'd be willing to bet that if you showed that quote, stripped of its attribution, to a hundred random Americans, more than half would disagree with it. (Show it to a hundred random elected officials and you might find yourself in jail.) This is one of those books, along with John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (also considered dangerous by the right; it made Human Events' list of the top ten most harmful books of the past two centuries), that needs to be read by every American, so that we can understand where we come from—and how many of those who try to tell us these days where they think we come from lie, lie, and lie some more. After all, as Thoreau himself tells us, “No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America.” (I would quibble with the word “appeared”, since we did at one point host Alexis de Tocqueville...)

And when you're ready to dismiss all this and blunder and nonsense and go back to thinking that there's really a difference in America's two ruling parties, remember once again that it has traditionally been the right (or those who call themselves that) who have attacked this book, and then read this lovely passage:

“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, form whch all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagingin a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor....A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.”

That's true right-wing thinking there, kids. (And note that Thoreau's “more perfect and glorious State” is peaceful anarchy, which is the end product of both post-State socialism and post-State libertarianism—mention THAT fact to a neocon and watch his head explode!) But the way the current “right” attacks it, I can't imagine most liberals would have a problem with it, either. In other words, it doesn't matter who you are. Read this. You may hate it, you may love it, but you will come away from it with a better understanding of how things have changed in this country in the past 150 years, and how terrifying those changes are, and that cannot be a bad thing. *****
(less)

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Apr 12, 2011 Jeremy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wonder what Thoreau would think of the Tea Party.

Thoreau rejects government of most types and fails to pay taxes as a protest mainly against slavery and the Mexican War (from what I gather), which indeed are noble reasons to reject supporting a compulsory tax. If more people had been like Thoreau, slavery would have been abolished decades earlier than it was. That being said, I think Thoreau would have disdained the Tea Party movement since it seems to only be about angry people vaguely compla...more I wonder what Thoreau would think of the Tea Party.

Thoreau rejects government of most types and fails to pay taxes as a protest mainly against slavery and the Mexican War (from what I gather), which indeed are noble reasons to reject supporting a compulsory tax. If more people had been like Thoreau, slavery would have been abolished decades earlier than it was. That being said, I think Thoreau would have disdained the Tea Party movement since it seems to only be about angry people vaguely complaining about having to pay taxes. It isn't the taxes that Thoreau is against, it's the government behind them. From my perspective the Tea Party is more about well-intentioned but short-sighted people wanting to keep more of their money for their own uses than combating any real or perceived injustice, a perspective that I think Thoreau would heartily oppose. Is it an injustice that I'm taxed? No. Is it an injustice that my taxes support war? There's the rub. The distinction is clear and I think too many Tea Partiers are reactionaries who may have a decent starting point (taxes are too high) but don't see the distinction that Thoreau did. Though it's hard to pin him down on what, exactly, he believes about taxes in general.

One major disagreement I have with Thoreau here is his interpretation of the 'render to Caesar' passage of the Bible. I understand his interpretation that Christ was not calling on us to pay taxes but to render allegiance to God and not to Caesar. I think that's a verse Thoreau and modern anti-tax advocates read too much into to fit their purposes. Taking that passage, the Gospels and Paul's epistles together, the early church was called to not only pay taxes but to not be a group of political rabble-rousers as that would detract from Christ's message.

Anyway, I could be making the verse fit my biases or Thoreau could, or we both could. Regardless, I didn't think Civil Disobedience was all that great. Great intention on Thoreau's part, valid arguments about government and our relation to government, as well as in taking a stand in not paying taxes to a government which blatantly disregards the evils of warfare and slavery.

That being said, I found myself zoning out repeatedly. It didn't hold my interest the way Walden did. So that's pretty much why I'm rating it low. (less)

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Sep 02, 2010 Ex Libris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A thought provoking book that invokes the paradox of American political history and it's long preoccupation with the triad of freedom/slavery/taxation and an interesting read in the time of the Tea Party.
On the one hand, Thoreau has clearly identified two of the great evils of American political history, slavery and, here in the guise of the Mexican American War, expansionist warfare. His desire to sever himself from any complicity in these wrongs is laudable, as is his willingness to seek out d...more A thought provoking book that invokes the paradox of American political history and it's long preoccupation with the triad of freedom/slavery/taxation and an interesting read in the time of the Tea Party.
On the one hand, Thoreau has clearly identified two of the great evils of American political history, slavery and, here in the guise of the Mexican American War, expansionist warfare. His desire to sever himself from any complicity in these wrongs is laudable, as is his willingness to seek out deep complicities instead of focusing on low hanging fruit. His stubborn, anarchistic, Bartelby the Scrivener type refusal is easy to appreciate.
But his dismissal of the power of the vote and his impatience with politics strikes me as naive, as does his willingness to embrace revolution and his very simple ideas of what possibilities that may unleash. It strikes me as pretty clear that revolutions are uncertain and that a great many (from the French and Russian to the Iranian) modern revolutions end up with governments at least as tyrannical as those they sought to replace. I suppose I'm inclined to work towards reforming the devil you do know rather than putting much hope in the chaotic forces of revolution.

He is also quick to erase the manifold ways in which the government he rails against enables his nonconformity. That was true of Concord then and is even more so now as the state provides more and more of the background conditions of life.

I also question his vision of freedom, defined here primarily as a negative freedom from taxation. This is the great American version of freedom -- don't take my money. God knows my taxes pay for things I hate, but taxation also provides the basis for many kinds of positive freedoms opened by access to health care, social security, abundant wild places, clean water and air, education, and a vibrant economical and cultural life. These are real freedoms, real opportunities that taxation enables and which a Thoreaun perspective must ignore.

By asserting an individual right to pick and choose his willingness to contribute to the socius, Thoreau could easily be adopted by the Tea Party. Their reasons for protest are of course much less noble and more confused then Thoreau's, but the principle of refusal is not so far from a kind of Ayn Rand individualism, except that Rand at least acknowledges what Thoreau misses, which is that in the American political tradition, the greatest beneficiary of doctrines of individual rights is the corporation, not the individual.

I empathize with Thoreau, root for him as I read, and feel the tug of his courageous and uncompromising stance. He wisely notes the distinction between prudence and wisdom, but I wonder if he misses the distinction between wisdom and guilt(less)

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Sep 11, 2009 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

(This is a long post which can also be found here: http://publiusnapkin.wordpress.com/20...)

I had meant to read up on Thoreau for quite some time now, and took the opportunity yesterday to read the Project Gutenberg text of Civil Disobedience on my Kindle. I found the essay well-conceived, enjoyable, and dripping with an arrogance that only comes with a supreme confidence in one’s intellect, moral standing, and social status. That said, while I was impressed by Thoreau’s well-articulated respect...more

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Feb 05, 2011 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 a...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Alberto rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Five stars for the importance of the topic Thoreau discusses; one star because his answer is absurdly wrong (and simplistic).

I know that this is supposed to be a classic, and even Gandhi cited it as inspiration. My opinion is, unfortunately, quite different. Civil Disobedience amounts to a tract in favor of anarchism. Some choice quotes...

That government is best which governs not at all.

[The state's] very Constitution is the evil.

Beyond the high-flying rhetoric, let's look at his more reasoned a...more Five stars for the importance of the topic Thoreau discusses; one star because his answer is absurdly wrong (and simplistic).

I know that this is supposed to be a classic, and even Gandhi cited it as inspiration. My opinion is, unfortunately, quite different. Civil Disobedience amounts to a tract in favor of anarchism. Some choice quotes...

That government is best which governs not at all.

[The state's] very Constitution is the evil.

Beyond the high-flying rhetoric, let's look at his more reasoned argument.

If [an act 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.

A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.

Who decides what is just? Each man for himself? Actually he answered this question directly shortly after it occurred to me (I will give him kudos for clarity of presentation).

[A]ny man more right than his neighbors, constitutes a majority of one already.

I have yet to meet the first man who did NOT think he was more right than his neighbors, so this is a prescription for all-out anarchy. Every act of the republic is subject to veto by every single citizen. Thoreau thought war and slavery were both unjust. OK, so what about the Civil War then?

And then of course the most absurd claim of all.

I should not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State.

Well, you should not like it, but it's true nonetheless. It's all well and good to live in the woods with nobody about to bother you, but what about your less wealthy neighbors who live in a city and need the police? And talk about a free-rider entitlement mentality. What about the army and navy that protect your right to voice your ridiculous opinion? Use any public roads to visit your friends in Boston? Mail a letter? Etc etc etc.

Must be nice to be a trust fund baby, and not work unless you want to, and even when you are working it's because your buddy Emerson (who was not an anarchist and actually held a real job) was able to throw some work in your direction as an act of charity.(less)

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Dec 15, 2010 xdillix rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I also can't see the civil disobedience model work on a larger scale in Thoreau's times, and it would totally fail in our own. I don't know what happens nowadays if you refuse to pay your taxes, but to fight a government you should use means everyone (who's unsatisfied) would stick to. The majority of people values its own safety above ideals, and I do too. I wouldn't risk being inprisoned or bashed for political dissidence over a government which has been, after all, democratically chosen - thi...more

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Apr 03, 2008 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-books-read

My students and I were talking in class about how Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi were both influenced by Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" essay. The question arose in class as to whether there might be a person alive now that would have a dynamic personality and ability to speak out for racial discrimination beyond the black and white problem. 2 of my students are Hispanic and are constantly looked down upon as if they must be an illegal immigrant because of their accent and the color...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This essay, none the less, was great. However, I do not see how will the lives of a community work out peacefully when everyone has a range from slightly different to opposite virtues. Someone may say it's possible when people respect each other, but I say different. If we think piratical, people are full of hubris and selfishness. In schools, where respect is a statute, they had to force this concept in to the minds of the students because they knew every one of them did not learn to be respec...more

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Nov 13, 2008 Jim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, historical

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...more

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May 05, 2013 Mariana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dans cet ouvrage, l'auteur fait un plaidoyer passionné de la liberté individuelle, par opposition au pouvoir de l'État. Il établit des hypothèses fortes sur la façon dont l'État serait plus efficace, s'il avait moins de pouvoir sur ses citoyens. Thoreau inaugure la pensée courent "moins de règles, c'est mieux", avec sa sentence "Le gouvernement le meilleur est celui qui gouverne le moins". il développe aussi une forte critique du gouvernement des États-Unis d'Amérique de son temps, en critiquant...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Dr Koura Gibson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Henry Thoreau's Slavery in Mass" was tell telling. An essay done in 1854 about slavery in the state of Mass was a fascinating read. To learn about Anthony Burns and how he was on trial in Boston was fascinating. Not to mention Thoreau's view on how the abolitionists of Boston gathered behind Burn's side of the trial.

Background
The rendition or return of Anthony Burns to slavery in Virginia was one of the antebellum period’s most dramatic fugitive slave cases. Burns had fled to Boston and faced ar...more

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Aug 28, 2011 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: inspiring

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 f...more

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May 25, 2011 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: political, non-fiction

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 co...more

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Feb 22, 2013 Calla rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2013

A talented and brilliant essayist, Civil Disobedience and all of his other writings have a moving quality followed with fluid prose and depth of thought and language play that can be found nowhere else. So chock full of allusions that you find yourself astonished he can find room for any of his amazingly original ideals, he has the mark of a great writer: you can and should read the prose over and over and uncover hidden nuances of language and meaning each time. Thoreau had a profound sense of...more

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Sep 04, 2011 Lorenzo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In questo breve testo Thoreau ha riversato il suo spirito di grande umanità, superiore alla maggioranza delle persone vissute nella sua epoca. Le sue parole somigliano a fendenti in grado di spaccare le teste dure come pietre dei più ortodossi schiavisti dell'Ottocento. Il suo metodo fu colpire senza violenza. Il suo pensiero ispirò personaggi dediti al perseguimento della giustizia e della pace, come il Mahtma Gandhi e Martin Luter King. Una forza di attrazione che supera la potenza di un milia...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 e...more 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."(less)

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Apr 29, 2010 Candice Hill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Brilliant. Some of my favorite quotes from "Civil Disobedience":

This American government,-what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity.

Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficienc...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The real hits here are "Walking," "Autumnal Tints," "Night and Moonlight," "Life Without Principle," "A Plea for Captain John Brown," and of course "Civil Disobedience." The rest of it is fine, but that batch of essays I found truly memorable (also available to read without wading through superfluous content at walden.org, which I only discovered recently). I had previously read Walking and Wild Apples, which I have reviewed more thoroughly below.

WALKING - 4/5

Reading Thoreau after reading Maril...more The real hits here are "Walking," "Autumnal Tints," "Night and Moonlight," "Life Without Principle," "A Plea for Captain John Brown," and of course "Civil Disobedience." The rest of it is fine, but that batch of essays I found truly memorable (also available to read without wading through superfluous content at walden.org, which I only discovered recently). I had previously read Walking and Wild Apples, which I have reviewed more thoroughly below.

WALKING - 4/5

Reading Thoreau after reading Marilynne Robinson is like watching the beauteous flower being brought forth - organically, un-contrivedly, out of wild soil. But also, Thoreau is definitely wisdom literature at its apogee, deeply American, and yet its messages, while entrenched in "Manifest Destiny"-esque language, still hold up metaphorically. Thoreau found both political and eternal truths in his meanderings through the wilderness, and for that he is a great thinker of his times but a great read for all times.

There is more to be taken from Thoreau than the woods, the wilderness, the tree-huggings. He knows the banality of modern-day routine, he knows the dehumanization of corporate media, and can point a little to well at your sad, pale, bald white head in that cubicle. You're not walking. But he can also throw truth-bombs like: "To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it." That's really something. "Walking" is spiritual, philosophical, and ruminative. Pompous, yes, and maybe a little lacking in compassion for Thoreau's peers, but it's almost fashioned after a Rorschach blot. The density of the ideas can apply - and cultivate - any insight.

For me, this go-around, it was his insight into the history of literature. People who will rest on their farms, till and ruin the same patch of land and drag manure over the same patch repeatedly are going to get weaker and weaker results. Their product goes stale from incessantly laboring away on the familiar. Plants will decay if the soil on which it thrives is thrown into exhaustion. Thoreau equates this notion with how American literature is just re-treading the same farm ground the Greeks had used, spinning the same stories out of the same stale soil. They are re-treads, plucked from belabored grounds. He demands an exploration of wildness - of newness - within American culture to extricate its literature and music from European influences, and perhaps find new soils from which our poetry and music could be reaped, new soils that are richer and long-lasting. Poetry, he says, does not have any sense of wildness in it at all. I couldn't agree more, but I'd also add that poetry does not have any sense of anything in it at all.

I guess it all added up to how everything out there does seem like a re-tread, or that everything is so self-referential, or inter-referential to the point where Tom Stoppard's plucking characters out of here and there and seeing what kinda fireworks show that could create. It all gets tiresome; the soil gets tired. I love that metaphor for the arc of creative history. It makes me wonder about how post-modernism is still plucking weeds out of the same, hellishly dry, awful, stinky rows of grey manure, and saying "I think we got something here!" We're all just building on the same Euro-American literature we always had, and it's been plucked - metaphorically speaking - out of rows and rows of horse shit.

Thoreau says when he wants actual goodness and wildness, and that he wants "to speak without satire," I immediately thought of David Denby and his failed polemic Snark. How did Thoreau predict such a petty, social media phenomenon? How did Thoreau master Denby with one aphorism, many, many decades ahead of time? It's a profound quest, to speak without satire; it is one I profoundly failed here today. But still, I learned about thought.

Intellectual rumination, recursion, meta-tricks, puns, post-modernisms, self-referentials, and immediate snark, rapid irony -- all those immediate, spiteful reactions are us simply pulling the weeds out of the same pile of over-used soil. Shit. Same pile of shit. Where's the actual exploration? Where's the wilderness in our speech and our comedy? How can I make my mind explore out of those everyday idioms and trivialities of language into something meaningful? Go for a walk?

"Walking" also works stunningly as a companion piece for the spirit of the jazz bassist. It almost wanted me to start walking a bass line again. I think I love Thoreau, but I think I also want a little more empathy from the guy. I prefer compassion to pomposity when someone has important news to tell me.

---

And on a less serious note, WILD APPLES -- 2/5 (posted Mar. 22)

If I want to read that much about noble fruit, I'll read a biography of Sir Elton John. GYEAH-HOE!!11!!11(less)

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Aug 09, 2011 Matthew added it · review of another edition

While listening to this on audio book, I found myself filtering Thoreau's statements through my own modern political stovepipes...ready to dismiss Thoreau outright as a naive militia Libertarian and/or hype him up as some sort of Uber-Liberal.

This says more of the divisive nature of modern political discourse than to the real, sincere, legitimate points Thoreau laid out in this treatise, really more of a tract, on the role of Government and the individual.

At turns seeming to advocate Libertarian...more

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Oct 06, 2010 Sashenka rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On the annexation of Texas and acquisition of California = War against Mexico... models the US current war for resources and occupation.

http://www.history.com/shows/the-peop...

http://books.google.com/books?id=ScXp...

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Mar 19, 2013 Juliet rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: educationally-sound, history-winners, reviewed

For some reason I thought this would be more explorative than it is subjective. However in as much as it presents one man’s thoughts and experience relating to one state, the arguments put make perfect, reasoned sense.

Thoreau’s thoughts are as relevant today as in his day and to any state. The statement that leapt out to me – “A very few—as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men—serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Paul Gebel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined.

Now, what ar...more

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Dec 18, 2012 Sarah Shumate rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(Synopsis) Through the essay, Civil Disobedience, Thoreau attempts to promote an anti-government agenda, motivated by the issues of the time - slavery and the Mexican-American war.

He asserts that the conscience of the individual should not be corrupted by an unjust government. He exhorts citizens to not passively wait for justice but to BE just themselves. there is even a portion of the essay speaking about the rights of people who refuse to pay taxes to a government that is more harmful than he...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Dimitris Hall rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My small review for this book was lost; Goodreads shamelessly told me, after I had clicked save, that my review didn't exist. Well, it existed up to the point you told me it didn't exist anymore -- which must had been true at that specific point in time, even if as a fact by itself it can't explain the reason it did not exist anymore. Anyway, before I go on in stranger circles of logic, I'll just say that the reason I'm giving this one two stars is because I read it/listened to it at the very sa...more

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About Henry David Thoreau

Henry 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.

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A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers/Walden/The Maine Woods/Cape Cod (Library of America #28)

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“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” — 831 people liked it

“Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.” — 83 people liked it

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