Civil Disobedience

Thoreau uses the extended metaphor of government-as-machine throughout “Civil Disobedience.” He initially describes government as necessary “machinery” for the people’s voices to be heard (3). However, he argues that the machinery of the American government is cruel, as it works to create war and enslave thousands, and makes other citizens complicit in those injustices. The citizens become mechanized themselves. Soldiers, especially, turn into “small moveable forts and magazines” even though soldiers and citizens as a whole do not support the cause of war (5). But even regular citizens, by showing too much respect for law, become soldiers themselves, serving the State “not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies” (5).

The machine metaphor works on a few levels. First, it makes the complicated function of government easier to understand. The actual way the bureaucracy of government functions is confusing to most. Second, the metaphor implies that citizens lose their humanity by participating in the government. They become cogs of the machine instead of clogging the machine as Thoreau wishes they would do. If the reader agrees with Thoreau that individualism is important, then certainly they would not want to lose humanity and join with the machinery.