Civil Disobedience

Essay | Henry David Thoreau

Explain Thoreau’s attitude towards unjust laws in a democratic state.

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Explain Thoreau s attitude towards unjust laws in a democratic state Or What is Thoreau s idea about a peaceful revolution against an unfair government Or Discuss Thoreau s view on the people s discontent of the government Democracy aims to ensure the highest degree of human rights However sometimes the government violates the core principles of democracy In that case Henry David Thoreau has suggested peaceful revolution In his famous essay Civil Disobedience the author expresses this deep faith He believes that when a government becomes unfair and unjust good citizens must not obey it blindly He strongly opposes violence and bloodshed Thoreau wants men to resist injustice peacefully through conscience and truth For him a real revolution is moral not violent It begins inside the human heart and ends in justice for all Rule of Conscience Thoreau believes that every man must follow his conscience before the law

According to him people should think of right and wrong by themselves The law may support injustice but conscience never does He says Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong but conscience Through this idea Thoreau teaches that peaceful revolution begins when people heed their moral sense instead of obeying government orders Peaceful Disobedience Thoreau refuses violence as a means of reform He suggests a calm spiritual resistance through moral courage He says that if the law demands us to do wrong we should disobey it at once but without hatred or arms His own refusal to pay taxes against slavery and war shows his belief in peaceful protest He says Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine This means that moral action can stop injustice more effectively than weapons Power of the Individual Thoreau has great trust in the strength of a single man He feels that one truthful person can shake an unjust system According to him we should not wait for a majority to act one brave man can begin the change He says Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already Thoreau s idea of peaceful revolution thus begins with one moral soul who refuses to cooperate with wrong Value of Non-Cooperation Thoreau teaches that refusing to help an unjust government is the best weapon of the honest man He believes that if people withdraw their money and service from the State it will lose the power to harm others He says Cast your whole vote not a strip of paper merely but your whole influence Here whole vote means one s complete action body mind and spirit used peacefully to fight injustice and awaken others conscience Moral Strength over Physical Power Thoreau believes that moral strength is higher than military force A person who lives by truth is stronger than a thousand soldiers He writes I was not born to be forced I will breathe after my own fashion By these words he declares his independence from the authority of the State He proves that peaceful disobedience guided by truth and conscience is a higher form of revolution than any act of violence From the light of the above discussion it is clear that Thoreau s peaceful revolution is not about weapons or blood It is about moral awakening and inner courage He believes that a person must resist injustice through calm action self-sacrifice and truth His tax resistance and short jail stay show his faith in conscience His words inspired Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr to work towards a peaceful change in the world through the principles of truth justice and non-violence

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