Thoreau – Civil Disobedience

1
Thoreau Civil Disobedience

• 1846 Henry David Thoreau refused to pay a poll
  tax he was arrested and jailed
• to his disdain, his relatives paid his tax for
  him to release him from jail
• Thoreau denies the right of any government to
  automatic and unthinking obedience. Obedience
  should be earned and it should be withheld from
  an unjust government.

2
Thoreau Civil Disobedience

• 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 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 right.

3
Thoreau Civil Disobedience

• Two times when open rebellion is justified
• when the injustice is no longer occasional but a
  major characteristic
• when the machine (government) demands that people
  cooperate with injustice.
• Thoreau declared that, If the government
  requires you to be the agent of injustice to
  another, then, I say, break the law.

4
Suffrage

• 72 year movement for womens right to vote
• Alice Paul and the National Womans Party
• letter-writing, protests, marches, days of
  silence, hunger strikes, civil disobedience

5
Gandhi

• Early work was based off of Thoreaus Civil
  Disobedience
• led movement for Independence of India
• took Thoreaus concept of disregarding unjust
  laws one step further to disobeying
  nonviolently

6
Gandhi nonviolence

• nonviolence is the refusal to respond with
  violence, regardless of how violently you are
  treated.
• Satyagraha struggle for truth or truth
  force
• Gandhi wanted to challenge in-equal social
  structures without setting off a spiral of
  violence

7
Later social movements

• U.S. Civil Rights Movement
• Solidarity
• Anti-apartheid movement
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• Post-Soviet independence movements