When Henry David Thoreau wrote “Civil Disobedience” in 1849, the United States was in an era of rabid patriotism. Thoreau understood the importance of this patriotism to his young country: not even a hundred years old, the United States was trying to find a cohesive identity while its territory and diverse population rapidly expanded. However, Thoreau was also very uncomfortable with how his fellow citizens embodied patriotism. To him, patriotism was not an attitude to be celebrated, but rather a posture that diminished his fellow citizens’ moral character and made them submissive to ideas and values that were not their own. Patriotism, he argues in this essay, discourages citizens’ rational criticism of their country and thus erodes their ability to think deeply about important issues and act in a conscientious manner. Thoreau argues that Americans should continue to be patriotic, but only if they redefine patriotism: to Thoreau, a love of country should require citizens to keep their nation accountable for its crimes and injustices, so he advocates for a patriotism founded on constructive criticism of the United States.
Thoreau argues that American patriotism, as practiced at the time of the essay’s writing, forces citizens to abandon critical thinking. According to Thoreau, to become a good patriot according to typical definitions of patriotism, one must cease to be a person: “The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, &c.” Here he argues that all the people who work in these roles as seemingly good patriots are really cogs in the state machine. They see their blind allegiance to their nation as an act of love and dedication, but their actions in the name of patriotism can actually be harmful to others and to the society itself. Thoreau continues by arguing that would-be patriotic acts—such as serving in the militia or as jailers—"put people on a level with wood and earth and stones.” In other words, Thoreau suggests that, by embracing patriotism and abandoning critical thinking, people essentially become akin to natural resources—they’re the bricks of nation-building, but their function is not to act for themselves as individuals or even to be human at all. Rather, they are mere objects—pawns in service of the nation’s (sometimes unjust) aims. In short, Thoreau argues that traditional patriotism depends on blind loyalty, which leads to dehumanization for the patriots and huge payoffs for the state.
What’s more, Thoreau argues that unthinking patriotism is not only dehumanizing, but that it also reveals the state’s lack of respect for its citizens. According to Thoreau, patriotic citizens “have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs…Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.” Thoreau suggests that the state markets submission as patriotism, to the point that it bestows the greatest rewards on citizens who are as docile as domesticated animals. This dynamic allows the state to stop seeing its citizens as human beings, which in turn lets it use the American people for its wars and immoral acts. That is, the state cares for the people only in so far as they are of use. Thoreau implies that once these so-called patriots are no longer useful, they will meet an unfortunate end—just as a domesticated animal might. To be a patriot is to command so little respect from the state that one is disposable. As the quote suggests, the state also distinguishes these so-called patriots as “good citizens,” so that other citizens will envy them and aspire to be “good” as well. This ensures that the state always has a ready supply of patriots to use. So, Thoreau argues, even as the state mistreats its patriots, it manipulates the American people into aspiring to be patriots, by conflating personal goodness with service to the state.
But while blind loyalty to the state is not a virtue, Thoreau suggests that love of country (another aspect of patriotism) can be a virtue—as long as this love leads to constructive critique. Accordingly, Thoreau argues for redefining patriotism: to him, true patriots are not those who readily submit to the state, but rather those who challenge the state and therefore make it better. After all, “statesmen and legislators” (men who fit the traditional criteria for patriots) are “so completely within the institution” that they “never distinctly and nakedly behold it.” In other words, people who have dedicated their lives to submitting to the state are the ones least capable of seeing it for what it is and then correcting its flaws. Thus, it is left to those who have not formed their identity around blindly serving the state to become the type of patriots that Thoreau calls for. They are the ones most poised to do the hard work of challenging the state. Thoreau notes that these people already exist: they “serve the state with their consciousness […though] they are commonly treated by it as enemies.” Thoreau therefore calls for a celebration of the kinds of patriots who are truly doing the work of improving the country, alongside a condemnation of those who blindly serve the state in the name of false patriotism.
Related Themes from Other Texts
State Submission as a Pretense for Patriotism ThemeTracker
State Submission as a Pretense for Patriotism Quotes in Civil Disobedience
The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, &c. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw, or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.
There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing […] They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret.
As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was halfwitted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it and pitied it.
Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived and treats him accordingly.
