Alcove Activities: Second Level: Explicating a Text, Civil Disobedience (Second Excerpt)

Second Level: Explicating a Text, Civil Disobedience (Second Excerpt)

Now use the excerpt below to explicate the thesis of the excerpt below and on the previous page, following these directions:

State the main point of the paragraph in one or two sentences.

Then elaborate on what you have paraphrased (“In other words,...”).

Give examples of the meaning by tying it to concrete situations in the real world. (For example,...)

Generate metaphors, analogies, pictures, or diagrams of the basic thesis to connect it to other meanings you already understand.

Civil Disobedience (Second Excerpt)

Background Information:
Here is another paragraph from “Civil Disobedience,” written in 1849 by Henry David Thoreau.

Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide what is right and wrong, but conscience?... Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience, to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right... If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go... If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you can consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil: but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

Specimen Answer:

1. Statement of the thesis...

People need to behave more in accordance with their conscience than in accordance with the law. If a law requires you to behave in an unjust way toward another, you are ethically obligated to break the law.

2. Elaboration of the thesis...

Some laws might be considered necessary evils, because to change such laws would lead only to greater injustices than the original law. But if the only way to change a truly unjust law is to refuse to abide by the law, a person of conscience will refuse. People should be willing to sacrifice themselves to reduce injustice caused by unfair laws.

3. Exemplification of the thesis...

For example, in the U.S. during the 1800s, after slaves in the north were freed, many people helped slaves in the south escape to the north. Though they risked imprisonment for helping free slaves on southern plantations, many people were willing to do this rather than abide by an unjust law.

4. Analogy of the thesis...

Think of how we teach children to behave with respect to their peer group. Often a peer group will expect everyone in the group to accept an unjust act. For example, it is common for bullying to be practiced toward outsiders of children’s peer groups. Bullying, then, becomes the accepted practice. Those in the group who object to bullying are usually subjected to penalties from the group — for example, they may be ridiculed. Nevertheless, we have taught children well only when they are ready to rebel against the authority of the peer group. So too should adults rebel when dealing with unjust laws passed by their government.

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