RE: Thread for the Analysis of Henry David Thoreau's Writings
July 21, 2019 at 10:15 pm
(This post was last modified: July 21, 2019 at 10:26 pm by vulcanlogician.)
(July 21, 2019 at 10:54 am)Alan V Wrote: "Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of some originality and genius, have their scheme of the universe all cut and dried,—very dry, I assure you, to hear, dry enough to burn, dry-rotted and powder-post, methinks,—which they set up between you and them in the shortest intercourse; an ancient and tottering frame with all its boards blown off. They do not walk without their bed. Some, to me, seemingly very unimportant and unsubstantial things and relations, are for them everlastingly settled,—as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the like. These are like the everlasting hills to them. But in all my wanderings I never came across the least vestige of authority for these things. They have not left so distinct a trace as the delicate flower of a remote geological period on the coal in my grate."
I like this one. So deep, and plenty is said here. The ancient, dry-rotted, tottering frame is the obvious criticism-- but still stated poetically. But Thoreau goes deeper in his psychoanalysis of the religious intellectual here.
"They do not walk without their bed." I love this. To me it means, the religious do not wish to be awake during their intellectual journeys. The do not wish to see the truth or discover it, but rather, find some way to remain asleep during their discoveries but still count themselves present for those experiences of discovery. They do not wish to keep their eyes open like a genuine intellectual ought.
"Some, to me, seemingly very unimportant and unsubstantial things and relations, are for them everlastingly settled,—as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the like. These are like the everlasting hills to them." Another bullseye. The Trinity debate is such nonsense. And yet, it never occurs to theists that, even if their God is real and Christ really did die on the cross for their sin, maybe-- JUST MAYBE-- none of this Trinity shit matters. Thoreau rightly points out that a ancient flower has shown more of its substance to him in its faint remains, than all the loud and certain theological speak he has taken the time to listen to.
(July 21, 2019 at 10:30 am)Shell B Wrote: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive...ct_of_1850
Thank you, Shell.
So, the OP contains a factual error. Massachusetts didn't pass the Fugitive Slave Act; the US Congress did.
I got mixed up because Thoreau expressed great outrage in another essay of his about a particular event that transpired in Boston having to do with the Fugitive Slave Act:
Quote:Thoreau’s Slavery in Massachusetts essay is based off a speech he gave at an anti-slavery rally in Massachusetts after the decision was made to send free/runaway slaves that were living up north back to slavery in the south; Fugitive Slave Act. In particular a fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, was re-enslaved in Boston, Mass.
https://sites.psu.edu/henrydavid/2015/04...n-slavery/
