Thoreau alone has disturbed the civilized world

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau graduated from Harvard University, read a lot, enjoyed the fruits of spiritual civilization, believed in God in his way, also appreciated the wisdom of the ancient East, and had close ties with some of the most prominent American intellectuals of his time, especially transcendentalists such as Emerson.

Thoreau was a unique person, a rare category in this civilized society. Of course, precisely because of his rarity, he was able to attract many people in this society, and even though it was difficult for people to live exactly as he did, there was at least a comfort in knowing that there were people in the world who were living another kind of life, and their own occasional inner impulses were not so lonely.

He is an alienator from the civilized world, but this is also just the right place for an introspective person. When modern civilization was unfolding with the thundering force of the industrial revolution, precisely in the United States, the place that seemed most suitable and most in need of this revolution, he took the lead in a profound reflection on this modern civilization: on the "alienation" of people by civilization and technological tools, on the need for civilization to be "wilderness", on the need for civilized people to be "wilderness". wilderness", the need for civilized people to be "wild", and "civil disobedience", all of which he pioneered in the early 19th century.

Thoreau was not only observant and reflective, he acted and lived the way he liked. He did not accumulate any property and was not even resistant to a fixed occupation, preferring short jobs like land surveying as the most independent and uninhibited way to earn a living. These short jobs of his would have been in nature, but that was not enough, he also wanted to save more time by living an extremely simple life, wandering among the wilderness, mountains and lakes. He was able to spend the most time at leisure because he had few needs.

Thoreau was a perpetual stroller, and he felt his mind and body would rust if he could not spend at least four hours a day walking through the woods and over the mountains, away from all the world's cares. He can easily walk twenty miles a day, so that a ten-mile radius of natural scenery and its subtle changes in the seasons are in his heart. He also walked from time to time before sunrise and at midnight when everyone was sound asleep, so that he could feel more things. He liked not only to hear, see and touch, but also to smell. He lamented how the apples delivered to the market could have the same fragrance as on the tree, and he first smelled them and then picked them to taste them, when even the wild apples were extraordinarily fragrant.

He developed his acute sensibility for earth, sky, animals, and plants to an astonishing degree. In the dozens of volumes of his diary, which he began writing at the age of twenty, he wrote about seeds, about wild fruits, about the seasons, about certain plants and animals, about a certain morning, a certain night in the moonlight, all of which were later collected into a book. His writing was not scientific or naturalistic, not a quest for knowledge. Or rather, his observations of nature were not task-oriented, but rather he valued the subtle and emotional feelings of the scenery and the reflections that they evoked.

During his lifetime, Thoreau published "A Week on the Lake" and "Walden Lake", both of which did not sell well at the time. The handwriting of his manuscripts and diaries is hard to read, which is probably similar to some of his ideas. He was not considered a writer who cared about social politics, although he wrote the famous "On Civil Disobedience". Nor was he an obsessive hermit who went to Walden Lake, in fact, only to attend to some personal matters of his own. He wanted to examine his own life and explore whether there was another, more austere way; he built his own house and planted his own land, wanting to experience how much stuff and labor one needs to survive. He loves nature, but it may be a bit strange to say that he is a "friend of nature", because he believes that he is first and foremost a natural, not a social being. In other words, he was in the midst of nature.

Lake Walden

Lake Walden

But Thoreau was, after all, in nature as a man. The fact that he lived alone in Walden Lake for more than two years also aroused a lot of speculations and heated debates. So, he said he would write about his life there and why he did so. Who were the readers Thoreau had in mind? He said he certainly wasn't writing to those who were ambitious and determined enough to go straight to the cause, or to those who could live comfortably in any situation, or even to those who, like himself, had figured out how to live; but to those who felt uneasy and dissatisfied themselves and wanted to improve their lives. His criticism is fierce, but his attitude is always gentle. He believes that many people are actually living in silent despair, but he does not ask for, much less force, people to radically change their existing lives. He simply described his own life truthfully and spoke his mind.

Thoreau gained insight into the main problem of modern people, that is, their desire, the desire to pursue happiness consisting mainly of material wealth. This material desire has swept through most of modern society and is the main driving force behind the rapid development of modern civilization, but has this desire become excessive? Thoreau said that everywhere he saw people engaged in thousands of amazing kinds of drudgery as if they were atoning for their sins. They were crawling along the path of life, pushing a large barn in front of them, and hundreds of acres of land. And those who did not inherit property, also lived in condescension and toiled desperately for the sake of their flesh and blood, and perhaps the humble desire to obtain a little property. They are full of endless worries and busy with endless rough work, but they cannot gather the beautiful fruits of life in time. They pay a debt today, and another tomorrow, until they die.

Therefore, Thoreau intends to think about what many people worry about, how much they must worry about, what the necessities of life are in general, and how to get them. Thoreau also recognized that material desires are necessary for human survival, but he wanted to examine the other end of the abundant, sophisticated and complex life, that is, a simple and self-sufficient life, to understand how simple life can be to what extent people can survive, what kind of supplies are needed for people to live quite well.

Of course, food is the first need. The next thing might be a sheltered place, a house for people to live in. And clothes. In Thoreau's view, all of these can be boiled down to the fact that people must have a constant source of a certain amount of heat or energy to survive. And food is actually a lot less difficult to come by; dwellings and clothes can also be used for a long time without having to be so big and so much. Based on his experience of living alone in Walden Lake, he said that a few metal tools were enough for man to create the necessary materials for life, and for those who like culture, perhaps a few books. In Thoreau's view, modern man has put himself in a baked situation in the pursuit of as much heat as possible.

Someone might immediately retort: A different standard of living! Do you want us to go back to the simple life of the savage? The barbarians certainly had wooden veneer tipis that could easily be built, but in terms of comfort and convenience, they cannot be compared with the houses of modern civilized society. Thoreau admitted that "civilization is a real improvement in the condition of man's life," which is true, but he also believed that, for example, in a large city where civilization is particularly developed, only a small percentage of people own homes, and most people have to pay to rent or take out a loan to buy a house. In other words, he has to take out a part of his life and either pay immediately or pay later. Civilization has devised for itself a system that is supposed to make the life of the race perfect, but at the great expense of the individual. That is, specifically for the individual, the sacrifice and price we pay for it may be too great. People thus fall into the trap. When he possesses the house, the house possesses him. It is not the man who is herding the cattle, but simply the cattle who are herding the man. It is not man who rides the cart, but the cart who rides the man. Man has become the instrument of their instrument.

Thoreau does not completely deny the contribution of those inventions and industries that facilitate human beings; he thinks they are also still acceptable. But the problem is that these materials, which could have been a blessing to our civilization, have become a drag if human relations and lifestyles are properly regulated. And, isn't there a spiritual activity and cultivation that needs to be considered as well? While civilization improves the house, it cannot naturally and simultaneously improve and elevate the people who inhabit it spiritually. They should have risen to a higher life, but they did not, but continued to pursue more and better - still material. Therefore, when people hail progress, when they praise all kinds of modern and progressive facilities, do not become disillusioned with them, because there is not always positive progress, and especially progress is not just material progress. Thoreau celebrated the spiritual component of civilization, especially the classical spiritual civilization. The ruins of those palaces and tombs in the East, he argues, may not be more admirable than a volume of ancient scripture; most of the stones hammered down by a nation are used for its tombs - it buries itself alive. The problem with overpowering materialism is that man works not only for the beast within him, but also for the livestock outside him. Knowing only material desires makes man not much different from an animal. And it is by getting rid of materialistic desires and reducing human interactions that Thoreau feels independent and free.

But isn't that too selfish? Why not make a greater contribution to society for the benefit of others? Thoreau admitted that he rarely engaged in philanthropy. He said he had a sense of duty to himself that caused him to forgo many pleasures, including charity. But he believed that charity, like any other endeavor, must be a natural talent, just as he said that "ramblers" are born. He also hated it when people did good deeds to him. It seemed to him that the man who spent the most time and money on the poor might be the one who was causing the most poverty and misery with his way of life, and who was now working in vain to save it. He said that he asked only for fairness, and that all life and work for the benefit of mankind should be treated equally. More than caring for the poor, of whom there were not many by his own standard of living, he said he wanted the flowers and fruits of men, he wanted to look upward, and to receive the fragrance of transmission in mutual communion with them. Of course, he also always admonished himself to be generous in giving, but he just didn't want to make it a career for himself. He wanted to restore mankind in a plant, magnetic or natural way: first some people living a simple and peaceful life might become a model.

The ruins of Thoreau's cabin on the shores of Lake Walden

The ruins of Thoreau's cabin on Lake Walden

Thoreau was largely unconcerned with politics, which he found to be too narrow a field compared to nature, as he took his daily walks in the vast mountainous countryside. But he was not a man who was completely indifferent to political society. He just wanted to have as little dealings with political society as possible. That doesn't mean he doesn't have his own political views. He says he heartily endorses the axiom: "The less government that governs, the better government it is." He would very much like to see that phrase implemented more quickly and systematically until a result is reached that is approximately like this, "The government that does nothing is the best government." He believes that it is the natural American character that has created all the achievements Americans have now, and that they would have done better without government interference. At best, government is some sort of expedient that can bring convenience, but most of the time it brings inconvenience. Thoreau, however, said he was not entirely in favor of anarchy, and that he was more in favor of a good small government than anarchy. This good government does not necessarily mean a democratic government either. In his view, most of the many forms of government that are administered are also in many cases unjust, even beyond understanding. The justification of a matter should not have been determined solely by the will of the strong majority, but by morality. He believed that "the group has no morality" is apt, unless the group is led by moral people, then the group has morality. Even Jefferson, the father of American democracy, had similar ideas, and he was actually in favor of an aristocracy, not of blood, but of virtue and talent. Still, Thoreau recognized the progression from absolute monarchy to restricted monarchy to democracy as a respect for human beings. He also believed that, from a lower perspective, the American Constitution was good enough, although it still had many problems; and that both the laws and the courts were respectable; it was only from a higher or highest standard that this counted for little. For Thoreau's view of the fundamental nature of government is that it is just something we have to accept. No government can really be too good; it cannot satisfy all of our desires, especially the highest ones.

Of course government can't be too bad either. Thoreau's two clear objections to government policy at the time were against slaveholding and the invasion of Mexico. He believed that if the government did not do this, we might as well dissolve our relationship with the government ourselves, and officials could consider resigning, while ordinary people could consider not paying certain taxes. This is "civil disobedience", or "civil disobedience", "peaceful revolution". Thus, Thoreau refused to pay the government's poll tax for six years, until he was arrested one day. He did not refuse to pay all taxes or public charges; he also paid for road repairs and did not refuse to pay taxes for education. But he did not consider starting and organizing a social movement, such as a tax protest movement, and not paying taxes was just his personal business. He says he resists taxes also because he can't wait for the government's proposed solutions to fix mistakes, solutions that will take too long, and he has other things to do. He was always rather lukewarm about political participation, and he never ran for election. He wanted to stay as far away from the government as possible, and had no desire to conceive and build an ideal political system, or rather, his ideal government was to be as small and uninvolved as possible. He reads a travel writer who says this, that thoreau monks keep coming to tell himself that such a time will come when there will be no difference between rich and poor, between noble and poor, and that property and even wives and children will be confiscated. In response, Thoreau said he would always have to ask the question, "What comes next?" "Would you like to see it come soon?" Thoreau was not conservative; like Emerson, he advocated innovation, but this was mainly in his personal life, especially in his spiritual life.

It was nature that Thoreau could not get out of his mind. He believed that civilization already had enough defenders, and he wanted to do justice to nature by saying that we should see human beings as inhabitants of nature, or as an integral part of nature, rather than as members of society. He saw a major trend in the West in recent times, which was to keep moving westward and westward, first across the Atlantic and then continuing westward in the New World. In his view, whole countries are moving westward, and the course of humanity can almost be said to be moving from east to west as well. If we follow our understanding, we can actually say that the East is also going west, and not only geographically, but also institutionally and conceptually.