Thoreau's Use Of Peaceful Resistance To Civil Disobedience

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“If it [the law] is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” These words and Henry Thoreau’s larger essay “civil disobedience” helped to inspire other reformers such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi to use peaceful resistance of unjust laws, in their own fights against injustices. But how does such acts of resistance impact a free society. If resistance to an unjust law results in the abolition of that form of injustice, then freedom in the society will be advanced, but if such resistance compromises the overall rule of law, then freedom in the society will be lost, because, as described by Ronald Reagan, “Without law, there can be no freedom, only chaos and disorder”. …show more content…
But, in the context of resistance, one must define what it means to be peaceful. To say that your action was not violent, is not enough to justify all actions as being “peaceful resistance”. For example, in 2010, Wikileaks released 90,000 classified intelligence reports, and within them were the identities of hundreds of Afghan informants. Though the action, in of itself, was not violent, it knowingly put those informants at risk of violence and, therefore, cannot be justified as “peaceful resistance”. Rosa Parks, However, demonstrated real civil disobedience when she refused to give up her bus seat. In this situation she took her stand, or seat, against an unjust rule, and, did not put anyone at risk of violence. For peaceful resistance to be considered civil disobedience and avoid causing violence, it must not just be nonviolent, but also avoid putting others at risk of …show more content…
Sec. 57 “ the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom: for ... where there is no law, there is no freedom”. This is the great dilemma of peaceful resistance, if as Locke argues, the end of laws in general is to “preserve and enlarge freedom”, and with the loss of the rule of law “there is no freedom”, then how can one break a specific laws that infringes on some freedom, without undermining the general rule of law and costing all freedom. This challenge is overcome by the civil disobedience outlined by Henry Thoreau, because when the practitioner peacefully, and publicly break laws they consider unjust, they willfully accept the punishment for violating the law, challenging unjust laws, while submitting themselves to the rule of law. Even though Thoreau was no supporter of law or government, his act of surrendering himself to jail, after breaking the law, and some of his words he wrote while in jail such as “unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government”, ensured that even as he resisted injustice from unjust laws, he did not threaten the rule of law in the nation. Peaceful resistance can expand freedom and liberty in a society. But not all peaceful resistance is created equal. Peaceful resistance which places others at risk of violence, or undermines the rule of law will contract
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