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Martin Luther King Jr. Special Edition
(Elte IjJortlanb (0bscruer
January 19, 2000
Social Conscience
Civil
Responsibility
B y C harles D. H a yes ......—
M en tio n c iv il d is o b e d i­
ence, and most people think
o f M artin Luther King Jr. or
M ahatma Gandhi. But, a hun­
dred years before their tim e,
Henry David Thoreau was its
champion. Thoreau was very
nearly an anarchist, and his
contem pt for governm ent has
caused him to be greatly m is­
understood.
In his essay “Civil D isobe­
dience”, published in 1849,
Thoreau argues that the gov­
ernm ent which governs best
is the one that “governs not at
a ll.”
P e o p le
who
m istin terp ret his work stop
th ere , failin g to reco g n ize
that what he advocated was
“better governm ent.” His no­
tion o f better governm ent re­
quired superior constituents.
King and Gandhi knew ex­
actly what he meant. In a coun­
try made up o f citizens like
Thoreau, there would be no
need for much governm ent at
all. And, in such a society,
in s t i tu t io n s lik e s la v e ry
would be im possible.
T h o r e a u ’s e s sa y was a
clarion call for developm ent
o f a so c ia l c o n s c ie n c e by
each and every m em ber of
society, not ju st by victim s
o f oppression and injustice.
He asks, “ M ust the citizen
ever for a m oment, or in the
least degree, resign his con­
s c ie n c e to th e le g is la to r ?
Why has every man o f con­
science, then?...T he only ob­
ligation which I have a right
to assum e is to do at any time
what 1 think rig h t.”
B ey o n d th e o p p r e s s o r s
th e m s e lv e s , T h o re a u , also
held accountable those who
CALL
ben efited from the op p res­
sion, regardless of whether
they had anything to do with
creating the injustice.
T horeau’s philosophy was
about accepting responsibil­
ity. More than for the evils
inherent in governm ent, he
held contem pt for the lack of
public awareness and felt re­
sponsibility among the free
citizens o f his time. Little has
changed.
Turn your television to the
financial news and you will
hear talk of leveraged mul­
tiples, short selling, buyouts,
and arbitrage with jargon so
complex as to defy com pre­
hension. And yet, the m ajor­
ity o f people who strain to
undem sfid fhese convoluted
concepts cannot conceive that
people who enjoy the advan­
tage o f this system , which is
unjust by design, bear any re­
s p o n s ib ility fo r s e ttin g it
right. Econom ic ju stice re ­
quires thinking about fairness
w ith as m uch in te lle c tu a l
rigor and enthusiasm as we
apply to Wall Street invest­
m ents.
Thoreau allowed that each
o f us might pursue legitim ate
in terests w ithout taking up
the banner o f a particular in­
justice. At the very least, how­
ever, we have a duty to stop
benefitting from the disadvan­
tage o f others. We must not,
as a result of our advantage,
sit “upon another’s shoulders.”
Simply put this holds each
of us responsible for the soci­
ety we live in today. It matters
not a whit to Thoreau that you
and I w eren’t a party to estab­
lishing the institutions which
continue to perpetuate injus­
tices through discrim ination
and exclusion. That we benefit
from them today, in ignorance
of our own continued accom ­
plice, is not an excuse.
King put it this way: “Many
people fear nothing more ter­
ribly than to take a position
which stands out sharply and
clearly from the prevailing
opinion. The tendency o f most
is to adopt a view that is so
ambiguous that it will include
everything and so popular that
it will include everybody.”
He and Gandhi understood
the power o f injustice brought
to light. They knew that non­
v io le n t p ro te s t e s p e c ia lly
when those who protest are
mistreated - will bring social
conscience to bear on anyone
who harbors any semblance of
honesty.
More than a century has
passed since T horeau pub­
lished “Civil D isobedience,”
yet m illions of Am ericans re­
main unmoved to figure out
for them selves what is just and
unjust. The sophomoric sense
of citizenship embraced by too
many for too long is a free­
dom from - a poverty-stricken
sense of freedom which fo­
cuses on what each of us has a
right to escape at the expense
of resp o n sib ility we should
own.
People who deny their cul­
pability for slavery because
they were not yet born when it
was practiced, find it hard to
com prehend that they, as c iti­
zens are responsible for what
is today. If injustices are still
present as a result of the in ­
stitution o f sla v e ry ,th e n each
of us the duty to discover the
cause, the effect, and the rem-
.
14
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