What Is the Role of Civil Disobedience Today?
What is the Role of Civil Disobedience Today?
Background for students:
In light of the death of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks (1913-2005), much of the nation has been examining Parks’ monumental action and legacy.
Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in the segregated South helped ignite a nationwide movement toward correcting deeply ingrained biases based on race in both the American government and in society.
Moreover, Parks’ action was one of passive resistance or civil disobedience — a form of protest against a government or organization in which the one protesting refuses to abide by a law that is contrary to his/her beliefs, while also refusing to engage in violent behavior to correct the injustice.
Parks broke the law — at the time, in 1955 Montgomery, Ala., segregation ordinances required blacks and whites to be separated in public facilities, such as restrooms or buses — in a peaceful manner, serving as a model for others.
About Civil Disobedience:
Civil disobedience has its roots in antiquity, but its more recent application can be traced to American essayist Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). Thoreau was arrested for refusing to pay a poll tax, since he believed the money generated from the tax would be used to fund the Mexican War, a campaign with which he was at odds.
Thoreau saw the war as one that would simply lead to the expansion of slave territory in the United States, and therefore in his view was an immoral undertaking.
As a result of not paying the tax, Thoreau was arrested and spent a night in jail, an experience that later proved seminal to his famous essay, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.
Two key figures in the history of civil disobedience were inspired by Thoreau’s action — Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), also known as Mahatma (“Great Soul”) Gandhi, who through the practice of satyagraha (Sanskrit for “holding to the truth”) helped lead India out from under the yoke of British occupation, and Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), who led the nation’s peaceful civil rights movement until his assassination.
Other famous practitioners of civil disobedience include Dorothy Day (1897-1980), founder of the Catholic Workers Movement and a champion of the dispossessed, and Cesar Chavez (1927-1993), a son of migrant workers and founder of the United Farm Workers Union; both used non-violent, yet often illegal, means to draw attention to their causes and create change in institutional policies.
More recent acts of passive resistance include the protests of anti-Iraq war activist Cindy Sheehan and her followers. Sheehan’s son died in Iraq. Outraged by the government’s justification for the war, Sheehan camped outside President Bush’s Texas home in the summer of 2005, hoping to meet with the president and draw attention to her cause.
1. Define “Civil Disobedience” in your own words? Do you think his action (or inaction) was justified? Explain.
2. What was Thoreau’s act of Civil Disobedience?
3. What do you think of Rosa Parks act of Civil Disobedience?
4. Who are two key figures that were inspired by Thoreau?
5. Using your prior background knowledge of what you know of either of these two figures (or both depending upon the extent of your knowledge), what specific actions did they take and what challenges did they endure that supports the fact that they strongly believed in Civil Disobedience?
6. What form of Civil Disobedience have you noticed taking place in our country today?
7. If you were to protest something in our world today, what would it be, and would you prefer to use force or do you agree with Thoreau’s technique of Civil Disobedience? Explain.
from Civil Disobedience
By Henry David Thoreau
Directions: Read the following excerpt by Henry David Thoreau, Emerson’s protégé, and answer the critical reading questions that follow.
Background The Mexican War was a conflict between Mexico and the United States that took place from 1846 to 1848. The war was caused by a dispute over the boundary between Texas and Mexico, as well as by Mexico’s refusal to discuss selling California and New Mexico to the United States. Believing that President Polk had intentionally provoked the conflict before gaining congressional approval, Thoreau and many other Americans strongly objected to the war. In protest, Thoreau refused to pay his taxes and was forced to spend a night in jail. After that experience, Thoreau wrote “Civil Disobedience,” urging people to resist governmental policies with which they disagree.
About the Selection: This selection is excerpted from a long essay, about twenty pages in length, in which Thoreau advocates civil disobedience—the deliberate and public refusal to obey laws that violate one’s personal principles. In the portions included here, Thoreau expresses his belief that government has been no more than an impediment to the productivity and achievements of the American people. Philosophically, he stands opposed to government. Practically, he urges readers to try to make a better government, on that commands respect.
I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least, and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe: “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act though it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.
This American government—what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, if ever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstruction on the railroads.
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no government men, I ask for, not at once not government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it….
expedient – n. resource
alacrity – n. speed
Critical Reading
1. What kind of government commands your respect? Why
2. (a) How does Thoreau define the best possible kind of government? (b) According to Thoreau, when will Americans get the best possible kind of government?
3. What is Thoreau asking his readers to do?
4. Does Thoreau present a convincing argument for acting on one’s principles? Explain
5. What arguments might you use to counter Thoreau’s objections to the idea of a standing government?
6. What examples might support an argument that government benefits individuals?