Thoreau's Militant Conscience

Bibliographic Data

ID6352655
AuthorsNancy L Rosenblum (Brown University, corresponding author)
Year1981
Volume9
Issue1
Pages81-110
Publication date1981-02-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/009059178100900105
OpenAlexW2162853319
LanguageEN
Citations received10

is a complex notion whose several uses make fascinating study. Militancy is close but not identical to militarism and organized aggression; it is a way of characterizing the spiritual qualities of individuals, and it designates a distinctive psychological appetite for opposition. Anger, challenge, and insistence on change accompany militancy, but so very often do a feeling of political insignificance and actual powerlessness. Militancy may comprise a social philosophy, but seldom a political strategy or program for reform, and militant behavior typically stops short of real violence. The militant wages a personal war against the world. Some historical eras and personalities cannot be fully understood without recourse to all that implies. For example, Napoleon's defeat and the Bourbon restoration transformed a whole generation of would-be military heroes into self-styled militants. The generation of 1830 in France suffered from the ennui of peace, from political rigidity, and from social cant. Youths lamented a world that held no satisfactions for the sensitive and ambitious, and directed their frustrated longing for distinction against society as a whole in a manner that was abusive and self-assertive but far removed from institutionalized aggression. Disenchanted liberals, disappointed reactionaries, and above all romantic souls declared their belligerency and at the same time confessed their political impotence, even personal paralysis. When it comes to American political thought, the social conditions and psychological make-up of militancy are less easily discerned. For one thing, America had no history of a standing army, and where the

Conscience · Militant · Political science · Politics · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Thoreau and American Literature · Religious Studies

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