In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau expresses his hostility towards the government and how he thinks that the government doesn't do anything. He feels like the people do all the work and that the government forces them to have an opinion like theirs. Thoreau explains that he is completely against the government when they chose to send men off to war. He thinks that it wasn't their choice and they were forced to go against their will. When reading Civil Disobedience, it kind of reminded me of reading the letters that Benjamin Franklin received that he included in his autobiography. The writers of those letters told him that he should stand up for what he believes in and not let anyone change his opinions on society.
I had a really hard time on understanding what Thoreau was trying to tell us about in Civil Disobedience. I understand that Thoreau did not like the government and their way of handling things but other than that I was completely lost. As you guys can probably tell, I'm really not good at understanding historical things that pertain to like speeches or someone's opinion on something. Can you guys help me?
Haha well I'm not exactly a pro by any means!! I definitely agree that he doesn't like the government how it is, but on the first page he says he doesn't not want a government, he just wants a better one.
ReplyDeleteI mean in all reality this is a pretty long piece of why he doesn't like the current government and cites many different examples to support himself. He's saying that the people need to take the action into their own hands and not rely on their representative to do it for them. For example, he says if there's an unjust law should we talk to our representative and follow the unjust law until we can convince the majority the law is unjust or should we stop following that law altogether because it is unjust?
He does cover the opposite opining by saying if people simply stop paying taxes or don't follow a law the government can take away your property and your children's. Therefore it is making it much more difficult for him to convince the people to take his words and put them into actions.
I think that's what I basically got out of most of it. That's kind of a broad over view. Does is all make sense? And if anyone disagrees or sees something different just let me know!!
Yeah that makes a little more sense. I guess just by the way he was wording it really confused to me and it didn't really help that I'm no good at political stuff. I got that he didn't like the government, but was there like a specific situation that affected him previously for him to be so passionate about hating the government?
ReplyDeleteWere your questions answered in today's discussion?
ReplyDeleteYes my questions were answered in class and Mary Kate helped me out a lot as well.
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