The passage provides support for which one of the following statements about the quotations in lines 52-55?
tori06kotoOctober 2, 2019
answer E?
sorry if this seems like a silly question but how can we rule out E? i was stuck between C (because of lines 45-49) and E and ended up choosing E because it's written that King notes these ideas about just and unjust laws- is that not a paraphrase about how he distinguishes the two?
thank you!
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A tricky part of this passage is tracking the relationships between Dr. King, Thoreau, and transcendentalism.
Thoreau wrote "Civil Disobedience," which was a transcendentalist work. (line 17) Outside of this, we don't know exactly to what degree Thoreau was involved with transcendental is. In fact, the passage implies that King would have agreed more with other, clearly transcendentalist thinkers.
"Civil Disobedience" was the only transcendentalist work with which King was familiar. (line 19)
King's writing suggest that, without realizing it, he was an incipient transcendentalist. (line 38) Why? because he subscribed to the concept of "higher law," which most transcendentalists did. (This is what will give us support for C. We don't even need to know what incipient means.)
Here is where we have to separate Thoreau from transcendentalism. The passage never provides Thoreau's position on just and unjust laws. There is nothing to paraphrase. All we know is that Thoreau never mounted a mass protest against unjust laws. The discussion of moral law from the last paragraph is a comparison of King and the earlier transcendentalists. Thoreau is not included, which is why we have support for C and not for E.
