Thoreau as a Lone Crazy

Murray Rothbard used the "lone crazy" theory to describe the individual who comes out of nowhere and dramatically alters the course of history; perhaps he assassinates a president. The lone crazy could also be an event, such as 9/11. Its essence is surprise, improbability and its transformative nature. 

The essay "On Civil Disobedience" (1849) by Henry David Thoreau is the literary equivalent of a lone crazy. It recounts his one-night imprisonment for refusing to pay a tax that would have financed the oppression of other human beings – specifically, slaves. It was one man's statement of "no, I will not participate in evil." The essay should not have occasioned a second glance. And, yet, its impact reaches across centuries to the present day. It crossed cultures to change the thinking of such pivotal figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Why?

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