A modern appreciation of the writing of Henrey Thoreau.
SYNOPSIS
This essay considers the modern relevance of the writings of Henry Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government, A Plea for Captain John Brown, and Slavery in Massachusetts.
It will show that some of his ideas are very relevant in the operation of modern democratic government, while others are essentially unworkable.
His relevant ideas include the need for democratic governments to control both its citizens thoughts and actions; the need for governments to develop a good reason for undertaking major actions such as war; and the need for participation in democratic politics for the public good.
His unworkable ideas include Thoreau's belief that government should be reduced to the local level as the main, or even only, level of government; and his idea that sovereignty is based not in the state but is to be found in the individual, who can choose whether the government can have power over him or not.
Both these sets of ideas will be related to modern writers and history to show their relevance or irrelevance to contemporary governmental practice.
This essay gives a modern appreciation of the short works of Henry Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government, A Plea for Captain John Brown, and Slavery in Massachusetts. It considers Thoreau's ideas on government, showing that they are still very relevant to contemporary politics. Thoreau's idea that governments need more than physical force to control people, will be compared to Chomsky's writings on thought control by democratic governments; Thoreau's idea that governments need to create a cause or reason to undertake major activities, will be compared to the United States failure in Vietnam; Thoreau's idea of people acting in the public good, rather than self-interest, will be compared to Saul's idea of democracy based on disinterest; Thoreau's ideas on small government, showing that they were unworkable, will be considered; as will Thoreau's idea that individuals are sovereign, and that citizenship is determined by the individual, not the state.
In Resistance to Civil Government Thoreau, from being imprisoned, realized that a government could not simply control people by the use of physical force alone. He wrote:
. . . I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I was mere flesh . . ., to be locked up. . . .As they could not reach me [his mind or thoughts], they had resolved to punish my body.1
This is something that all modern governments have realized, including democratic governments. Chomsky shows this clearly when he argues that there is a difference in the way modern governments control people. He sees what he calls " . . . the genius of democratic systems of thought control, which markedly differ from totalitarian practice".2 He argues that whereas states that rule by violence are more interested in the behaviour of their citizens, democratic states have to control both behaviour and thought. Chomsky states:
Since the [democratic] state lacks the capacity to ensure obedience by force, thought can lead to action and therefore the threat to order must be exercised at the source.3
The source being peoples' thoughts and perceptions. By controlling these, a democratic state is able to limit the use of force only against those elements within society that fail to take in, or understand, the state's expectations; such as criminals and radical political activists. The fundamental importance for modern democratic governments to have at least some level of thought control is shown by Thoreau when he writes:
I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that dangerous [original emphases].4
Clearly, in Thoreau's case, locking him up failed to change his attitude to taxation. In fact it may only have served to strengthen it.
Linked to the idea of governments having some control over their citizens thinking, is how governments handle or control the nation in times of war, emergency, or great change.
Thoreau, in A Plea for Captain John Brown, realized that for a state to succeed in major undertakings it needed to create a reason, or sense of mission, that would give the nation the necessary incentive for effective action. He used the example of John Brown when he wrote, " . . . the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him, was, . . . because they lacked a cause - a kind of armour which he and his party never lacked" [original emphases].5
The importance for a government, especially a democratic one, of having a cause, a reason for undertaking certain actions, can clearly been seen in modern times in the case of American and Australian involvement in Vietnam. The problem for the governments of these countries was that they, unlike the North Vietnamese government, were unable to advance or create a viable political reason for involvement in Vietnam. In the case of the United States, one of the reasons for its failure was, as Kolko shows, " . . . its intrinsic inability to create a viable political, economic, and ideological system capable of attaining the prerequisites of military success".6 What the U.S. failed to do was to define a reason or purpose for intervention in Vietnam, that could not only be understood by its citizenry, but also supported and acted on by them. This was reflected in, as Kolko shows, " . . . the organizational, political, and intellectual disorder of American society at mid-century by creating a politicized form of inchoate but nevertheless real opposition".7 This opposition, the anti-war movement, had "a profound impact" on America's ability to sustain the war.8
In contrast to this, the North Vietnamese government did have a coherent political and economic policy on the war, and one which it was able to use to instil strong support from its people. Kolko shows this clearly when he writes:
[The Communists created] A conception of the masses's role in great events and history [which] produced a self-consciousness which itself became an ingredient of power. [ In this way they managed] . . . to bring together a great number of men and women who's morals and dedication to a cause were very high, who made monumental sacrifices and underwent incredible deprivation . . . [Where] Each could attain personal fulfilment . . . [through] a cause in which each person's destiny was linked with that of the revolution.9
By linking a coherent ideology, Communism, to a clear cause, independence, the North Vietnamese were able to create what Kolko calls, the prerequisites of military success. Which in turn gave them the strength, or armour, which allowed them to fight what was essentially a thirty year war. This was in stark contrast to the McMahon government in Australia, who even as the war was coming to a close in 1971, still could not explain exactly what Australian troops in Vietnam had been fighting for.10
In A Plea for Captain John Brown, Thoreau recognized the need, in democracies, for people to act in the public good. He argued that a person and society could gain more, and their actions were more honourable, when they acted out of a principle of non-personal gain. Using John Brown as an example, Thoreau wrote, ". . .[He] did not wait until he was personally interfered with, or thwarted in some harmless business", therefore prompting him to act out of self-interest.11 Rather he acted out of a sense of principle, or right, knowing full well that he personally would gain nothing materially from his actions. In other words, out of a sense of personal disinterest.
This idea is taken up in the contemporary era by Saul, who argues that one of the problems of contemporary democracies is a lack of disinterested participation. People, he argues, are either involved in politics out of a desire for personal gain, usually a minority, or simply choose not to participate in politics at all, increasingly the majority. This has lead to an imbalance or disequilibrium in the functioning of modern democracies, as they are taken over by self-serving interest groups. Saul writes:
They are systems which are devoid of what I would call disinterest. Their actions are based entirely upon the idea of interest. They are self-destructive because they cannot take seriously the long-term or the wider view, both of which are dependent on a measure of disinterest, which could also be called the public good or the common weal.12
Such a democracy would be limited in its possible decisions and actions as it would only be operating from a perceived measurable self-interest.13 Whereas, in a balanced democracy this would not be the case, because it would be "centred, by general agreement, on disinterest".14
In Resistance to Civil Government Thoreau makes clear he is no friend to the idea of government. Thoreau at most was a believer in small government. He believed that if there had to be government, then a government with limited powers and involvement in society was preferable. He stated "I heartily accept the motto, - 'That government is best which governs least' ".15 It appears that Thoreau saw small government as being more than simply a federal government with limited powers, or having a confederation of sovereign states rather than a federation. Thoreau appears to have believed that the best form of government was one where it was reduced to the smallest form possible. Not state, not region, but local towns as the basic structure of government. He wrote, in Slavery in Massachusetts, that the town meeting, " . . . is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States".16 This appears to be as far as he was prepared to go in recognizing the need for government, because to him "government is at best but an expedient", but is by no means a necessity.17
Yet Thoreau went further than this; he believed that formal government itself was not even necessary. He wrote, "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".18 What he appeared to believe was that the United States could be governed, at most, at the local level through the use of general town meetings.
Clearly this would have been unworkable and dangerous for the United States. At a time when the nation state either had, or was, developing in the more advanced European states, creating militarily and economically powerful nations, the United States would become powerless to defend itself against a centralized state. As well, the experience of the improvised Continental Congress showed clearly that even a confederation structure was unworkable.19 To revert to a non-formal local government structure would have been disastrous to the American economy. It would also have made impossible the abolition of Slavery that Thoreau wanted so much. With each town deciding whether to allow slavery, not only would it permit slavery to perpetuate itself in existing places, but could also have seen it spread into the new northern states, as there would then be no division between slave and non-slave states.
Thoreau believed that the state gained legitimacy not from the people as a group, but from each citizen individually. As such, the state's power over individuals would be determined by each citizen individually. Thoreau wrote:
There will never be a really free and enlightened state, [until it recognizes] the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, . . . [As such the state] can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it [emphases added].20
This included the idea of citizenship. For Thoreau, citizenship was not determined by whether a state recognized a person as being a citizen, rather as whether the individual chose to be a citizen of the state. To Thoreau, an individual, being sovereign within himself, had the right to opt out of being a state's citizen, to "refuse [it] allegiance", while still living within the state's territory.21
Clearly, such a conception of the individual is completely incompatible with the idea of the nation-state. In contemporary societies, citizenship is determined by the state. If people were free to determine the power of the state in relation to them individually, the state as a political and legal entity would simply collapse. In effect, what Thoreau is arguing is a form of anarchy. How any organized formal government could exist, with people opting in and out at will, is inconceivable. Not least of which, is the reason that people could create any number of competing governments at will, all of which would be as legitimate as any other. Yet Thoreau saw it this way:
A state which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious state, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen [emphases added].22
It is not surprising that he had never seen such a 'perfect and glorious state', as such a state would never have been recognized as a 'State'. In fact it can be suspected that if he had seen such a state, he would not have recognized it as such. It would not have been perfect and glorious, as much as anarchy and violence.
In conclusion, Thoreau saw clearly the basic requirements and limitations of the democratic state. He knew that, in a state based on freedom of thought, the state itself must have some control over that thought or accept having a limited ability in social control. This was shown clearly over a century later with America's involvement in Vietnam. Thoreau knew that for a state to fight a major war, it needed a cause or justification, and that without such a cause it was likely doomed to failure. America's failure in Vietnam can be partially explained by its inability to explain exactly what the war was being fought over. Thoreau also knew that the highest form of actions were based on a sense of the public good. Saul showed how a democracy can become unbalanced when this is not the case, and that only majority participation, based on disinterest, can re-balance a democratic system.
Yet Thoreau was also misguided in his ideas. His apparent belief in non-formalised local government would have left America militarily and economically weak, as well as have allowed for the perpetuation, even expansion, of slavery. His ideas on sovereignty of the individual would have made government totally unworkable, leading only to anarchy and likely violence.
Nevertheless, Thoreau was clearly a forward thinker, who saw democracy at a deeper level than most American's probably did. His weakness was that he seemed, at times, to fail to see the difference between idealism, and real power politics.
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ENDNOTES
1. H. D. Thoreau, Great Short Works of David Henry Thoreau,
(New York: Harper and Row, 1982), p. 148.
2. N. Chomsky, "The Manufacture of Consent", in J. Peck (ed.),
The Chomsky Reader, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), p. 130.
3. Ibid., pp. 131-132.
4. Thoreau, op. cit., p. 148.
5. Ibid., p. 276.
6. G. Kolko, 1986, "Vietnam: Anatomy of a war 1940-1975",
in Robert Lee (Comp), Imperialism in Asia: Selected Readings,
Book of Readings for Imperialism in Asia Subject 1997,
(As supplied by university, 1997), p. 218.
7. Ibid., p. 200.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., p. 223.
10. G. Bolton, The Oxford History of Australia: The Middle Way 1942-1988,
(Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 187.
11. Thoreau, op. cit., p. 282.
12. J. R. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization,
(Victoria: Penguin Books, 1997), p. 35.
13. Ibid., p. 37.
14. Ibid.
15. Thoreau, op. cit., p. 134.
16. Ibid., p. 253.
17. Ibid., p. 134.
18. Ibid.
19. P. Johnson, A History of the American People,
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997), p. 150.
20. Thoreau, op. cit., p. 156.
21. Ibid., p. 147.
22. Ibid., p. 156.
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REFERENCES
Bolton, Geoferey. The Oxford History of Australia: The Middle Way
1942-1988. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Chomsky, Noam. "The Manufacture of Consent", in John. Peck (ed.),
The Chomsky Reader. New York: Pantheon Books, 1987.
Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997.
Kolko, Gabriel. "Vietnam: Anatomy of a war 1940-1975",
in Robert Lee (Comp), Imperialism in Asia: Selected Readings.
Book of Readings for Imperialism in Asia Subject,
As supplied by university, 1997, pp. 189-225.
Saul, John. Ralston. The Unconscious Civilization.
Victoria: Penguin Books. 1997.
Thoreau, Henry. David. "A Plea for Captain John Brown",
in Wendell, Glick. (ed.), Great Short Works of David Henry Thoreau.
New York: Harper and Row, 1982, pp. 270-293.
Thoreau, Henry. David. "Resistance to Civil Government",
in Wendell, Glick. (ed.), Great Short Works of David Henry Thoreau.
New York: Harper and Row, 1982, pp. 133-156.
Thoreau, Henry. David. "Slavery in Massachusetts",
in Wendell, Glick. (ed.), Great Short Works of David Henry Thoreau.
New York: Harper and Row, 1982, pp. 246-261.
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