The Obligation to Do What One Believes Right

answered by Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"

1849년 발표, 19세기 미국

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Les Misérables (1998)

dir. Bille August · USA·UK

A man who served long years for stealing a loaf of bread builds a new life under a new name. A man who pursues the letter of the law to the end clashes with him over two different definitions of justice.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Do I honor the voice of my own conscience as a higher law than the state or majority opinion?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

💡 TL;DR

Thoreau said that the only obligation a person has a right to assume is to do what one believes right.

📝The Classic Answers

Thoreau said that the only obligation a person has a right to assume is to do what one believes right. When a man hunted his whole life for one crime of desperation meets a man who has made obeying the law his entire life's purpose, which of the two is truly free? The one who, beyond the crime of a stolen loaf, chooses a new life lives not repaying a debt to the law but to his own conscience. Before assuming that following the rule alone makes me right, I first ask myself whether I have actually done what I truly believe is right.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If a moment comes today when you want to justify yourself merely by having followed the rule, ask again whether that rule truly matches what you believe is right.

📖 Classic Source: Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience". Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.