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biolexicon's review against another edition
1.0
Though I probably would have liked a lot of his ideas, the sentiment he wraps them in is so self-congratulatory I couldn't see through clear enough to evaluate them.
Granted, I understand that he was intellectually isolated in his time and this may have contributed to that. But still, providing reasons or excuses doesn't make for better reading.
Granted, I understand that he was intellectually isolated in his time and this may have contributed to that. But still, providing reasons or excuses doesn't make for better reading.
jackdziatkowiec's review
challenging
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Not much has changed in 150 years. The government finds new ways to enslave and divide its populace. Injustice and corruption prevail at every turn. The government is bought and sold to the highest bidder. Why do I need a representative to vote for me? Where is the voting app? Every 18 year old has a cell phone. We can vote for ourselves for whatever local ordinances and national addendums are put forth. The government is holding us back from having control of our rights. It's mind boggling to me that the few in political office make decisions for the millions, based solely on their own interests and profit. It's high time for a revolution!
Also, I need to take more walks.
Also, I need to take more walks.
aftaerglows's review against another edition
4.0
Della possibilità di seguire le vie ritenute lecite dallo stato per porre rimedio al male, non voglio sapere nulla. Richiedono troppo tempo e la vita di un uomo si consumerebbe prima. Ho altre faccende a cui dedicarmi. Non sono venuto al mondo soltanto per renderlo un buon posto dove vivere, ma per viverci, buono o cattivo che sia. Un essere umano non deve fare tutto, ma deve fare qualcosa.
Infrangi la legge. Fa' in modo che la tua vita si trasformi in un diverso tipo di attrito, in grado di fermare la macchina.
alanmichael's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
lalexvp's review against another edition
4.0
On "Resistance to Civil Government:
During the summer of 2010 I lived in Concord, Massachusetts - the home of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcott family. I went there for the town's history which began approximately 100 years before these transcendentalists existed and had hardly studied any of them, their movement, or its implications. I lived a mile from Walden Pond and had never read Thoreau's adventures there, a few blocks from the homes of everyone else listed and only came to comprehend what each of these individuals meant to our world through interactions with visitors to the National Park where I worked. Upon my return to the good ole PNW, I told myself that I would dive head first into exploring this history and connect its overwhelming presence to my experience in Concord - and, so, I've picked up "Civil Disobedience", originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", and began there.
Henry David Thoreau was a born, lived, and passed native of Concord. He thought of it as "the most estimable place in all the world", and rightfully so in my opinion. Born in 1817, Thoreau witnessed a Concord that had seen three major wars - one of which began on its soil - and had made a name for itself as a small, spunky, and fairly influential town in its nearly 200 years of existence. Sitting 18 miles NE of Boston, Concord had become a prosperous market town along the route into and out of Boston. In the 18th century at least (my primary era of study), it maintained an abundance of natural resources, such as meadow hay (used primarily for livestock feed), livestock, lumber, and just about anything that could be tilled in the soil. It had not only been the home of many influential characters over the years, but it had also become an influential character in and of itself as the hub of innovative ideas, such as the aforementioned transcendentalist movement as well as prominent liberal (as we use the term today), Unitarianism.
It was here in the town of Concord where Thoreau chose to take a stand against his country and the state of Massachusetts by refusing to pay taxes in protest to the fighting of Mexico for the annexation of Texas, widely assumed to increase slave territory. Thoreau found himself in jail for a single night in July of 1846 and fighting would continue for two years afterwards. "Resistance to Civil Government" was an essay written in response to this event in his adventurous life.
He opens with a ideological commentary on government and a call to every citizen to make a stand and demand the American government to be better. "Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? - in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?... I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right." I had never thought of government in quite these terms before, as the embodiment of the moral consciousness of the men who create it, the men for whom it is created. 'Government' in my mind has always been its own entity, a structural system which is made up of men elected to keep the peace and establish justice. But, as Thoreau points out, is it really a just system to have majority rule in the first place? No - I think not. His more libertarian view of government complains of my assumption of government exactly - as the entity becomes less about men and more about the system, it become a capital 'G' Government and more like a machine. Its presumed nature of goodness and moral consciousness is lost.
In this sense, it seems to me that the dichotomy between choosing to vote or not vote in today's world is still not enough to make an impact on our collective consciousness, that activism is the key to making right. "A wise man," Thoreau writes, "will not leave the the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." While his single protest was not enough to make any notable difference in the system nor in the minds of his contemporaries, it was enough for him to set an example of how a spark can ignite change if people will it. Simply having an opinion and stating it freely to those who would listen was not enough for Thoreau, but action was - and still is - the only means through which to make a difference towards right; "Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine." Unjust laws and injustice cannot be remedied if society is content to obey without protest. Apathy among the minority cannot by default assume the justice of the majority. Through example, Thoreau calls for change in that "if it [the machine of government] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine."
Government, having lost its essence of moral consciousness, is the antagonist in Thoreau's essay as well as his reality, more specifically when Government acts against common virtue while claiming to represent the common. In reference to legal human slavery, Thoreau uses the word "copartnership" to describe the relationship of a man to his government (ie, the state of Massachusetts) when neither chose to take a stand, implying that apathy is an active choice and that those who decline to act are just as guilty. "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." - How many just and honest men exist in Thoreau's worldview? Not many. Does this statement seem to be a bit extreme in addressing the realities of how our government works? Yes, I think so - but his point still stands. Those who speak without action have made no real change at all, but continue to abide by the system for fear of repercussions which Thoreau views as further government sanctioned injustices that can and should be fought by those honest and just men who see the truth of the matter.
Perhaps Thoreau's most moving and personal point for me is a lesson which I learned about 4 years ago in my young life, a lesson that had not and could not be taught by any familial example I had seen before. It sets me apart from my family and most friends to this day as a value that I hold dearly and try to live by even when realistic obstacles get in my way; "I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot with, - the dollar is innocent, - but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance." Economic protest is essentially what led to my current vegetarianism and my emphasis to purchase local goods as often as possible for the well-being of myself and my community. In Thoreau's day, he protested human trafficking and slavery within his own country; in our day, we are economically bound to support the same things elsewhere through outsourcing. There are too many middle men in today's modern world to truly see the progress of our dollars, though it is not hard to assume the worst and to try to counteract it accordingly.
The problem in his solution of protest and isolation is that our world has become too big to make sweeping changes from the ground up - it requires slow processes and masses of minority ideas working together to make small pushes of progress. It is incredibly easy to see the world and all of its problems and feel too small to make an impact and that it is too impossible to remove oneself from the fold and live a life of isolation. Thoreau had Walden, freedom to escape to an unclaimed forest and do with it what he would. Such a situation can hardly exist in present day. He wonders, "Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?" Today, we are watching this question play out in the Middle East, anxiously awaiting the answer of whether or not democracy can continue to be considered a higher form of government at all. He concludes, "There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." But if this is the case, how can we keep a society as free and as large as ours safe as well as free? Thoreau opposes a standing army, opposes the arm of the government meddling in the affairs of other independent nations, but modern society has clearly moved beyond that debate as being valid. Ideologically, his positions seem logical and reasonable to expect in a time far removed from our own. But that doesn't mean that they should be removed from discussion and remembrance all together.
What I take from this essay in full is that if there is injustice in the world, do your best to fight it. If you are unable or unwilling to be active in dispelling injustice, at least be conscious of its existence and strive to live an aware life. Too many people turn a blind eye to the problems of our world, which have multiplied near exponentially since Henry David Thoreau fought a more direct injustice 160 years ago. Battles are still worth waging if change is to follow - I fear, however, that apathy has become (or remained?) the majority and the protest of the few is the only means through which to create change.
"I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind."
During the summer of 2010 I lived in Concord, Massachusetts - the home of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcott family. I went there for the town's history which began approximately 100 years before these transcendentalists existed and had hardly studied any of them, their movement, or its implications. I lived a mile from Walden Pond and had never read Thoreau's adventures there, a few blocks from the homes of everyone else listed and only came to comprehend what each of these individuals meant to our world through interactions with visitors to the National Park where I worked. Upon my return to the good ole PNW, I told myself that I would dive head first into exploring this history and connect its overwhelming presence to my experience in Concord - and, so, I've picked up "Civil Disobedience", originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", and began there.
Henry David Thoreau was a born, lived, and passed native of Concord. He thought of it as "the most estimable place in all the world", and rightfully so in my opinion. Born in 1817, Thoreau witnessed a Concord that had seen three major wars - one of which began on its soil - and had made a name for itself as a small, spunky, and fairly influential town in its nearly 200 years of existence. Sitting 18 miles NE of Boston, Concord had become a prosperous market town along the route into and out of Boston. In the 18th century at least (my primary era of study), it maintained an abundance of natural resources, such as meadow hay (used primarily for livestock feed), livestock, lumber, and just about anything that could be tilled in the soil. It had not only been the home of many influential characters over the years, but it had also become an influential character in and of itself as the hub of innovative ideas, such as the aforementioned transcendentalist movement as well as prominent liberal (as we use the term today), Unitarianism.
It was here in the town of Concord where Thoreau chose to take a stand against his country and the state of Massachusetts by refusing to pay taxes in protest to the fighting of Mexico for the annexation of Texas, widely assumed to increase slave territory. Thoreau found himself in jail for a single night in July of 1846 and fighting would continue for two years afterwards. "Resistance to Civil Government" was an essay written in response to this event in his adventurous life.
He opens with a ideological commentary on government and a call to every citizen to make a stand and demand the American government to be better. "Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? - in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?... I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right." I had never thought of government in quite these terms before, as the embodiment of the moral consciousness of the men who create it, the men for whom it is created. 'Government' in my mind has always been its own entity, a structural system which is made up of men elected to keep the peace and establish justice. But, as Thoreau points out, is it really a just system to have majority rule in the first place? No - I think not. His more libertarian view of government complains of my assumption of government exactly - as the entity becomes less about men and more about the system, it become a capital 'G' Government and more like a machine. Its presumed nature of goodness and moral consciousness is lost.
In this sense, it seems to me that the dichotomy between choosing to vote or not vote in today's world is still not enough to make an impact on our collective consciousness, that activism is the key to making right. "A wise man," Thoreau writes, "will not leave the the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." While his single protest was not enough to make any notable difference in the system nor in the minds of his contemporaries, it was enough for him to set an example of how a spark can ignite change if people will it. Simply having an opinion and stating it freely to those who would listen was not enough for Thoreau, but action was - and still is - the only means through which to make a difference towards right; "Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine." Unjust laws and injustice cannot be remedied if society is content to obey without protest. Apathy among the minority cannot by default assume the justice of the majority. Through example, Thoreau calls for change in that "if it [the machine of government] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine."
Government, having lost its essence of moral consciousness, is the antagonist in Thoreau's essay as well as his reality, more specifically when Government acts against common virtue while claiming to represent the common. In reference to legal human slavery, Thoreau uses the word "copartnership" to describe the relationship of a man to his government (ie, the state of Massachusetts) when neither chose to take a stand, implying that apathy is an active choice and that those who decline to act are just as guilty. "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." - How many just and honest men exist in Thoreau's worldview? Not many. Does this statement seem to be a bit extreme in addressing the realities of how our government works? Yes, I think so - but his point still stands. Those who speak without action have made no real change at all, but continue to abide by the system for fear of repercussions which Thoreau views as further government sanctioned injustices that can and should be fought by those honest and just men who see the truth of the matter.
Perhaps Thoreau's most moving and personal point for me is a lesson which I learned about 4 years ago in my young life, a lesson that had not and could not be taught by any familial example I had seen before. It sets me apart from my family and most friends to this day as a value that I hold dearly and try to live by even when realistic obstacles get in my way; "I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot with, - the dollar is innocent, - but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance." Economic protest is essentially what led to my current vegetarianism and my emphasis to purchase local goods as often as possible for the well-being of myself and my community. In Thoreau's day, he protested human trafficking and slavery within his own country; in our day, we are economically bound to support the same things elsewhere through outsourcing. There are too many middle men in today's modern world to truly see the progress of our dollars, though it is not hard to assume the worst and to try to counteract it accordingly.
The problem in his solution of protest and isolation is that our world has become too big to make sweeping changes from the ground up - it requires slow processes and masses of minority ideas working together to make small pushes of progress. It is incredibly easy to see the world and all of its problems and feel too small to make an impact and that it is too impossible to remove oneself from the fold and live a life of isolation. Thoreau had Walden, freedom to escape to an unclaimed forest and do with it what he would. Such a situation can hardly exist in present day. He wonders, "Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?" Today, we are watching this question play out in the Middle East, anxiously awaiting the answer of whether or not democracy can continue to be considered a higher form of government at all. He concludes, "There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." But if this is the case, how can we keep a society as free and as large as ours safe as well as free? Thoreau opposes a standing army, opposes the arm of the government meddling in the affairs of other independent nations, but modern society has clearly moved beyond that debate as being valid. Ideologically, his positions seem logical and reasonable to expect in a time far removed from our own. But that doesn't mean that they should be removed from discussion and remembrance all together.
What I take from this essay in full is that if there is injustice in the world, do your best to fight it. If you are unable or unwilling to be active in dispelling injustice, at least be conscious of its existence and strive to live an aware life. Too many people turn a blind eye to the problems of our world, which have multiplied near exponentially since Henry David Thoreau fought a more direct injustice 160 years ago. Battles are still worth waging if change is to follow - I fear, however, that apathy has become (or remained?) the majority and the protest of the few is the only means through which to create change.
"I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind."
kimball_hansen's review against another edition
3.0
This was a little ney-ney 90 page book that took me two dang months to read. Finally I'm done. I really want to know if Henry David Thoreau was alive today what he would think about society and politics and all that good stuff. I can see him both being a Filthy Liberal and a wild Libertarian. It's refreshing to have someone like him care about society rather than just do nothing at all.
readmetwotimes's review against another edition
4.0
Datato in alcuni punti, ma assolutamente condivisibile.