This is a reflection essay, 2 pages long, from the book “literature the human experience” 10 edition, under writing topic #1, page 381 please passage taken from Thoreau’s “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 etc. 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. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.
A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.
write an essay explaining why you do or do not agree (in whole or part) with Thoreau’s view of “the state” and with his classification of citizens as those who serve the state with their “bodies”, those who serve it with their “heads”, and those who are serve it with their “consciences”.
where would you place Everett C. Marm? ESPECIALLY, PLEASE remember to mention/connect other characters from 2 other connected stories
1)”Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka and
2)”Repent,Harlequin” Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison in the essay.
