civil+disobedience

Civil Disobedience is the belief of getting away from a government in a non-violent way. It's a respectful disagreement; the idea was brought about by the Egyptians in their rebellion against the British. In an essay written is Henry David Thoreau he expressed the importance of individualism and argued that people should not let governments overrule their conscience this inspired many of our greatest minds like DR. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi these men where to transcendentalists. Gandhi was so impressed with his movement he went on what is called his famous satyagraha which was a campaign that was taught to people in South Africa and taught them about slavery. Transcendentalism and what was called civil disobedience are the basis of our government today as Americans. And the idea is that the best government is the one that governs less.

The motivation for Henry David Thoreau on Civil Disobedience was the Mexican war and slavery. Thoreau gave lectures at the Lyceum, which is a place for entertainment in the Aristotle period and that is what started him to right this essay. In the essay there was non-resistance which were people of same views. The non-resistance group were people who were against the non-violent act and tried to stop all of the wars and violence. They both thought of the government as a machine. If the machine was running the people needed to be the counter and be the friction to stop the machine. Civil in this case was meaning to be the citizens and their actions. Civil disobedience would mean disobedience to the state or government. He says that it is not to late to react to the government and men can go against them. He believes that the government is overran and that the army is to much of a part of the government.

Transcendentalism and civil disobedience are closely related, individualism is a big deal to both of these groups they are so similar in the way that they rebelled against those who governed them. For example the Egyptians rebelled against the British in an act of civil disobedience. The transcendentalists rebelled against the Unitarian church. They both wanted to change the structure of the government that ruled them. So they both acted against their superiors differently but they both acted under the same belief of transcendentalism. Transcendentalism affected civil disobedience because it started first with slavery and against violence. Civil disobedience came along and helped with the movement. The religious views went on in both of them and were a big part of them.

Gandhi was born in Porbander in western India. In 1888, he went to London to study law. He returned to Bombay to work as a barrister but went to South Africa to work in 1907. In South Africa, he took part in passive protests against the Transvaal government’s treatment of Indian settlers who were in the minority in the region. In 1915, he returned to India and, after joining the Congress movement, he emerged as one of the party's leaders.

The people of India had no rights basically and queen Victoria was declared empress of India, in 1947 India declared their independence and the way that they did all this was basically to boycott all British goods and only buy Indian goods, this helped the economy in India. Gandhi preached a passive approach towards the British that a violent act would only have a negative effect.

by Augie Arguello and Greg Matthews