Solving Controversy Through Rationality

When it comes to the concept of civil rights, the widely agreed upon gold standard works of the literature on the topic are Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” as well as Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” While these two works were written over a full century apart from each other, both writers share the common theme in their work of appealing to the reader’s sense of logic to communicate their message. King takes on a much more literal method of proving his own logic throughout his writing, targeting the clergymen that the letter was addressed to by raising questions about their faith. Thoreau, however, chooses to establish his credibility on the subject through the use of a variety of hypothetical examples. He does so in order to gain credibility in the eyes of the audience by actively engaging the reader’s ability to apply and compare parallels from the examples that he uses. Even though the methods used by each author respectively differ in a variety of ways, both King and Thoreau compellingly deliver their greatly controversial messages of change with authority and rationality.