American Prophet

All my education was in the British, rather than American, system, so we read Milton, Shakespeare, Thackeray, and Hardy rather than Emerson, Melville, or Thoreau. For my Religion and Non-Violence class we recently read Civil Disobedience by Thoreau, which I had never read before. His name is pronounced by many Americans almost in a whisper; he is prophet to several generations.

A lot of what is said in this essay is about resisting government, taxes, and slavery; since there’s something in here for everyone, everyone uses Thoreau’s classic text to bolster their ideas, whether violent or non-violent resistance during the Vietnam war, to hatred of taxes, to blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City. Much like the accounts of far earlier prophets, this one can be used to argue just about anything. Even by presidents.

While Thoreau may have been arguing for an informed resistance against the bits of government one finds unpalatable, he didn’t bargain, perhaps, with the wholesale abandonment of “informed” anything. A uniform press that is a lackey to the status quo (the current bleating about Janet Jackson’s nipplegate fracas should silence doubters that this culture is still truly puritanical) is not likely to lead to an informed public. Yet those of us who wish to become informed and act on this information would do well to read Thoreau: his challenge to follow the lead of our conscience resounds loudly today, as we contemplate tax season and the announcement of the increase in the U.S. “defense” budget…