Life As a Counter Friction: Introduction to "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau

Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"

What is "civil disobedience?"

Civil disobedience has several slightly different meanings or theories, depending on who has defined and used it.

The first person to write about the idea was Henry David Thoreau. He was an American writer who was famous for living alone in the woods and for writing about nature. In 1849, he published an essay, "Resistance to Civil Government" (that was later called "Civil Disobedience.")

The main idea of the essay is that, to be a good person, one must NOT depend on others. As Thoreau wrote, one must "get off another man's back." Indeed, one must do what one's own conscience(良心)says is the best thing to do. For Thoreau, it is important that everyone be "self-reliant" (自立心, as in「自立心を持つ」) and not depend on voting, democracy (other men's opinions), consequences of one's actions, and material possessions. That is, one must be free to obey one's conscience. "To obey," here, means: to do what one's conscience says is right, and not only to think it or to talk about it. If everyone acts according to his or her conscience, then, as individuals, they will resist, and therefore improve, their own government. As a consequence, they will be able to live together in dignity (威厳).

Because of his values, Thoreau does not seem at all like a modern American. However, his influence has been very great. He especially influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, who both read Thoreau's essay carefully and became famous for practicing non-violent civil disobedience. Martin Luther King Jr. fought against racism and poverty in the United States, and Gandhi fought against British control of India. All of these men had to go to jail for their actions. And all of them were widely respected for their bravery (勇気).

Reading "Civil Disobedience."

Small Goverment Is Good Government

To begin our reading, I note that, in Paragraph 1, Thoreau says, famously, that "that government is best which governs least." In other words, government should not become too powerful, because men need to be independent from it. In the same paragraph, Thoreau says that governments are "at best but an expedient." An expedient is something that is used temporarily to achieve some goal. For instance, if I want to take a book from a top shelf but cannot reach the shelf, I will use the expedient of a chair or a ladder. When I have taken the book down, I will no longer need the ladder. The ladder is there to serve me. I am not the servent of the ladder. The ladder, in this case, is a metaphor for government as Thoreau sees it. By itself, the ladder can accomplish nothing. To be useful, it needs the power of people. And it is only good when it responds to what the people know is right and just behavior.

Unlike bookstore ladders, however, most governments do not work well. As Thoreau says, "the government itself... is... liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it." In other words, government does not respond to the people's idea of what is right and good. Rather, it serves only the interest of a few people (usually men) who take control of the government. For Thoreau, the best example of this is the war against Mexico. That is why, at the end of Paragraph 1, he asks the reader to take as an example of bad government,

"the present Mexican war, the work of comparitively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool..."

In other words, only a few people, including President James Polk, decided to go to war against Mexico. Most Americans were not involved in the decision. Moreover, informed Americans knew that the war was imperialistic and wrong.

Thoreau thought that the politicians who started the war had abused their power in government. To stretch the metaphor of the bookstore ladder, it was as if someone had taken the ladder and started to kill customers with it by hitting them on the head. If the ladder is used so violently, then the people should resist those who have abused it and make the ladder again serve them expediently (only when necessary).

For Thoreau, the war against Mexico called for "civil disobedience." This means that, in his opinion, people must stop supporting their own war-making government, even if the consequence is that the government is destroyed and the North and South are divided. As Thoreau argued, the best way to stop supporting the government is not to pay one's taxes.

In my own opinion: I think it is important to remember that, at the time Thoreau wrote, there were no modern corporations. Today, corporations dominate our societies, control our governments, and dominate the lives of individuals. Therefore, the little government control that remains is all the people have, in many cases, to protect themselves from corporations. Thoreau could not imagine this situation in 1849; so it is understandable that, for him, government should be small. At the time Thoreau wrote, it was easy to imagine self-reliant individuals who oppose government power and who always want less government. Today, however, to remain independent, healthful, and prosperous, an individual often needs the government (or sometimes lawyers) to offer protection against polluting, annoying, violent, cruel, secret, unfair, selfish, all-powerful corporations (which Noam Chomsky has called "常識のない暴君"). I think it would be a good idea to write a new "Civil Disobedience" but to call it, instead, "Corporate Disobedience;" that is, disobedience to the corporations that weaken and control our minds.

Philip Adamek