Reference no: EM131273029

A. Please read the following excerpt:

"Gandhi's writings influenced the American Martin Luther King, Jr. But Gandhi acknowledged his own debt to the ideas of an earlier American: Henry David Thoreau. Addressing "American friends," Gandhi once wrote, "You have given me a teacher in Thoreau, who furnished me through his essay on the 'Duty of Civil Disobedience' scientific confirmation of what I was doing in South Africa."

Thoreau published On the Duty of Civil Disobedience in 1849. His essay would become a classical description not only for its engaging style and its challenging political argument, but for the story Thoreau told there of the night he himself spent in jail in Concord, Massachusetts: he had refused to pay an annual tax. It is sometimes reported that Thoreau was expressing his objection to the United States' war on Mexico; he did oppose that war, but he wrote inCivil Disobedience," It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. "

B. Answer the questions:
1. Explore Thoreau's position and compare it with Gandhi's idea of satyagraha. How is it similar/different?

2. Could satyagraha be defined as "standing aloof"? Why or why not?

3. When is it right for a citizen to "stand aloof" in the country in which he/she lives?

3. Should people refuse to pay taxes when they disagree with the government? Why or why not?