Walden
05/10/2020
My Conflict, and Resolution, with Thoreau
”A new, unprofaned part of the universe”
-Henry David Thoreau
I have been reading Walden for the past 3 weeks now, and have discovered that Thoreau, although I disagree with much of what he has to say, was a man who was ahead of his time. So there are some things I disagree with, but I have to admit that I admire the man, he forged his own path, and didn’t blindly conform to society’s norms...
Post essay here with visual rhetoric
Walden believed that some universities were robbing their students of a lot of money, something that, as a student of Fenn, I am familiar with, and it seems that this problem isn’t a recent one. “At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student's room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year.” So, Thoreau was certainly anti-authority, a “libertarian” of sorts, who thought that a man should makes his own decisions, and not be controlled by any organization of any kind. I find myself being similar to him the this way, because I also find myself clashing with the establishment often.
Thoreau, as I have stated above, also believed that making his own house was a much more efficient way to live than buying one. He has talked about how purchasing a house has put many a farmer into debt. A debt that they sent decades paying back, and why it is much simpler to simply build your own house, like the Indians and their wigwams. “I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my present one.” I agree with him, quite frankly. Since I do not think that the housing market in order America is friendly at all. The fact that the average family home in Concord now costs over a million dollars is ludicrous to me, when, if I were to build a house of the same size, it would cost probably a fifth of that. Humans are inherently lazy, and this is what causes us to spent so much on an already fabricated place to live, instead of building the perfect house for us personally, but having to actually lift a finger and work.
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The final thing that Thoreau and I agree on, is the serenity of nature. Just this past evening I was in my back yard for about an hour, with a fire, and listening to the outdoors. Call me a hippie, but I really do enjoy the outdoors, especially up in Maine, where civilization can be very far off. (Most of the time I prefer civilization though) “Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers…I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe.” The fact that Walden pond is now a tourist sight, with Thousands of visitors a year would be horrifying to Thoreau, it would be like a small, serene area getting turned into a huge, polluted industrial zone. So, quite frankly, I fell sorry for the guy, and can tell that he’s rolling in his grave.
After all, Thoreau has grown on me recently. At the beginning of the book I thought he was “a 19th century hippie”. But now, I jus think that he was far ahead of his time, with thoughts and ideas that were rejected for not conforming to most of society. He died before he could truly see his thoughts become a reality, which is a shame, and I hope, but doubt, that he would be proud of where humanity is today