On the Duty of Civil Disobedience Essay -- Papers Henry David Thoreau

On the Duty of complaisant DisobedienceIn a concise essay, Thoreau proffers a challenge to all men, not to lick a respect for the law, so much as for the right. Over and over, nigh redundantly, Thoreau stresses simplicity and individualism, as most transcendentalists (the new philosophical and literary motion of Thoreaus time) did. Thoreau clearly states, in his On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, that the government is unsporting and doesnt represent the will of the people, that one man cant change the government, and that people pay unconsciously to the will of the government. The first of these is a ridiculous notion the entropy contradicted and supported alternately throughout the essay so that one cannot be sure of what they agree or disagree with while reading it because it endlessly contradicts itself in the following paragraph and the last, a well-thought-out and legitimate concept.Thoreau believed that That government is outgo that governs least, (222) but his harsh feelings stemmed from his dislike of the government and its motivations at that time. He thought that everything the administration did was wrong their head-turn at the treatment of slaves, their land-grabbing war with Mexico, and the taxes that Thoreau himself was absorbed for refusing to pay. Even the basic system of government was unfair and biased to him. He thought that the majority system was unjust, when the power is in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted to rule, not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest, (231) but what else can in that location be in a non-monarchical government? He shoots down the replete(p) American gover... ...ch is a profoundly admirable position. On the Duty of Civil Disobedience is an opinionated yet sincere treatise on the efficaciousness and anticipate power of the United States democratic government. The three main points p roposed in this discuss vary in sensiblity from tangible to impalpable. Unfortunately, it is a very difficult and, for some, unexciting and exasperating reading because in many parts of his essay, Thoreau, through ramblings and descriptions, unknowingly contradicts himself many times. Because of this, he is, by many, disregarded as a bulky philosopher and considered a hypocrite, and one has to look deep to discover the real heart and soul behind his grand words and complex sentences.Works Citedi atomic number 1 David Thoreau - Civil Disobedience from A World of Ideas - Essential Readings for College Readers, Lee A. Jacobus, Bedford Books, 2008, 1849