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Is Thoreau Anti-Social? - Online Essay

Is Thoreau Anti-Social?

Right at the beginning of his essay On The Duty of Civil Disobedience, Thoreau explicitly claimed his viewpoint towards the government: “That government is best which governs not at all.” From various works of Thoreau, it seems apparent that Thoreau held a pessimistic opinion towards the government and social institutions of America at his time—but does this mean that Thoreau was anti-social? From my perspective, though seemingly extreme and individualistic, Thoreau’s advocacy of constructing a better society cannot be roughly concluded as a word “anti-social”. Thoreau tended to oppose the society where the government is unjust—just like the American government in his eyes, ...

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the “superstructure” of the American society at his time, when the Civil War outbroke by the end of the War of Independence. With the construction of modern factories and railways, the tranquility of rural life was interfered. Thoreau’s criticism towards the society wasn’t resulted from hatred, but the observation of the injustice under the government’s administration: In 1846, he was arrested for refusing to pay a poll tax meant to support America’s poll in Mexico, 3 years after which he published his most famous essay On The Duty of Civil Disobedience. Thoreau was outspoken against slavery, American imperialism, and the war between America and Mexico, for he complained in his essay that these things had deprived people of autonomy, making them not as men mainly, but as “machines with their bodies”. “They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus...”. As a transcendentalist, Thoreau called on American people ...

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Is Thoreau Anti-Social?. (2021, May 4). Retrieved November 28, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Is-Thoreau-Anti-Social/107698

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 5/4/2021 11:21:58 PM
Submitted By: ClairW
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 668
Pages: 3

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