Civil Disobedience

Oscar B. Johannsen

[Reprinted from Fragments, April-June, 1967]

WHILE THOREAU, THE poet, might have lived out his days at Walden Pond, it was probably inevitable that Thoreau, the individualist, had to return to civilized (?) life. To live isolated in a wilderness is merely to be a hermit; to live in the company of other men and yet to maintain one's independence is to be an individualist. But individualism is not so much maintaining one's integrity in opposition to other men in Society as it is in opposition to other men in the State. Men, living in Society, while they may disapprove of one's behavior, nonetheless, will ordinarily limit their disapproval to social ostracism. Social pressure is powerful -- probably in the long run more so than State pressure -- but if one has a thick enough skin, as Thoreau had, he can defy it. While a person may be viewed with anathema, yet as long as he does not interfere with others, they will usually not exert their superior physical force against him.

The State is something else again. It is true that it is not an abstraction, but rather is composed of men who have a monopoly of coercive power and are united for the attainment of a specific end. However, it has been in existence for ages, and men have clothed it with such elaborate fantasies and so much mysticism that even many who are a part of the State are honestly confused as to what the real goal is. But as Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock pointed out, that goal is today, and always has been, to exploit the people for the benefit of those who directly or indirectly control the State.

If one refuses to pay taxes, as Thoreau did, then he is refusing to permit himself to be exploited, but as exploitation is the very reason for the State's existence, such defiance cannot be tolerated. To permit such a challenge to go unpunished is to encourage other men to do likewise. If enough do so it could mean ultimately the destruction of the State. Thus, Thoreau, a giant among individualists, was thrown into jail.

Possibly it was symbolic that this occurred during his two years' stay at Walden. So omnipresent is the State that even he could not escape it in his idyllic retreat, for it was in the summer of 1846 that he spent that night in the Concord jail for non-payment of his poll tax. Though he was freed the next day, it was not because he gave the State its pound of flesh but because an aunt settled his account against his will.

How fortunate, though, that he suffered this indignity, for it gave birth to the most trenchant and incisive of all his essays -- Civil Disobedience. This remarkable work has affected many profoundly, not the least of whom was Mahatma Gandhi. As long as its imperishable words are read by men, it will continue to inspire them in their defiance of the ubiquitous State.

Thoreau recognized that the State is an unjust institution, bluntly pointing out that "Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." Instead, those heroes, patriots and martyrs who "serve the State with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part … are commonly treated as enemies by it."

In answer to his own query on how a man should behave towards the American State, Thoreau categorically replied, "I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also."

While slavery in the United States is now outlawed, a more insidious kind ravishes the nation in the form of conscription. Though it is smothered under innumerable rationalizations and adorned with the craftiest of weasel words, as Selective Service, conscription is slavery. Its fundamental thesis is the denial of the right of a man to his own body. Under human slavery, his body belongs to another man; under conscription, his body belongs to the State.

Thoreau boldly called for revolution against the State, pointing out that his compatriots had greater reason to revolt against the American State than the rebels of 1775 had against the British State. Human slavery blighted the land while the country was overrun with the worst of all armies -- its own. Were Thoreau alive today, one wonders if even such a master of the written word as he could find language fitting to denounce the present monolithic State's encroachments on the rights of the individual.

The beauty of Thoreau's clarion call for revolt is that it does not envisage the taking up of arms but the more subtle, more enduring, more far-reaching, though slower method of civil disobedience. Anyone can initiate it at any time and any place. If one has the courage and the willingness to pay the consequences of peacefully refusing to pay his taxes, or bearing arms, or obeying the mandates of the State, he can wage a fight single-handed against the mightiest of States, which it will find difficult to combat.

Should one oppose the State with physical force, it will make short shrift of him. Should one oppose the State with civil disobedience, he will clog up its machinery interminably. Its courts, its jails, its police will be tied up in knots wondering what to do with the rebel. If enough people oppose the State, as when the New York City subway workers refused to obey the law prohibiting public employees from striking, the State will yield without a fight.

What course of action should a man concerned with the growing power of the State take? Thoreau enunciated his own position clearly and succinctly. "I quietly declare war with the State, after any fashion ..."