July '10 Reading: Walden by Thoreau

[ladycolleen]

I've started reading - just a few pages in. It took me a bit to get used to his English. I must say that I am now looking at this in a different way than I did when I was a 60's hippie! He was so revered by that group. But now, as an older person with more life experience, I see it somewhat differently!

[Dark Muse]

I have to say I am loving this book more and more as I read, I have to say that I find myself in complete agreement with the points that he makes about so called "civilization."

I absolutely loved his thoughts about clothes, as I found much of his thoughts so true even today, people do spend why too much time worrying about what they wear and how they look and spending ridiculous amounts of money on thier clothes.

[L.M. The Third]

The last few days have been busy, so I must confess I'm only half way through the first chapter. . I'm finding it a good, thought-provoking, read.

I absolutely loved his thoughts about clothes, as I found much of his thoughts so true even today, people do spend why too much time worrying about what they wear and how they look and spending ridiculous amounts of money on thier clothes.

I fully agree. "As for clothing, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility... The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same."

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"To stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment..."

"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."

"It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof."

"The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."

There are more, but I'd better not type out the whole chapter!

[Dark Muse]

I am finding his economy to be absolutely fascinating, and so much of what he says is still so relevant to today's world in the way in which people do become a slave to their luxuries and spend so much money on things of which they do not truly need. I particularly found it rather provoking when he was speaking of housing, and comparing so called civilization with "savages" and the way in which in what can be viewed as more primitive societies it is true that no individual goes without shelter while in civilization leaves many people poorer than the "savage."

I also loved his thoughts on communication. How with developing a quicker means of communicating with each other people may find they have less to say, or less of any real meaning or importance. Those ideas can be applied to social networks popular today such as Facebook in which people do spend so much time putting out such meaningless information simply because they can or because they feel the need to do so sense the means is there, while the truly important things seem to be lost.

[L.M. The Third]

Speaking of man becoming the slave to his possessions, I've just been visiting an uncle who is a great collector of anything which he may get his hands on. He is a slave to his house and possessions, to the exclusion of a higher life. And yet, even among the more 'sophisticated' and 'intellectual', we see a slavery to the pursuit of possession, such as Thoreau speaks of.

And, DM, the Facebook reference is so very appropriate!

[L.M. The Third]

Does anyone know what are some of the ideas about the “hound, bay horse, and turtle dove” in chapter one?

“The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?”
All through chapter one, Thoreau is showing us the worthlessness, and even detrimental effect, of the things society often values most. Yet he discounts art and philanthropy as anything other than the fruits of what is in the heart. So, what do you think Thoreau believes is the “higher state” referred to in the following quote?

“We have built for this world a mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. … “

[Dark Muse]

Based upon his overall theories and ideas, and his remarks that if a man were to jump into the Nile and drown it would be more admirable than those who slave away to build the pyramids, and his comments that he would be more interested in meeting the people who did not work on making the buildings, I think that the higher state he speaks of would be one of man who was completely free.

A man who follows his own path and does finds his own way and is not dependent upon others for means of his survival, nor one who confines himself within his walls, of which he had no hand in making himself, and surrounds himself with countless necessary items.

He speaks about for him the truest and greatest education would come from the student that labored for himself and did not just drain others of money paying for his tuition, but more the idea of a student of life and experience who contributed something rather than costing others.

So I think the higher state would be that of man who lived for himself and of his own means and by the sweat of his own brow who was not replying upon others to support him. And someone who had a complete and intimate understanding of the cost of their living.

[The Comedian]

I've always loved Thoreau's humility and humor, in addition the wisdom and descriptive capabilities.

While rightly criticized sometimes for his boasting, his humility gets overlooked. Here's one of my favorite lines from early in "Economy":

Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me

.

I cannot tell you all how much I admire and try to live the metaphor of life as an experiment, a testing ground for ideas, experiences, and feelings. But what touches me about this line in relation to the whole book is that Thoreau sees his life as really not having been lived in this spirit -- that all those "people" he was/does rail against. . .well, he's one of them.

Or this simple, but elegant word play:

for my greatest skill has been to want but little

here "want" means both "to desire" and "to lack" -- and that he calls this a "skill" suggest that it's not an innate quality but one that must be worded for, but the payoff is big. . . or maybe small. . . .or maybe just peaceful.

[Dark Muse]

I've always loved Thoreau's humility and humor, in addition the wisdom and descriptive capabilities.

While rightly criticized sometimes for his boasting, his humility gets overlooked. Here's one of my favorite lines from early in "Economy":

There are times where he does strike me as being a bit contradictory between the things he says and does, but I do believe there is a point within the story in which he openly admits to the contradictions.

[The Comedian]

There are times where he does strike me as being a bit contradictory between the things he says and does, but I do believe there is a point within the story in which he openly admits to the contradictions.

He does contradict himself -- but, even in saying that, I think that when we use "contradict" to describe Thoreau at Walden, we are being inaccurate. He sees his life at Walden as an experiment at living simply. And as an experiment, he's not exactly sure what the results will be. If you look at his inventory lists, he'll note something to the extent of "all of these experiments failed".

I guess, to speak well of Thoreau, he's not going to Walden to live simply -- he's going there to see if he can discover what living simply is and what, if any, benefit it will have on his mind, spirit, body, and pen.

[Dark Muse]

I have to say he lost me a little bit in the chapter "Reading."

For one thing I did find that to be a particularly tedious chapter to read and I just fail to see where it fits into the rest of his theories which thus far have revolved around his ideas of simple living and his economy and his ideas about the way in which man is burdened by his civilization and dependent upon others, imprisoned by unnecessary items of luxury.

Speaking of being contradictory it seemed some of his ideas expressed in the "Reading" chapter were at odds with his what he had said in the previous chapter. In fact I even thought that in "Economy" he had made some critical mention about those who read instead of living life for themselves.

As well he had made some harsh attacks upon the world of Academia and standard education, and yet at the end of the chapter of "Reading" it seems almost he says just the opposite when he suggests the need for greater education.

[ladycolleen]

I am not very far into this yet, but one of the things that bothered me in Economy is how little value he seems to place on labor. He says, for instance, that some people have "no time to be anything but a machine."

I think of, perhaps, a carpenter who loves his work and expresses himself through his work. I find this carpenter's work to be of great value. It is labor, but not the labor of a "machine" at all.

Or of the homemaker who spends countless hours doing things like cooking, cleaning, etc., but who loves doing these things for her family. That work is not the work of a "machine," but of a woman loving her family and expressing this love through the work she does for them.

I guess he covers this when he speaks of his audience as being those "who are discontented" and not those "who are well employed." I assume the contented homemaker and carpenter would not be his audience. But, I still feel like he is devaluing labor.

[ladycolleen]

I am enjoying his humor. I didn't remember much humor from the first time I read it. For example:

"The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortable warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course a la mode." (Economy)

Or this one - from the section in Economy where he is mocking a farmer who says that you cannot live on vegetable food alone:

"...walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle."

[Dark Muse]

I am not very far into this yet, but one of the things that bothered me in Economy is how little value he seems to place on labor. He says, for instance, that some people have "no time to be anything but a machine."

I think of, perhaps, a carpenter who loves his work and expresses himself through his work. I find this carpenter's work to be of great value. It is labor, but not the labor of a "machine" at all.

Or of the homemaker who spends countless hours doing things like cooking, cleaning, etc., but who loves doing these things for her family. That work is not the work of a "machine," but of a woman loving her family and expressing this love through the work she does for them.

I guess he covers this when he speaks of his audience as being those "who are discontented" and not those "who are well employed." I assume the contented homemaker and carpenter would not be his audience. But, I still feel like he is devaluing labor.

The way I say it, when he speaks of labor he is thinking primarily of those who are slaving away simply to support the wealthy or to earn more money for themselves so that they themselves could then become chained to luxury items.

For example in speaking about labor he also spends a great deal of time talking about the Irish who worked upon the railroads, and those were not people who were working out of a labor of love, they were slaving away for underpay at work that often costs them their lives and they are doing it for a service in which when complete they themselves will not be able to enjoy because they won't be able to afford it.

He also talks of those that dedicate themselves to building houses, temples and tombs for the wealthy.

People who do not actually enjoy their own life but instead sacrifice themselves so others can have things of which they don't need.

He also talks about those that collect a bunch of extra stuff only than to become a slave to that stuff as when talks about having something just so that you must spend the rest of your life dusting if off, when you could have lived just as well without it. And when he refuses the mat someone offers him because he did not want than to have to take the time to always be cleaning it off once he had it.

[ladycolleen]

Dark Muse-

Thank you for your reply. And, I do agree with what you said. But, Thoreau also seems to have a bias against manual labor in general. For instance:

"Most men...are so occupied with...coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that." (Economy)

Man is capable of more than manual labor, but manual labor in itself can be a noble occupation.

It just bothered me to read these sentiments right at the beginning of this book.