He was frustrated with how many people would say they were against the war or against slavery, and do nothing – they “sit down with their hands in their pockets”, as he puts it. The second was the expansionist war against Mexico.įor Thoreau, the only morally acceptable stance to take on an oppressive government was to have nothing to do with it. Thoreau was an abolitionist, and Massachusetts was a slave state at the time. There were two principle reasons for his disavowal. Henry David Thoreau wrote his essay on Civil Disobedience in 1849, detailing his philosophy and his experiences of resisting a government he didn’t agree with. When we think of civil disobedience, the first two examples that come to mind are often Martin Luther King and Gandhi, and both of them cited Henry David Thoreau as an influence. Since stepping up my activism somewhat last year, I’ve been reading a bit more about civil disobedience, and this essay is something of a classic.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |