JAN16

How civil disobedience influence the action of Non-cooperation

Thoreau’s civil disobedience means reject to cooperate with governor if you think what he does is wrong. Beside this, it is a gentle action without violence or turbulence. Similarly, Gandhi’s non-cooperation means not to follow what the governor says if you are against them even if they use means to fight against you.
We can understand their ideas when we trace back to their era. During Thoreau’s period, American government was having a war with Mexico although lots of people were against this war within the country. Thoreau used his special action that he didn’t pay the toll tax to show his dissatisfaction to the government although he paid one day in jail as punishment. In colonial India, Ghandi even held a larger action of non-cooperation to protest the colony of British.
Thoreau, who is very close to another famous literature figure Emerson, was influenced by Emerson’s transcendentalism a lot. With the effect of transcendentalism, he made up his own ideas which are called individualism and activism. The ideas of spirit power of human beings courage him to do what he wants without concerning much about the consequences; at the same time, he did those kinds of things by himself for most the time. Ghandi absorbs Thoreau’s civil disobedience to use it as means to protest the British without violence action. Ghandi studied other culture and was impressed their advanced ideas. In that time, British were more advanced than India so that Indian would pay a lot to gain independence from British if they had war with them. To solve that problem peacefully and more efficient, Ghandi mixed Indian ideas and civil disobedience to form his non-cooperation.
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” --from Ghandi
“The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, (2) the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.” --– from Civil Disobedience
From the quotes, “an eye for an eye” is similar with “abused”. Both of the phase emphasize that we should not set the law of governing only for punishment with violent action, or it would make the society disordered and disharmonious.
“All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency is great and unendurable. . .
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always."
“Fall, tyrants” and “tyranny, unendurable” implied that both of them were not satisfied with their government at that time. In their opinions, these kinds of government must be overthrown early or late. They deeply think it is the tendency of history, so they used their action to realize it.