Reasonable Rebellion

       Yesterday in English class, we discussed whether man was reasonable or not and his relation to Nature on the reason totem pole. Henry Thoreau introduces his argument in "Resistance to Civil Government" with this discussion about the reason of man. He explains that for any man it's reasonable to rebel when your rights are being infringed upon. "I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but outs is the invading army" (Thoreau 855). He goes further to say that a group of people should fight the injustices within its same group of people, so that a change is brought about. He says voting against and signing petitions against injustice isn't enough; in reality, it's nothing. He uses Luke 9:24 as his example and stimulant to urge mainly Americans to act in issues, like racism, much more actively than signing a petition.

       Thoreau implored in this essay that Americans' not do the least possible to stir up trouble for themselves. "The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies" (Thoreau 854). Americans are like robots who know how to do and choose, yet they don't use their consciences when they fight for the country. This idea, as well as Thoreau's observation of a paradox of America's foundation, are also found in Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America. American's tend to be lazy instead of thinking for ourselves, so we act in whichever way we are told. This includes the way we treat others, especially regarding to race, since the country is founded on freedom, yet (according to Thoreau) one sixth of the population was still enslaved. Both authors address these problems in their writings, and even today America still deals with laziness and racial barriers.

Would Thoreau be considered a Christian Transcendentalist? And are those really possible without being heretical?