As Relevant Now as It Was 175 Years Ago

Communing with Henry David Thoreau. When I first encountered his ideas as a young man in the late 80s and early 90s, I experienced a jolt of recognition. Back then, it was an exercise in intellectual stimulation. Today, however, this classic of American history takes on entirely more visceral shade of relevance and urgency.

At the core of Thoreau’s 1849 thesis, is this:

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of government, let it go, let it go; perchance it will wear smooth,-certainly the machine will wear out… but if it 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. What I have to do is see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

Thoroeau’s sentiments inspired the likes of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among many others. King echoed Thoreau in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail:

One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

Walden and Civil Disobedience should be at the top of every conscientious American’s night stand.