Pros And Cons Of Civil Disobedience

“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 (Thoreau, 241),” says Thoreau in his opening to “Civil Disobedience.” The American government is just an expedient or the means to an end. We, the American people, have developed a system in which the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. For it is not the government that educates or protects our freedom, but individuals (241). Our government, our system, shows us just how proficient we have become in intruding on our neighbors as well as ourselves, all for our own advantage. This leads us to a state of existence that is not reliant wholly on the self.
It seems that in the eyes of Thoreau, the government curbs the use of the human conscience.
“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 we should be men first, and subjects afterward (242).” Thoreau depicts the government turning its men into machines, using their bodies for its “greater good.” Through this mechanization, the system steals the right to individual life and personal experience. It is in the name of the government that we must pay give reverence and make our own way (247). Thoreau pushed for men to live as a “counter friction” to the machine (244). It was the idea that if two forces opposed each other with such force, they would eventually wear each other down, smoothing each other’s surfaces, making for compromise. Thoreau urges men not to let their minds be dulled by the “daily grind” of the machine, but to think for
themselves.
It is not every man’s purpose to go out and fix all social injustice, but it is everyman’s job to make sure that he is not promoting the injustice through his lifestyle (247). Thoreau himself exemplified his ideals of civil disobedience when he knowingly refused to pay his poll taxes, wherein the money was going to fund the Mexican War. I imagine Thoreau sees the world we live in as a moral wasteland of sorts; one where the majority of men are not ready to change, and the minority who want change do not know how to go about obtaining the change they seek (245). We live in a society deprived of the luxury of community. Thoreau states, “for government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it (242).” This state shows that in our efforts to find the good, we’ve dug up some more evil. Ideally government paves the way for human interaction, but it’s causing separation on many different levels; separation between folks who hold different beliefs, those who are of the same land, and a mental separation from those whose shoulders we stand upon. Thoreau proposes that if a man, suppose it is your neighbor, takes some sum of your earnings from you, you would do everything in your might to get what is your’s back (247). “Action from principle, the perception and performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was.” In the instance of social revolution, the people are speaking out for their needs and wants; obviously, the government, the institution the people put in place to facilitate those needs, is not working out. And still, there are unjust laws that men obey. Why are those seeking change seen as radicals when all they’re looking for is their rights (248)?

In the first few paragraphs, Thoreau boldly states, “’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 (241).” Initially, this statement struck me as an anarchist thought. Thoreau does not want the lack of government that I first supposed, but a government that better works with the people. Thoreau pushes all men to declare what kind of government they would respect, and that should be one step in rectifying the system we have in place as of yet. It seems that Thoreau, too, just wants to express his derision for the government; one that he finds self-serving, intrusive on the lives of others and itself, and involved for its own venture.
Thoreau tells in his essay that he is simply man, put on this earth to live; he hasn’t enough time to deal with all the wrongs of our world. This admission in itself shows the author’s will to live and do right in the world; this is his admission to human mortality. The human ability to express notions of mortality versus immortality is inherent. “The machine” can easily pacify its components with half-truths, satisfying half the want, but leaving room for want of more; more truth, contentment, happiness. “Civil Disobedience” strikes me as a call for the people to be in a constant state of checks-and-balances. To question the reasoning behind the laws set forth by their governments, and to fight for what is just. It is a call to live your life without oppressing others, keeping all beings in this world free, and if needed it is a call for change. Thoreau’s ideas still ring true in our modern society. With our lives of over consumption affecting the lives of many in lands we cannot see, it’s up to us to live lives that don’t intrude on the rights of other men. In today’s society conscious business, better yet conscientious business is more important than ever. With the expansion of the machine, people have lost touch with their minds and spirits, what is most important to them.