The Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is the German word for the intellectual, moral and cultural spirit of the times. Three great and influential men embodied this spirit; Socrates, in 399 B.C.E., Thoreau in the 1800’s and Martin Luther King Jr. circa 1963. These three men dedicated their adult lives and worked steadily toward the eradication of unjust laws that violated the civil rights of their fellow citizens. Each man refused to concede to any law or policy that plagued his era and his people with a clear injustice and a violation of rights and civil liberties. Socrates, Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. were all advocates of non-violent direct action which, as King stated, “seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”
While all three of these leaders took a slightly different approach in their means of achieving action, there are clear similarities in their philosophies and their ideas of how involved a government should be in the lives of its citizens and what authority that government should be given regarding the enforcement of laws that are not in the best interest of the people. They each advocated a legal and moral obligation to obey just laws and an equal obligation to disobey unjust laws. All three men were imprisoned for their beliefs and their non-violent action against the injustices of their time. However, none of them were distressed about their imprisonment, not even Socrates who was facing death. Instead, they each stood firm by their beliefs and urged others to realize that when confronted with a government that imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
In Plato’s “Crito” Socrates practiced civil disobedience by advocating for academic freedom. He was imprisoned for “corrupting the youth” of Athens by encouraging them to think beyond what they had been told and to question the actions of their government through creative analysis and objective reasoning rather than passively accepting the myths and half-truths that were handed to them. Like Socrates, King felt that this creation of tension in the mind of the individual was a necessary step in the progress of a society. Neither of these men were interested in helping individuals find answers to their current problems. Instead, they aimed to teach their philosophy on how to reach a moral and ethical conclusion.
Socrates believed that man should do what he believes is right and should not betray these principles. However, he differed from Thoreau in his insistence that it would not be right to destroy the state that nurtured and educated him. He felt a duty and an obligation to maintain the state and accepted his punishment quietly and with dignity. Thoreau, on the other hand, felt no obligation to the State and offered it no respect or authority in the injustices that it fostered. Although Thoreau would have preferred a State without any government, he did not blatantly seek to disobey laws that were kept in place for the true benefit of the people. He never refused to pay the highway tax or to support education but would not and could not bring himself to support, by any means, a government tax put in place to aid an unjust war and unjust laws.
Martin Luther King Jr. worked steadily to overthrow laws promoting segregation and to increase black voter registration in the south. He, like Socrates believed that “one who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly and with a willingness to accept the penalty.” This, King urged, was in actuality an expression of the highest respect for law. Socrates, in his discussion with Crito about what is just and unjust reminded him that he had, for seventy years, had the freedom to live elsewhere and escape the laws which he found to be unjust. Since he opted to stay, he fell under implied contract to obey the laws of the state. The obligation that falls on every man in such a position is to either obey or convince the government that it is wrong. As can be imagined, this is not an easy accomplishment and all three men, as they worked to make advancements with the State itself, worked more closely with their fellow citizens in an attempt to arouse the conscience in the community over the injustices they were confronted with.
Thoreau advocated that the government is best which governs least and aimed to reduce government interference by reducing their capacity to tax wealth for unpopular causes. He urged citizens to oppose any government that is not totally just, totally moral and totally respectful of the individual and reminded them that the purpose of government was to execute the will of the people and that by complacently standing by and shrugging their shoulders at the inexcusable injustices they were not encouraging any sort of real change and progress toward true justice. While King worked to increase the numbers of black voters in the south, Thoreau felt that even voting was not enough action to promote any real change. Although Thoreau’s actions were likened to those of an anarchist, he did not express blatant disobedience for the sake of disobedience. He, like Socrates and King, was cheerfully willing to obey those laws which were just and fair but all three men refused to concede to any government which attempted to strong arm them into obeying unjust policies.
King seemed to blend the approaches of Socrates and Thoreau and established a plan of non-violent direct action that mirrored Socrates patience and logic while still holding Thoreau’s insistence that justice cannot wait any longer. King resembled Thoreau somewhat in his attitude toward laws that did not conform to moral justice. He also urged that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. He agreed with Thoreau that if enough people would follow their conscience and disobey unjust laws that they could bring about a peaceful revolution.
Non-violent, direct action was the approach that these three men adopted to bring about social awareness and awaken the consciences of their fellow citizens. Each man paid the price for his beliefs but succeeded in getting his message across. By making people aware of injustices and by refusing to just accept them as a part of life, real change can come about. Thanks to the efforts of Socrates, we now have academic freedom and are not limited to learning those things which our government would like us to believe. Thoreau, although he did not see the peak of his influence come to fruition, made great strides in the civil liberties movement and influenced future leaders to keep the government in check and to remind citizens that they have a conscience and must act on it or risk losing it altogether and becoming a mindless machine. King, who embodied the strengths of his predecessors, is today seen as one of the most influential civil rights leaders in the history of the world and his efforts have brought clear and significant changes to the way this country treats its citizens. Every generation needs men like this that are willing to stand up and put their freedom and their life on the line in the name of what is right. Every generation yields its own injustices and policies that need to be objectively and reasonably analyzed from a civil rights perspective. Every generation needs a Zeitgeist to guide them toward progress and change and a brighter future.