What is a theme for disobedience?
Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience espouses the need to prioritize one’s conscience over the dictates of laws. It criticizes American social institutions and policies, most prominently slavery and the Mexican-American War.
What is the morning to Thoreau?
In Walden, the morning to Thoreau is a time when people’s senses, creativity, and ability to reflect are the most heightened. In other words, it is literally and figuratively when mankind is the most “awake.”
What three things does the government not do according to Thoreau?
Thoreau says that government does not, in fact, achieve that with which we credit it: it does not keep the country free, settle the West, or educate.
Why does Thoreau look down on soldiers?
7)Why does Thoreau look down on soldiers, captains, generals, etc.? Because they follow and serve even if they don’t believe in what the law is or if it goes against common sense. He says, “Soldiers have no opportunity to exercise moral sense, reduced to the existence comparable to that of a horse or dog.”
What rule does Thoreau live by?
1. According to Thoreau, what is the basis of majority rule? He contends that majority rule is not based on justice or fairness but rather on nothing more than the fact that the majority is physically stronger than the minority.
What is Thoreau telling the reader to do if he she thinks a law is unjust?
Thoreau then returns to the metaphor of the government-as-machine. He says that if an injustice is part of the “necessary friction” of the “machine of government,” then it should be left alone. He urges the reader to be a “counter-friction” to the machine and not to participate in the wrong.
How does Thoreau say the soldiers feel about going to war?
How does Thoreau believe most people feel about the war? How does Thoreau think soldiers feel about going to war? They have a respect for law so they go. How does Thoreau’s view relate to his transcendentalist ideals?
What were his feelings about the government while he was in jail?
How did his imprisonment affect his feelings about the government? He refused to pay his poll tax. In jail he lost respect for the state. People would live by their own rules without regard for the law, and no one person or group would have control.
What does Thoreau say is the first step in obtaining a better government?
What specific act of government does Thoreau speak against in the first paragraph? Thoreau states the first step in obtaining a better government is to ask experts what they think is best.
What does I ask for not at once no government but at once a better government?
“… I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Thoreau called for the use of what we now call “passive resistance” to laws perceived to be unjust, and predicted that individual resistance to unjust laws could have a significant effect on government and its policies.
WHO stated that which uses the least power is the best government?
An aphorism often erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson, “That government is best which governs least…”, was actually found in Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience.
What does Thoreau mean by a better government?
Thoreau argues that a better government is one in which “majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience” (part 1, par. 4). Thoreau distinguishes the contrast between right and wrong as determined by the majority, and right and wrong as determined by each individual’s conscience.
When I meet a government which says to me your money or your life?
“When I meet a government which says to me, ‘Your money or your life,’ why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait [trouble], and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it.
What does Henry David Thoreau believe people should do when they think a law?
What does Henry David Thoreau believe people should do when they think a law is unfair? Abide by the law anyway because a law is a law.
Does Thoreau believe it’s a person’s duty to fight against wrongs?
Thoreau writes that a person does not have a duty actually to eliminate wrongs– even the most serious wrongs. However, at the very least, a person must “wash his hands” of injustice and not be associated with something that is wrong.
What Thoreau thinks about jail?
Thoreau declared that if the government required people to participate in injustice by obeying “unjust laws,” then people should “break the laws” even if they ended up in prison. “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,” he asserted, “the true place for a just man is also a prison.”