Michelle Romero
Eng. 48, Dr. Scott Lankford
Author: Henry David Thoreau
“Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward” (1858).
I love this quote! Before this passage, Thoreau asks questions leading to this very point: if men were meant just to follow orders, why do men think? Why do men have the ability to reason?
In an ethics class I took we discussed how language and the ability to reason is the only thing that distinguishes us from animals. Humans have a unique ability to determine what is commonsensical and what is right or wrong for themselves through reason.
After first reading this section of Resistance to Civil Government, this exact quote immediately reminded me of the scene in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where Huck Finn is deciding whether or not he is going to turn Joe, a runaway slave, back in to his owner. According to the law, Huck is obligated to turn Joe in, but according to his conscious he wants to let Joe be free.
Eng. 48, Dr. Scott Lankford
Author: Henry David Thoreau
“Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward” (1858).
I love this quote! Before this passage, Thoreau asks questions leading to this very point: if men were meant just to follow orders, why do men think? Why do men have the ability to reason?
In an ethics class I took we discussed how language and the ability to reason is the only thing that distinguishes us from animals. Humans have a unique ability to determine what is commonsensical and what is right or wrong for themselves through reason.
After first reading this section of Resistance to Civil Government, this exact quote immediately reminded me of the scene in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where Huck Finn is deciding whether or not he is going to turn Joe, a runaway slave, back in to his owner. According to the law, Huck is obligated to turn Joe in, but according to his conscious he wants to let Joe be free.
Thoreau, like Twain several years later, asks this difficult but common sense question to his readers: is the conscious of man enough to rule his decisions? And if we have an individual conscious, why do we do what is lawful before what we feel is “right”?
This will forever remain the fundamental question of humankind. If we were all to act based on our own individual reason or conscious, our way of life would be so different. I imagine we would view those who are in contempt of court in a new light and put more focus on protest and organizing than on our daily work routines. We would re-evaluate what the important things in life really are.
1 comment:
20/20 What a deep and difficult and even ultimately disturbing question Twain and Thoreau both ask. And what, then, is our answer?
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