A Different Perspective of Walden

[Ego]

Pond Scum
Henry David Thoreau’s moral myopia.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum


The real Thoreau was, in the fullest sense of the word, self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control, adamant that he required nothing beyond himself to understand and thrive in the world. From that inward fixation flowed a social and political vision that is deeply unsettling.

and

“Walden,” in consequence, is not a paean to living simply; it is a paean to living purely, with all the moral judgment that the word implies.

and

...he valued self-sufficiency for reasons that were simultaneously self-aggrandizing and suspicious: he did not believe that he needed anything from other people, and he did not trust other people to provide it.

and

Yet for a man who believed in governance solely by conscience, his own was frighteningly narrow. Thoreau had no understanding whatsoever of poverty and consistently romanticized it. (“Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor.”)

While I don't believe all of it, I have to admit that the article it made me think about Walden in a different light.

[theanimal]

This was painful to read. I read 2 different biographies of Thoreau this past year as well as some of his works. The author conveniently ignores many points/events from his life and cherry picks to fit her agenda. Thoreau was very well liked by almost everyone in Concord, especially by the youth that he taught for a number of years. In fact, most people introduced to Thoreau by Emerson came to like Thoreau much more than Emerson! A good portion of his adult life he was living either with part of his family or the Emersons. I don't know what she is talking about when she mentions he tries to abstain from companionship at Walden. Yes, he is living by himself, but he went into the town of Concord almost every day and had frequent visitors once he was there(Edit: I noticed she mentioned that at the end). He was critical of the culture, but that in no way means he wasn't an amiable fellow or well regarded by others. Jacob writes of similar topics and I can tell you that he's still a good guy! Her lack of research shows.

Thoreau led a deliberate life, where he tried to find ways to make himself a better person. It seems that this author feels the work is attacking because she chooses to live a more conventional lifestyle. Thoreau didn't like coffee, the news etc. etc. so he's the devil. Give me a break . If she came across our community, I'd expect a similar article.

[Dragline]

Now that's what I call a hatchet job. It makes me wonder what motivated the author to write it. I note that it would be just as easy to do hatchet jobs on Jefferson (done many times over) and Isaac Newton, that scurrilous alchemist and predictor of the apocalypse based on personal biblical interpretations.

But a lot of it is straw man argument. I would not characterize Thoreau as a "democratic hero" for instance. He was an individualist. I also thought the whole business about the shipwreck was way out of place and time. Unlike today, in that day people saw dead bodies very frequently, especially children who were dropping dead all the time.

On the other hand, this is probably why I prefer Emerson if I had to choose , due to E's generosity of spirit and willingness to support and promote the work of others.

[disparatum]

Does anyone else find it difficult to read this style of writing? I'm not sure what it is, but I can't help but start skimming, especially as the introduction stretches into six full paragraphs AND THEN proceeds into a mini biography before finally getting around to her argument. This seems to be my issue with most articles in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and so on. There seems to be so little substance. It actually reminds of an undergrad english paper--filler, filler, inline quote, two sentences of analysis, inline quote, pithy turn of phrase, filler, filler...Ugh.

You were probably looking for a response to the content, so sorry. I can agree that Thoreau comes off like a bit of a douche. I didn't know it was a revelation worthy of a 5500 word screed. I also prefer Emerson, and Whitman. Poetry is probably less accessible to most people. Maybe the author is disturbed by Thoreau's writing style as much as she is his beliefs? His matter-of-fact observations and the minute detail in which he describes his day are probably like nails on a chalkboard to her florid space-filling, why-use-1-word-when-I-can-use-15 ears.

[vexed87]

I'm reading Thoreau’s Walden for the first time at the moment, about half way through and its nothing less than inspiring, though I am already an individualist. I can see why collectivists might disagree with Thoreau's approach to life at Walden Pond though. Naturally everyone should live according to collectivists values and anyone who doesn't should be viewed with great suspicion!

That, or the article is clickbait for ad revenue!

[fiby41]

The article articulates my thoughts about the book better than I could have. However, the fact that he spent only two years or attempts to corroborate other personal details seem immaterial to me.

Disclaimer: I didn't complete the book in part because it read like a collection of random aphorisms thought when rambling meanderings, that ultimately lead nowhere.

[vexed87]

@filby, the meandering has been part of the charm for me, for a moment we get to live and explore another time and place.

[OldPro]

Thoreau was a man. As a man he had his good and bad points just as all of us do. You can concentrate on his good points and ignore his bad points if you are a 'believer' or you can concentrate on his bad points and ignore his good points if you are a 'disbeliever'. Neither has got it all right or all wrong.

Sometimes we tend to put people on a pedestal and then try to deny it when it turns out they are human. Or we see someone who has been put on a pedestal by others and then try to tear it down by proving they are human. There is nothing new in that at all.

I'm reminded of college kids who bring their laundry home to Mother. There they are on the way to discovering the cure for Cancer but they can't do their own laundry. LOL They're imperfect, what a surprise.

[IlliniDave]

That was one of the worst articles I've read (partially) in a long time. I am a big proponent of cabins and relative solitude and all, but never read Thoreau, and can't really defend him. Just seems pointless to me to squat and take a long dump on a book published some 160 years ago because its author did not cherish all the things that the modern writer apparently does. But I'm sure she felt better after exercising her own judgmental compulsions. It's almost like she took on the persona she accuses him of having in laying out her case.

[plantingourpennies]

Just seems pointless to me to squat and take a long dump on a book published some 160 years ago

The author is ultimately measured and paid in webclicks; it's in her best interest to write something that will get clicks, not something that is novel, or fair, or true. Her work may be all of those things (I just did a quick glance), but the clicks are the only thing that will put food on her table, heat in her home, etc. Attacking a canonized piece of literature is good for business; it creates a stir, means inbound links, gives all of us something to hash out on a web forum

List of other works at the bottom of her wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Schulz

[Ego]

It's funny, Steven Pinker recommended the article and I read it with the understanding that her real target was not so much Walden itself but the way people use Walden. It is a concern I share.

Each of us defines how we suck the marrow out of life. I have a friend who was influenced by Walden and decided that being away from others was a prerequisite for his marrow-sucking life. Things are not going well. I get the impression he is convinced that wanthing to be around others somehow taints his individualist cred and makes him weak, limp-wristed, dependent.

Sadly, his growing inability to deal with others has become his greatest weakness.

OldPro made the point that Thoreau was human and that part of being human is being flawed. We get to decided whether to put ourselves in situations that feed our flaws or diminish their influence over our lives. Other human beings can provide us with friction that can slowly grind down our flawed rough edges. Flee everyone and we lose that.

[Dragline]

More generally, I agree that one cannot attain happiness/fulfillment simply by following a set of forms, even those carefully chosen by oneself. (And then we get back to Emerson and his hobgoblins.) So many of these things also play into and from the culture of vanity that we swim in, and the perceived importance of "looking like" we are following certain forms, as if it the outward signs of "superior existence" are more important than the practical realities of it and how we really feel.

Your friend might have done well to read the introduction to Newport's "So Good They Can't Ignore You" (which is a pretty bad title for a good book):

"He had reached the zenith of his passion -- he could now properly call himself a Zen practitioner -- and yet he was not experiencing the undiluted peace and happiness that had populated his daydreams.

The reality was, nothing had changed. I was exactly the same person, with the same worries and anxieties. It was late on a Sunday afternoon when I came to this realization, and I just started crying."

[luxagraf]

Sometimes we tend to put people on a pedestal and then try to deny it when it turns out they are human. Or we see someone who has been put on a pedestal by others and then try to tear it down by proving they are human. There is nothing new in that at all.

Even worse these things move in predictable (and I think rather dull) cycles. Build up, tear down, build up, tear down, ad nauseum according more or less to prevailing cultural opinion. All without actually adding anything of substance to the world. Or as they used to call it, academia.

[Did]

I'm reminded of college kids who bring their laundry home to Mother. There they are on the way to discovering the cure for Cancer but they can't do their own laundry. LOL They're imperfect, what a surprise.

I'm fond of many Thoreau quotes, but the fact that the figure of self reliance returned home often so his mother could do his laundry during his 2 year sojourn is relevant. Basically he lived close to his mother in his friend's backyard while writing.

As was recently noted it is also claimed he died at 42 without ever having sex.

I do agree though that you should never get to close to your role models. It often ends badly.

[OldPro]

Let's face it, Thoreau was at best an eccentric and a worst a nut case. That he espoused a few ideas that resonate with some people doesn't mean he was a genius or anything else.

To gain a little distance from Thoreau who may engender strong responses from people here who connect him with their semi-religious beliefs in ERE, try looking at another person who is often quoted about something and often misinterpreted.

On travel forums, it is quite common for someone to quote Mark Twain who supposedly said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did" They use this quote to justify travel. As in, 'just quit your well paid job and go for it. You won't regret it if you do. Don't worry about your student loans you can deal with them starting next year.' You can see how this quote would appeal to someone who is tired of or hates their job; doesn't like having responsibilities, etc. Especially a younger person.

But they are taking it literally. The entire quote is, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

You can see why this quote gets related to travel. How they relate leaving the safe harbor to leaving their job etc. They interpret it the way they want to in order to suit themselves. But what was Twain really talking about? It wasn't travel. He was only using the nautical terms as a metaphor on how to live life in general. He was advocating taking risks in life, he wasn't advocating quitting your job to bum around Europe for a summer. If anything, if you relate what he was saying to work, he was advocating becoming an entrepreneur, taking the road less travelled (to borrow from yet another well known and often misinterpreted quote) by trying something a bit out of your comfort zone, not following the safe 9 to 5 employee voyage most people sail.

I doubt very much that Twain would have advised anyone to just go travel and don't worry about how you will pay your student loans, etc. I think quotes from Thoreau are often misused in much the same way. People interpret them the way that suits them, not necessarily in the way they were meant to be understood.

[GandK]

@Ego

Yep, that's a different perspective. And I disagree with it.

I see Thoreau as one of those people who put almost all of his temporal eggs in one basket. And yes, people who spend all their waking hours doing a single thing - even the thing they love best - pretty much always strike others as eccentric. Everyone wants to spend all their time doing what they love best, but since almost no one does that, how many can relate to such a person? Especially if the pursuit the person immerses themselves in is also out of the ordinary.

I do not see the "eccentricity" of a lifelong pursuit - even when taken to the point of lifelong virginity - as negative, unless Thoreau himself would have called it negative or it was somehow harming the people around him. A collectivist could probably make a case for the latter.

[Dragline]

Maybe he was just jealously guarding his "precious bodily fluids."

When I was a child, my mother made a hand-drawn poster with this quote on it and hung it up in my room, which I still have on a faded piece of construction paper:

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." -- Henry David Thoreau

I was a lucky kid. It was one of those seminal parent-child experiences that I have kept with me.

[luxagraf]

On travel forums, it is quite common for someone to quote Mark Twain who supposedly said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did"

As a fan of many things Twain actually did say, I feel the need to point out that he neither wrote, nor so far as anyone can tell, said that.

More on the source can be found here: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/29/you-did/

I doubt very much that Twain would have advised anyone to just go travel and don't worry about how you will pay your student loans, etc. I think quotes from Thoreau are often misused in much the same way. People interpret them the way that suits them, not necessarily in the way they were meant to be understood.

I'm curious how you arrived at the one true interpretation of (misquoted) Twain and Thoreau?

[OldPro]

Actually luxagraf I don't think anyone can ever know if they have arrived at the one true interpretation of what anyone else said. Quoting Twain or Thoreau is no different than someone telling you what a painter was trying to convey with a picture. What you actually get is the interpretation that the person looking at the picture got. The only person who could actually give you the intended meaning is the authors or artists themselves.

As for the pedantic point of whether Twain actually said or wrote that quote, "I feel the need to point out" that I wrote, "supposedly".

[luxagraf]

As for the pedantic point of whether Twain actually said or wrote that quote, "I feel the need to point out" that I wrote, "supposedly".

It's not pedantic to point out incorrect attributions. If the person is living that's grounds for libel suits. He didn't "supposedly" say anything of the sort. There's a thing it's called fact checking. As opposed to repeating second hand nonsense found on other forums. But rock on man, you seem to have it all sorted. Looking forward to the book.