Civil Disobedience
by Henry David Thoreau · first published 1800
22% recommend78% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A short, relatively easy read that clarifies the case for individual conscience against unjust state action. It is useful for understanding the philosophy behind protest and civil disobedience.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Written with the motto "that government is best that governs least", when men are ready for it, that will be the kind of government we will have. This book tries to tell us to think for ourselves. This is a Must Read for anyone anti-government. Please note: This book is in easy to read true text, not scanned images that can sometimes be difficult to decipher. This e-Book is printable.
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…didn't hear the demands of the people to begin with. If you make it to a full blown riot you have MESSED UP. The whole philosophy behind protests is really easy to understand. Spend a bit of time reading Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, a little Ghandi and then you start with a lot of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X to understand the philosophies behind American protests.
on “How much do we need the police?” ↗Awesome to see my favourite author here on Hacker News. May I also humbly recommend: * Civil Disobedience (1849) - the classic referred to by Gandhi and MLK http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html * A Plea for Captain John Brown (1859) - Thoreau was one of the very, very few to defend Brown attempt to launch…
on “Life Without Principle (1854)” ↗…influential today, and doesn't do justice to the 20th century. But it's a relatively easy read, and clarified some guys I either didn't read or didn't appreciate in my freshman great books seminar. Walden and Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau. Ah, the wisdom. Likewise The Essential Gandhi, by Mahatma Gandhi. Haven't read all of it or even as much as I should, but his autobiography of his early years and experiments…
on “Ask HN: Good books?” ↗Henry Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" is about not being able to send money to an organization without funding projects he doesn't want to fund, therefore not sending money at all. Many consider it an important work, including myself.…
on “In a swipe at Chrome, Firefox now blocks ad trackers by default” ↗You might find interest in Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, where he proposes that one should not let the state do evil on your behalf. At his time he was concerned about funding slavery and the Mexican war.
on “How to Hide a Billion Dollars: Three Techniques the Ultrarich Use to Dodge Ex-Sp” ↗…quote, while frequently attributed to Jefferson, was probably never written by him. The earliest attribution for a similar quote is from 1837, and in the current form it comes from Thoreau in 1849 -- Civil Disobedience. http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/gove...
on “Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this” ↗I read "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau[0] in my early twenties and have been miserable ever since. "I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least' ... But, to speak practically and as a…
on “Poverty-Fighting Startups” ↗…(including by your employer, Amazon / Jeff Bezos - no offense). They tend to build up barriers to entry to competition and entrench themselves. I wonder what Thoreau would think about all this. He wrote Civil Disobedience which grapples with these ideas, but I bet he didn't imagine them in this new market/corporate context.
on “FCC fines Swarm $900K for unauthorized satellite launch” ↗I notice you left out my civil disobedience example. > Just war theory isn't blanket justification to go to war based on whatever "threat" you think exists. Yes, that's EXACTLY MY POINT. It's an example of a logical argument used to justify when…
on “Carl Sagan testifying before Congress in 1985 on climate change [video]” ↗This was more or less Thoreau's argument in his essay Civil Disobedience (1). He concluded that the US was acting immorally in its war in Mexico and therefore he didn't pay his poll tax. They locked him up overnight, and then his aunt paid his tax and he was let out. Some…
on “Facebook Co-Founder Saverin Gives Up U.S. Citizenship Before IPO” ↗…the court ruled the law unconstitutional.[5] The majority opinion was that the law was overinclusive, and would have prevented the publication of such works as The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, and even The Confessions of Saint Augustine."
on “FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner” ↗…perhaps also law making process. > How can this be OK? It's a terrible stretch, but still: "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison" - Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
on “San Francisco and L.A. sue Uber” ↗They guide my present. "A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong." -- from Civil Disobedience by Henry Thoreau That something I have to do is learning to write shell scripts at the moment.
on “Life is Short” ↗I'm verklempt at the joy of having discovered Thoreau in mid-life. Like many American students, I read Civil Disobedience and Walden in high school and then forgot all about either. Maybe I even absorbed some of the atmospheric disregard for these works. In the past few years, I read all of Dickinson (what a genius), and…
on “Reading Thoreau at 200” ↗…and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest¨ -Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
on “Software Patents Have Got to Go” ↗