Refugee thread!

[Alan V]

I think I give Thoreau more credit than you do. Since the time of Socrates, one of the chief defining characteristics of philosophers has been "gadflyness."

So you see my problem vis-a-vis the Thoreau Society, of which I am a member.  They want to celebrate Thoreau, and do so primarily through collecting Thoreau trivia.  I want to build on the best of his ideas and adapt them to what we have learned since his time, which requires a critical attitude like he himself had.

I am a Thoreauvian the same way I am my father's son.  I started with the assumptions he taught me, but adapted and changed them as I learned on my own.