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Shallow Thoughts on Walden Pond
A Ricochet member I used to respect recently posted a “Quote of the Day” from [trigger warning] Henry David Thoreau. Goodness. After my Friday bourbon, I realized that all of you out there were just dying to know what I think of Mr. Thoreau. Since you asked so nicely, I’ll share my thoughts on this fascinating historical figure Mr. Thoreau.
I used to loathe Henry David Thoreau. Well, that’s a bit strong. Let’s just say that he inspired in me a passionate apathy for his writings. That sort of makes sense, because what makes Thoreau so fascinating to me is that he is so remarkably uninteresting. I suppose it’s somewhat interesting that an uninteresting man would be inspired to compile his uninteresting thoughts into uninteresting books. Reading Thoreau is like looking at Instagram pictures of someone’s lunch. You don’t wonder how the lunch tasted, you just wonder why that person thought that you might be interested in pictures of their lunch. This is pretty much how Mr. Thoreau’s writing was received in his day. His fans proudly say that he never made a penny in royalties from his writing (His fans tend to be the type who measure the success of an individual by their lack of success.). Although his critics point out that it was not from lack of trying – he had huge piles of unsold copies of On Walden Pond in his famous cabin. His contemporaries apparently viewed his books the same way I view Instagram pictures of lunches. They rolled their eyes and moved on.
Modern audiences, however, view Thoreau as brilliant and insightful. This says more about modern audiences than it does about Thoreau. I suspect that most modern fans of Thoreau have something in common with fans of Karl Marx: They’ve never actually read the books that they claim to admire. Many modern leftists cite him as a forefather of modern progressivism. This also says more about modern progressives than it does Thoreau. I think their enthusiasm for Thoreau would be tempered if they ever read his work. To paraphrase the famous literary critic Inigo Montoya, I don’t think it means what they think it means.
I’ll start by acknowledging that quoting Thoreau is a perilous business because he wrote a lot and frequently contradicts himself. Most of his writing involves him using lots and lots of words to say very little. If you look hard enough, you can find him saying all sorts of things.
But making an honest effort to pull quotes which fairly represent his views, you come up with things like, “That government is best which governs not at all” from his book Civil Disobedience. Those of us who take a dim view of human nature might fear that such calls for anarchy would quickly lead to societal breakdown, and Mr. Thoreau quickly acknowledges, “…when men are prepared for it, that is the type of government which they will have.” Some consider this to be deep thinking. I think it is hogwash. Obvious, blatant, undiluted hogwash.
Does he really believe in anarchy? What about a system of justice? Defense from foreign invaders? Roads, schools, contract law? The tragedy of the commons? How do we make decisions as a people? This obviously won’t work. This is obvious to everyone, including Thoreau.
But rather than acknowledging that what he just wrote doesn’t make any sense, or, better yet, not writing such hogwash to begin with, he dismissively says, “…when men are prepared for it, that is the type of government which they will have.” So his ideas are good, but all of us are inadequate. It’s not that his ideas are stupid, it’s that men are not prepared for brilliant insights of our betters. Like Mr. Thoreau.
Ok, Henry David, when do you think the great unwashed will be ready for your brilliance? When will men be prepared to govern their affairs without government? And how, exactly, do you see this coming about? You expect that when men are ready, they will elect leaders who have no interest in money or power, and will not seek to exert the power of government? Or perhaps we just kill them all? And then whoever is powerful enough to lead this revolution will not seek power himself?
Is Thoreau reading what he writes? Surely not. So why do sociology majors read it?
That’s my point. I don’t think they do. They keep the book on their shelf, in an obvious spot where guests will see it, to signal their virtue. I do similar things with pictures of my kids, but not with books that don’t make any sense.
Now, to cut Thoreau just a little bit of slack, he wrote this endorsement of anarchy soon after he was jailed for not paying his taxes. He was released the next day when his aunt paid his taxes on his behalf (his family had money). So you can understand him questioning the role of government in our lives. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he bangs his spoon on his high chair and writes non-sensical hogwash.
So I suppose maybe modern leftists really do read his work. The New York Times would hire him right now. He’s right up their alley.
Except he’s probably not.
He wrote about the benefits of a vegetarian diet but enjoyed a more balanced diet himself. He complained about the power of wealthy families but benefited greatly from his family’s wealth. Many modern leftists presume that he was homosexual, but he probably wasn’t (It’s hard to say after all this time. But those who care about such things often project current trends on his admittedly vague writing.). He was also a life long abolitionist, which in the 1850s-1860s, meant that he must have been a Republican. Which, in modern times, means he’s either stupid or evil or both. But the left reveres him.
His life was not exactly spent taking on nature on its own, uncompromising terms. He didn’t go to Alaska to pan for gold, depending only on his savvy and resourcefulness to survive alone in the wilderness. No, he spent two years in a cabin on property that was owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. His cabin was a mile from Emerson’s house, and a short walk from his mother’s house on Main Street in Concord, MA. His mother cooked his meals and did his laundry, and he lived off the generosity of Emerson and profits from his family’s pencil factory.
This is not a criticism. It sounds like a nice way to spend a couple of years. But I think those who view him as a rugged survivalist or a hermit who separated himself from the comforts of modern society are a bit off base.
These and other contradictions lead some to call Mr. Thoreau a hypocrite. Not me. First of all, if you write silly things, any time that you make a practical decision in your life it may appear hypocritical. I will just call it practical. Also, I suspect that Mr. Thoreau and I would enjoy one another’s company. We share an interest in nature, and science, and our place in the world. He doesn’t share my interest in earning a living, but if I came from a wealthy family and could figure out how to avoid honest labor, I might be inclined to do so. All those who wander are not lost. I think he had things figured out, and he acted shrewdly. He found a way to do whatever he wanted to do. Good for him.
But how Thoreau inspires movements like environmentalism or the anti-establishment hippy movement, I really don’t understand. I just don’t see Thoreau as particularly interesting. If he were alive today, he’d spend his mornings blogging on a MacBook Air at the local Starbucks, his afternoons sipping IPA’s at a trendy downtown pub with guys with beards and hand-me-down Volvos, and his evenings playing video games in his mother’s basement. And his modern mother would probably be muttering stuff about jobs and apartments, just like his 1800’s mother probably did.
So he wrote books not because he was a deep thinker, but only because his mother did not have video games in her basement. One single Play Station in 1845 could have made life better for kids in high school American Lit classes for generations.
If this guy is an inspiration for modern leftists, then that explains a lot. About modern leftists.
They want to be seen as passionate and intellectual. But they’re just lazy and uninteresting.
Modern leftists, from Gary Hart, to Barack Obama, to Beto O’Rourke, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, claim to be inspired by Henry David Thoreau. They’re not being arrogant. They’re being honest.
Pathetic, but honest.
Published in General
Ha, ha, ha. Delightful.
Thank you for reading Thoreau so I don’t have to.
I may have to steal this.
So basically: Huge Thoreau fan, but willing to admit he wasn’t perfect?
If I can just stand up for the “little man” who’s being bullied, here:
When you knock down “just one” Greek philosopher, or “just one” French impressionist painter, Greece or France keeps its balance and recovers immediately. They have a deep bench. But I hope you weren’t knocking down “just one” American thinker. That would be like Andorra getting to the Championship League semi-finals, and you taking out their leading striker down with a vicious tackle from behind.
Great post. One of the best I’ve seen on Ricochet.
That said, I was fed the Thoreau-as-anarchist when I was in high school, and I threw him and his thinking out my window, where it stayed until I edited a book on the Civil War about twenty years ago and I gained a new appreciation for the role of the abolitionists in working against slavery. What I discovered at that time was that all of Thoreau’s anti-government screeds were directed at slavery and the Mexican War, which he also opposed. Civil Disobedience got its second wind during the Nuremberg trials.
Taken in that context, I developed a new interest in his writings. :-)
Also, he wrote a terrific book about walking the length of the Cape Cod peninsula. His verbal portraits of the people he met here made him Public Enemy Number 1 here for years, and no one would sell his books on Cape Cod. Today Cape Codders find the book funny, charming, and somewhat true. :-) A Cape Codder wrote a modern sequel In the Footsteps of Thoreau, and a banker friend of mine spent six months actually replicating the walk to raise money for a Pathways project on Cape Cod that I much admire.
I loved your post. I understand completely your objections.
If it helps, there’s a town in New Mexico namrd “Thoreau”.
Founded before radio and sound movies, it’s pronounced “THA-roo”.
Much like how Bette Midler is named for Bette Davis, but her mother only read Ms. Davis’ name in the credits, so she pronounced the first name incorrectly.
My wife’s attitude to Thoreau matched yours, although she had a passionate antipathy for his writings. She often sneered Thoreau would have starved had it not been for Mrs. Emerson regularly bringing fresh-baked bread and pies to Thoreau’s cabin.
For those interested a cardstock model of Thoreau’s cabin can be purchased here. (I got mine free from Chip Fyn, who designed it.)
Well, Doc, you’ve hit another one out of the park as far as I’m concerned. I agree with your assessment.
Since I was forced to read Thoreau (and about him) in high school, I have thought of him, when circumstances required it, as an uninteresting, self-centered free-loader.
I once had an employee who was constantly preaching about the brilliance of Thoreau and his way of life. He lived on an island in the Columbia River, where his wife and children suffered in hardship and want while he prided himself in living life “on a higher moral plane.”
As you say, hogwash!
I just looked at the number of likes on this post.
My apologies to my fellow Ricochetti. I was trying find a quote about spring that I thought people would enjoy. If I had known how much people dislike him, I wouldn’t done this.
Walden Pond isn’t deep?
I was kidding, of course. My respect for you, and to a lesser extent, for Mr. Thoreau, became the gag.
You are right, of course, Thoreau made some interesting points.
I argue only that any movement that cites him as an inspiration should stop and think about that for a moment.
When I say, “I used to loathe Henry David Thoreau,” I mean that I loathe him less now.
Those who have read my drunken ramblings might expect that I have become more tolerant of the literary efforts of the untalented since I have started blogging.
So now I don’t criticize Mr. Thoreau, or even those who appreciate his descriptions of spring weather. He’s just trying to sound smarter than he is, like me.
I criticize those who attempt to find meaning in his ramblings. If your world view is shaped by some guy who pursued deep thoughts so shallowly, that’s your problem, not his.
I was just giving you a hard time, @Marcin. I would not have done that if I didn’t respect you.
It actually is quite deep. If memory serves, it’s a glacial pot hole, over 100 feet deep.
It’s Mr. Thoreau’s interpretation which lacks depth.
Or possibly mine. I’ll let you be the judge.
I knew he got high!
He was too wordy, which is why college students used to just read the title, ‘Civil Disobedience’; more recently they ignore the penultimate word so that they can cut to the chase.
You had me at “…passionate apathy…” Brilliant.
This is a really nice post.
I have, to my concern, gone swimming in Walden Pond as a young ‘un. That might have turned me into a Thoreau-esque progressive had we not only also gone there to sneak cigarettes.
Between you and Marci, I’m almost inspired to read what he wrote. However, I have too many histories lined up to read, so it’s doubtful I will get around to it. I will admit that I’ve always been put off by the people who claim to be inspired by him. For a while when I was young I wanted to be a hermit in the north woods, and find it hard to imagine now how that idea was attractive to me. I did go off on some back country hiking and camping treks by myself in winters in those days. I knew about Thoreau, but certainly didn’t get it from him.
I would think you and Thoreau would be kindred spirits with your wonderful bike rides around the country. :-)
I have always felt exactly the same way about Thoreau. Thanks for expressing this. He’s a bore and his writings are facile.
I was pretty bored with Thoreau in literature class, because I found literature in general boring, but it piqued my interest when I found him on a short list of historical anarcho-capitalists. If the left found that out, I doubt they’d find him as endearing.
I had to suffer through not just Thoreau, but the gawdawful The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail, a trippy dreamscape of a play that… well, best not to dredge up any more memories of it. Blech. Suffice it to say, it was a hagiography.
This reminds me of this “classic” from Mark Twain:
From spending several months working in close proximity to an “Occupy” encampment, I’d say they had a lot in common. They used state buildings to warm up, relieve themselves, and wash. The latter resulted in many debates amongst the staff economists regarding the extent that the disutility resulting from occupiers washing in the restrooms offset the disutility from unwashed occupiers being in the building.
When they were finally evicted, a 10-foot chain link fence was constructed to keep them from coming back. The highlight of that summer, and symbol of the whole ordeal, was the single 12-foot hemp plant growing in the center of the enclosure.
I don’t know a thing about Henry David Thoreau other than his name. I don’t recall ever having read a single work by him, even in school, as I am not inclined to read poetry. But I loved this post!!
I grew up reading books about Art, Artists, and Art History. Something that has always bothered me about virtually all the writing about artists, both Old Masters and Modern “Masters”, is that no one ever dared to criticize these guys one bit. They are always held up on some Olympian plane and it is assumed that every brushstroke they laid down was of magical brilliance. But I could tell huge differences in quality of art and in my arrogance I even knew that I could paint better than some of these guys.
So I find it refreshing to see someone challenging the orthodoxy of a great literary icon with an honest appraisal. I don’t know if the literary world has a similar problem with predictable fawning praise like the art world did, at least up until the time that Al Gore invented the Internet. Nowadays, I can see all sorts of opinions online.
@drbastiat, I may not know Thoreau, but your writing is terrific!
Best post in ricochet ever.
You’ve got to be kidding me!
This? This is hilarious.
Doc, applause for the beautiful writing in your post!
Also, I enjoyed that line “One single Play Station in 1845 could have made life better for kids in high school American Lit classes for generations.”
Bravo!
Thanks everyone for the very nice comments:
And I think we also all owe a big thank you to Steven Seward for keeping it real:
My wife will enjoy that comment more than all the others.
And just for the record, I agree with Steven’s assessment.
I really do appreciate all your kind words. Since I make just as much money for my writing as Thoreau did, it’s that positive reinforcement that keeps me banging away at my laptop.
It’s too bad we’re only allowed one “Like” per post. There should be a “multiplicity” button for some OPs.