Be Aware: An Analysis of Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”
Throughout the progression of society, motivators have clung to Henry David Thoreau’s 1849 speech known as “Civil Disobedience” as a blueprint for revolution. His words serve as a call-to-action echoing through time and landing in our minds today, becoming inspiration for the ground-breaking speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. As we slip further into institutionalization, how does Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” reveal our separation from consciousness? Thoreau lays bare the extent to which we have become complicit in our own manipulation, challenging us to reclaim our political and social autonomy with accountability.
The ability to be consciously aware is characterized with humanity, yet modern institutions indoctrinate our thoughts and actions to fit a societal mold. Henry David Thoreau holds a negative outlook on modern institutions like politics and religion, as he believed they “routinely lead people to ignore or stifle their own natural moral sense” (Siemers, par. 4). Slavery, for example, is against our moral code of conduct yet continued out of trust for the government. We have taken the administration for face value and trusted their motives without seeking an independent source, which has sucked us into a status quo bias, or the belief that our government is genuine. This bias coupled with the continuous allowance of unconscionable acts, like the CIA’s mind-control experiment, MK Ultra, has formed a parasitic relationship between the people and its government. As Thoreau observed, “the mass of the men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines…they have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs” (4). The scrutiny is not only on the United States military for sending young men away to die, but to the young men for settling as a pawn in a battle they have no parts in. The comparison to our lives as animals feels cruel, but it serves purpose in stating that we blindly follow orders out of trust and obligation. Essentially, the government ensures our needs are met, like a person for their dog. The dog will not bite back the hand that feeds it, like we will not revolt against the institution, and Thoreau is quick to address this comparison.
Unsettlingly, the American people have become highly interdependent as governmental institutions evolved. We are required to participate within the bounds of society and obligated to take part in the programming to be considered a ‘functional member’. Henry David Thoreau was not foreign to this subjugation as he was formally arrested for unpaid tax after living in solitude for two years, “Civil Disobedience” being birthed as his reaction to the unjust punishment. As Thoreau experienced, we are left with little option: to follow the institutions guidelines or to follow our conscience, the latter ending in social damnation. Frederic Gros, a philosopher of resistance, summarized that “I obey above all because I do not want to risk solitude…I do not want to risk damaging my life, my career, my habits” (159). We have an innate desire to socialize and little interest in doing anything that would possibly prevent it, ultimately leading us down the road to conformity. The interdependence has gone beyond instinctive socialization; we must simultaneously use oner another as ladders to the top. As Evan Carton noted, “even the man who proposed to march to the beat of his own inner drummer depended on others for the shoe leather that allowed him to march at all” (107). Paraphrasing Thoreau’s concept of hyper interdependence, we are always stood on another man’s shoulders. He understood this beyond words, for Henry David Thoreau resided on another man’s property whilst conducting an experiment for a naturalistic lifestyle. This lifestyle experiment was published as Walden: Life in The Woods and served as the catalyst for his arrest and speech against political obedience.
Concurrently, Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” exposes the lack of responsibility that we are willing to accept in our own compliance. It is the felicitous option to place the blame on a larger, faceless organization like government or society. The voting system in America is a representation of our contrived ignorance: we cast a strip of paper into a ballot well-aware that it may not reach the majority with practicality. Our blatant lack of initiative provoked Thoreau, “They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy to the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret” (5). It is likely that a modern group of people would agree on the moral severity of a situation, like warfare or homelessness in America, but not likely that it would be followed with action. Resigning our ability to determine what is right or wrong, we are faced with cognitive dissonance: the inner confusion of misaligned actions and morals. To elaborate, we attempt to excuse the unethical actions of elected officials because it confuses our own conscious. For example, the people pay taxes that contribute to military action and therefore attempt to rationalize the bloodshed. Taking responsibility for our expediency is far more difficult than simply obeying. Philosopher Frederic Gros addresses that “…when someone says, ‘I simply cannot be held responsible, all I did was obey’, they mean that obedience establishes a regime of non-responsibility” (159). Gros applies this statement to the Nazis of World War II, who excused mass genocide with obedience. There is not much difference from the German Nazis to our modern society; we have become invaders to others’ countries and volunteered in the genocide of our own conscience. Henry David Thoreau recognized that we have accepted tyranny out a willful ignorance, suggesting that the beginning to freedom would be self-education and accountability.
In conclusion, Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” ripples through time and reminds mankind that we are responsible for the political and social restrictions that deter us from attaining freedom. As Thoreau believed, humanity should follow our consciousness and break the law on moral grounds, rather than be a submissive cog in the machine. We the people will not refuse compliance to immoral acts unless we overcome the internal biases that promote an unquestioned obedience to the state. Thoreau’s speech is easily identified as a call to political reform, but his ideas resonate with us almost 200 years later because it is more than that: it is a call to awareness.
Works Cited
Carton, Evan. “The Price of Privilege.” The American Scholar, vol. 67, no. 4, Sept. 1998, p. 105. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=1273801&site=ehost-live.
Gros, Frederic. Disobey!: The Philosophy of Resistance. Translated by David Fernbach, Verso Books, 2020.
Siemers, David. “Thoreau, Henry David.” Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics, Updated Edition, Facts on File, 2008. American History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=103176&itemid=WE52&articleId=170104.
Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government). Concord Lyceum, Massachusetts, 1849.