Comparing Thoreau And Emerson's Belief In The Citizens

Thoreau and Emerson both believe in the citizens. Without the citizen that follows the law, government won’t exist and the society can’t function. Thoreau believe that citizen can take action to improve unjust government and Emerson believe the citizen can change the society if they believe in themselves to take action. They both believe in action is required for changes to happen. Both authors criticize their fellow citizens for going along with a government that doesn’t decide their action through moral correctness. They expect other people to believes in themselves and take action.
On the other hand, they also have some differences. The differences between Thoreau and Emerson's definition of courage is to rely on your heart in believing
your ideas because other people’s opinion doesn’t consider your past and memories deceive yourself. He added that those that trust their own idea and get misunderstood because they mature from their previous idea are usually the outcast. He used examples such as Jesus and Socrates. Therefore being courageous means capable of handling being an outcast yet formulates new ideas that's different from others. Those who imitate ideas and just going along with the group because they don't believe in themselves. Thoreau defines courage as the whole society standing up to the unjust government. Instead of giving new ideas, just not following the law. Thoreau wrote a lot about how citizen shouldn’t just obey they law that is unjust. They should decide the actions that the government persuade them to take with moral right before they do it. Emerson is the type of person who looks at the future, make new ideas to change the world. Compared to Thoreau, he keeps looking back at the past that's already wrong and just fight against a government that's already settled.