I first remember reading "Resistance to Civil Government" (or "Civil Disobedience" as its more popular and more contemporary name) either my Senior year of high school or my freshman year here at MSU. At the time I remember feeling like I was a sort of enlightened political activist as so many HS Seniors and College Freshman feel like they are. I was so in awe of this description of Thoreau gallantly sitting through unjust jail time for refusing to support a war and an offense against the human race that he did not support. "Hurrah! Hurrah Thoreau!" I thought. The contemporary event that I most tied this essay to in MY life was the Iraq War. Reading this essay made me wish that there was a way to not pay a certain tax and, in effect, not show my support for the war. Simply thinking that my money was buying Folgers for some government building didn't do the trick enough. I wanted to feel like I was making a protest. I wanted "greater society" to note my refusal to bow down. I wanted glory.
Rereading this account of a man making a political difference was very interesting. I felt, as my political eccentricities have dwindled, so did the impact of his essay. Perhaps it was because I was looking for it to spark the same political storm in me that it had the first time. I found that this rereading lead me to think of the story from a different "I". I felt that this time the essay was merely "I"nteresting rather than "I"nspiring. I felt that this time I was looking at the essay from the eyes of an English Major, concerned with the workings of literature, rather than the eyes of someone who was politically hungry. The change in me seems to be kind of sad, but I like to think that this time I'm actually doing more of what he wants because when I was first inspired I don't believe I had the right perspective on what he was trying to communicate. This time I was able to better make sense of some of his more deftly argued points.
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