Thoreau: A Man for All

Thoreau: A man for all ages

On the surface, it would seem as if the ideal world envisioned by Henry Thoreau in Walden could not be more different than our own. If the 19th century world of the railroad was too fast for Thoreau, how much more frightening and oppressive might a world of airplanes and automobiles seem to the Transcendentalist who preferred living in the woods? Thoreau's world was less densely populated, yet Thoreau ran to the countryside to escape the pressures of society and the city. Thoreau looked around and saw men hidebound and chained to social conventions and the occupations of their fathers. Today, 'social networking' is a verb, and even when reading in solitude online, we are talking to other people and are hyper-conscious of their opinions.

However, the 19th century industrialized world Thoreau was trying to escape idealized progress, while in the 21st century we have come to appreciate the value of simplicity and living close to the environment once again. Thoreau's world is still an impossible ideal, but our cultural aspirations may actually be closer to his ideas than the early liberal philosophers who feared what human beings would do, living in a state of nature. Even Thoreau could only fully realize his ideal for a few years on Walden Pond before returning to society, but even if we cannot live like we are in Walden in modern times, we can strive to keep Thoreau's spirit alive in our own era, by being true to our principles as nonconformists, and living simply and locally.

While he was living on Walden Pond, Thoreau tried to achieve a state of total self-sufficiency, away from civilization. He built his own home and grew his own food. Of course, today, we have a more dizzying array of products to buy than Thoreau could have dreamed. But many people are making their own gardens, 'eating locally' and striving to reduce their carbon footprint by riding bicycles, recycling, and questioning if many of the goods and commodities they have are really necessary. How much of what we wear with the 'right label' is bought just to please our neighbors? By asking such nonconformist questions, we are holding true to the spirit of Thoreau.

True, buying fewer things is not the same as moving to Walden. But questioning the need to obey social conventions is keeping with the ideals of Thoreau. The philosophers that had inspired Thoreau, such as John Locke and Rousseau saw the existence of man in a state of nature as essentially benign, but in contrast to Thoreau, not a desirable or a sustainable state. They believed social contracts were necessary for human beings to survive, to escape the concept of 'might' making right in a pure state of nature. This was why it was to some degree necessary to give careful consideration to the opinions of other people. Human beings retained their freedom and ability to sever the social contact with their sovereign, if it threatened their freedom -- but why not question the sovereignty of public opinion, Thoreau would counter, as well as political leadership? When we look within, rather than without, for our source of esteem, we are channeling once again the spirit of Thoreau.

Thoreau's idealism is also important to keep alive today, even if not perfectly realizable. Modern society according to Locke and Rousseau required a constant and inevitably balance between the ideal and the real. The ideal would be for human beings to be free, perfectly free, but this is not possible, Rousseau notes, given that a totally savage and free world means that the strongest person dominates the weaker people around him -- and the strongest will eventually establish a tyranny to serve his own aims, not the needs and rights of others. Locke also believed that a collective society was necessary to protect life, liberty, and property, and so long as ethical individuals enforced the system according to a rule of law, this was superior to a total state of nature. This form of collective protection often subtly threatened freedom, Thoreau believed, in a way that was just as damaging as political oppression, so he left for Walden to isolate himself from all of society.

Thoreau attempted to live an ideal, and to make his life meaningful, not living a slave to conventions and sacrificing his liberties to be part of a society. Thoreau took a more benign view of the individual than either Locke or Rousseau, and a more dim view of the human collective. The persistence of slavery, of people working at occupations they despised, and other negative aspects of the social contract chafed against Thoreau's sensibility of what was right and good about being alive. Thoreau wished to escape what he and other human beings sacrificed to be part of society. While Rousseau and Locke might argue that the benefits of society, particularly one with differentiated systems of labor, was that it freed individuals to create some civilization and culture, Thoreau saw these superfluities beyond what was necessary for survival as absurd, more to please others than to please the self.