Thoreau still speaks to buried teen in all of us

Kennebec Journal ^ | 5/6/12 | Michael T. Dolan

[SampleMan]

Yes, I read Walden. And I’ll never get that time back. The mind of a navel gazing rich boy is best left unexplored.

Thoreau a genius? Please.

[SampleMan]

Thoreau had a great sense of humor about what he was doing and didn’t try to imbue it with any false grandeur.

Taking time out of life to write a book about the wonders of living in a cabin, is about as imbued with false grandeur as one can get.

Had Thoreau taken on adult responsibilities, his incites would have been far more impactful. But then he would have realized that most everyone already understood those incites, making a book unnecessary.

It is most interesting that Thoreau had his naturalist epiphanies, while most of America still earned a living working under the sun on farms all day.

[what's up]

Civil disobedience is an American tradition (that Thoreau codified). There is nothing wrong with it

All depends on what you're being disobedient about.

I'm not sure Thoreau causes were noble.

[Borges]

You didn’t find it funny at all? It’s filled with jokes. Thoreau was a literary genius every step of the way - just reading his prose is a delight.

[Borges]

The point is that you don’t have to agree with his cause. I didn’t agree with Muhammad Ali’s cause (refusing to be drafted) but it was still deserving of respect.

[what's up]

So you think you should respect all views all the time?

[SampleMan]

Sometimes I’m too put off by the premise to enjoy the style.

Very smart and witty folk can still be horribly self-absorbed and naive.

[Borges]

Of course not. These are cases where the cause in question is entirely personal.

[what's up]

These are cases where the cause in question is entirely personal.

Not sure what you mean by that. When Thoreau go published his cause ceased to be personal.

[Scoutmaster]

Although I enjoy Thoreau's writings, I've never truly viewed him as going 'to the woods.' He was on the outskirts of Concord, able to stroll into town when he wanted to do so.

In 1846, Thoreau visited Katahdin in Maine. True wilderness and woods. He didn't view it in the same light as his little cabin in the sunshine outside of Concord. He called it "grim and wild," "savage and dreary," fit only for "men nearer of kin to the rocks and wild animals than we."

Thoreau biographers Geral T. Blanchard and Roderick Nash say Thoreau was nearly hysterical from his experience with true wilderness.

Methinks I take pre-teen Scouts to places that would unnerve that man of the wilderness, Henry David Thoreau.

[Borges]

Thoreau wasn’t self absorbed. He’s quite self deprecating. You’re confusing him with his environmentalist descendants.

[Borges]

Thoreau’s short essay was published in 1849 and understood to refer to opposing slavery. It was only after his death that it started to be reprinted and quoted for just about every cause you could think of.

[tet68]

If there is a teenager still buried in me, that wasn’t
killed by Vietnam, failed marriage, drugs, alcohol, or
too many years of democrat domination, he better
get the hell out while he still can.

[Borges]

In Walden, Thoreau makes very clear that ‘civilization’ is nearby. He made no claims about living in the wilderness.

[Borges]

He didn’t make any grandiose claims for it nor did he claim that everyone should do it. It was a personal recollection that has been philosophically and ideologically magnified after his death.

[what's up]

Thoreau wrote for publication. (Walden in 1854). He also gave lectures.

He was quite influential in the transcendental community and was not just an isolated, solitary figure.

[Borges]

The point is that his cause was not unjust and the philosophical precepts attributed to him are mostly false. I didn’t know you’re taking issue with the entire American transcendental movement. Do you also dislike Emerson, Margaret Fuller and Bronson Alcott? Hawthorne was also tangentially involved.

[SamAdams76]

I live not too far from Concord, MA and get a kick out of all the trendy yuppies that flock to Walden Pond to "experience" the outdoors as Thoreau once did. Every weekend when the weather is nice, the Walden Pond parking lots overflow with Volvos and Volkswagons and the yuppies come climbing out of them in their Abercrombie & Fitch clothing, pulling their spanking new stylish-looking backpacks and hiking shoes out of the trunks that they just purchased at North Face or L.L. Beans.

After making much fuss over adjusting and re-adjusting their packs, they grab their water bottles and embark on their mile and a half "hike", along with thousands of others, on the well-worn stone-dust trails surrounding the "replica" of Thoreau's one-room cabin. Then it's back to the cars to dump the still brand-new backpacks (destined for eBay) and head to the various gift shops and bookstores where they spend hundreds of dollars on knick-knacks to show their friends back home that yes, they made the obligatory pilgrimage to Walden Pond. Then they slap the $6.95 Walden Pond decal on the back of their vehicles, in between OBX (Outer Banks) and MV (Martha's Vineyard), and head back to their city condos and brownstones where they cap off the day with a meal in the North End or maybe over in Cambridge.

Personally, I think Thoreau would be horrified to see the way his pond has been turned into a yuppified ticky-tacky tourist trap.

Now if you want to have a real "Thoreau" experience in the Concord/Carlisle area, there are dozens of great trails in this area that Thoreau walked that are all but forgotten about. One of my favorites is the 10-rod trail that runs from just off Route 4 in Carlisle to the Harvard-owned Estabrook Woods in Concord. I take my dog walking there all the time and I hardly see anybody out there because it's not "touristy" and there is real hiking involved.

[Publius]

Bravo! Worthy of Steyn or O’Rourke.

[Borges]

Very well said.