University of Virginia Library

Too Selfish To Share

Like many of our own would-be
revolutionaries who have cultivated
little more than their own
impotence by an elaborate quietism
of drugs and dropping out, Thoreau
was too selfish to share: he liked his
individuality. He protested his taxes
not merely because they helped kill
Mexicans and perhaps expand the
slaveocracy, but mainly because
they were his taxes. Were his taxes
not paid-were his hands "washed"
- then all would be right with his
life. Such is of course one logical
extension of individualism - but
the very wrong one.

Individualism can also lead to
elitism - and it did for Thoreau.
"The only obligation which I have
the right to assume," he wrote, "is
to do at any time what I think
right." "Unjust laws" should be
disobeyed, for "it is enough," he
said, if the law-breakers "have God
on their side...any man more right
than his neighbors constitutes a
majority of one." So why, Thoreau
asks, does not government "cherish
its wise minority?"