Thoreau and Gandhi

Thoreau was an American philosopher who wrote a paper called Civil Disobedience. In Thoreau's paper he talks about government and the things he sees wrong with the government.He talks first about how the government should be for and by the common man. Claiming that the people with the most power should not run the government but rather everyday people. After talking about a time when he had gotten in trouble several time with the law for not doing things. One such occasion he did not pay a poll tax so he was in jail for a night. He says that the individual is as important if not more important than the group which is a new concept. It is quite obvious how he feels when he says things like: "There will never really be a free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power" For example if their are two of you and one of me, your a majority but that doesn't mean if you wanna kill me you can because of your majority.

Gandhi on the other hand was not so much worried about an individual being wronged as he was a whole nation. It is really difficult to compare the two speakers when one is worried about himself while the other is worried about his country. Gandhi wanted to tell people what to do when he was gone and how they should behave as a group. Whereas Thoreau simply wanted to tell people they were being wronged and a few of his ideas on how to right the wrong and what not. Something really cool about Gandhi's speech was he knew that he was most likely going to be arrested the next day and that he was going to march and get caught but he had decided to march anyway because it was what he believed in and nothing was going to take that away from him no matter how fast or how many times they arrest or even beat him it was his belief and nothing was going to change that. He said things like: "In all probability this will be my last speech to you. Even if the government allow me to march tomorrow morning, this will be my last speech on the sacred banks of Sabarmati. Possibly these may be the last words of my life here."

Which such strong sentiment and feeling from Gandhi is is easy to see that he is far superior to Thoreau's civil disobedience. Aside from the obvious differences being on what they focus, one being on small individualized perspective of government. While the other is on a much more grand and encompassing scale than Thoreau's. In comparing the two papers it is very clear to anyreader that the speech prepared and given by Gandhi was far superior than the paper written by Thoreau, Gandhi's speech had a very revolutionary tone while Thoreau's seemed to almost seem like he was whining at the idea government was not fair for everyone. Gandhi's paper was absolutely fantastic.

Works Cited

Gandhi, Mohandas. "On the Eve of Historic Dandi March." American Literature Textbook. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print. November 13, 2010.

Thoreau. "Civil Disobedience." American Literature Textbook. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print. November 13, 2010.