Thread for the Analysis of Henry David Thoreau's Writings

[Shell B]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive...ct_of_1850

[Alan V]

Here are a few quotes from Thoreau's A Week On the Concord and Merrimack Rivers about religion:

"You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more, to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge."

"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."

"The reading which I love best is the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that I am better acquainted with those of the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last. Give me one of these Bibles and you have silenced me for a while. When I recover the use of my tongue, I am wont to worry my neighbors with the new sentences; but commonly they cannot see that there is any wit in them."

"The book has never been written which is to be accepted without any allowance."

[vulcanlogician]

"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.

---

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:

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/

[Shell B]

The Anthony Burns incident caused a lot of ruckus in Boston. It was horrible and too many people were okay with it. Still, a great deal of abolitionists were public about their dissent. Anyway, didn’t mean to run off topic.

[Alan V]

Here are a few quotes by Thoreau from his correspondence with H.G.O. Blake, a devoted fan. These are not as familiar as some of his sayings from his books:

"When a mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all encumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. I would stand upon facts."

"If one hesitates in his path, let him not proceed. Let him respect his doubts, for doubts, too, may have some divinity in them. That we have but little faith is not sad, but that we have but little faithfulness. By faithfulness faith is earned."

"In the midst of this labyrinth let us live a thread of life."

"The Muse should lead like a star which is very far off; but that does not imply that we are to follow foolishly, falling into sloughs and over precipices, for it is not foolishness, but understanding, which is to follow, which the Muse is appointed to lead, as a fit guide of a fit follower."

"I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is. I shall be sorry to remember that I was there, but noticed nothing remarkable, -- not so much as a prince in disguise; lived in the golden age a hired man; visited Olympus even, but fell asleep after dinner, and did not hear the conversation of the gods."

[Alan V]

More quotes by Thoreau from his correspondence with H.G.O. Blake:

"Love must be as much a light as a flame."

"It is commonly the imagination which is wounded first, rather than the heart, -- it is so much the more sensitive."

"It is not enough that we are truthful; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful about."

"I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life."

"I love society so much that I swallowed it all at a gulp -- i.e. all that came my way. It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner & thinner till there is none at all."

[Alan V]

Just a few more quotes by Thoreau from his correspondence with H.G.O. Blake:

"O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it -- for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment."

"To let the mountains slide, -- live at home like a traveler."

"You fail in your thoughts, or you prevail in your thoughts only."

"You must make tracks into the Unknown. That is what you have your board & clothes for."

"Where is the 'unexplored land' but in our own untried enterprises? To an adventurous spirit any place, -- London, New York, Worcester, or his own yard -- is 'unexplored land.' "

---

But the fact is, the holocaust would not have been possible were it not for the obedience of the everyday German people. If they disobeyed, the Holocaust would not have happened...could not have happened. Civil disobedience is a powerful strategy to counter the evils of the world. Thoreau recognized that so much evil would not even be possible if we decided to stop participating in the societies that perpetuated them.

I've been thinking about what you wrote, and I agree.  Even today, authoritarian-leaning Republicans are prioritizing fossil fuel industries and their party ahead of the interests of their country.  We need more Republicans to think like Thoreau, to take a stand for what is true over what is convenient.

[vulcanlogician]

I've been thinking about what you wrote, and I agree.  Even today, authoritarian-leaning Republicans are prioritizing fossil fuel industries and their party ahead of the interests of their country.  We need more Republicans to think like Thoreau, to take a stand for what is true over what is convenient.

THIS!

I mean, Thoreau heartily accepted the motto: "That government is best which governs least." Conservatives can jive with that, right?

As I've argued before, Thoreau hated capitalism, but even if you LOVE capitalism, you have to admit, nature makes capitalism and free enterprise possible. Try opening a Wal-Mart in the sewer. I bet business there will suck. That's a good argument (capitalist or Marxist) for not turning the world into a sewer.

---

Perhaps he was rationalizing his confinement in terms amenable to his internal narrative.  That he felt more free is certainly a metaphoric sense of freedom in contradiction to the plain reality of his situation.  

He would have been uniquely aware of that fact, and in the calculus of appraising his situation it’s not surprising that the many frustrations and anxieties he was experiencing rounded up to some sort of success in principle in the face of a practical defeat.

It’s a thing we do, particularly when we lose.

What if somebody hated slavery and wished to abolish it? 

What if, even when they failed to abolish it, when somebody came around to try to make them participate in it, they told them to fuck off. And told them so successfully.

 So what? That might not seem like so much of a victory to most of us, and even less so if one ends up in a jail cell. But to someone like Thoreau (and to someone like me) participating in injustice is the only way to lose.... really lose... We are freer giving the finger from a jail cell than we are giving a salute from the openest of pastures.

That's why Thoreau felt so free in his cell.

[Belacqua]

As I've argued before, Thoreau hated capitalism, but even if you LOVE capitalism, you have to admit, nature makes capitalism and free enterprise possible. Try opening a Wal-Mart in the sewer. I bet business there will suck. That's a good argument (capitalist or Marxist) for not turning the world into a sewer.

Here I think we have to differentiate between 20th century capitalism and the newer kind. For the most part, the way it works now the billionaires don't have to worry about any nature but their own estates. 

In the olden days, Henry Ford had to pay his workers enough so that they could buy a car. He had a stake in consumers living fairly decent lives. As long as you make money from selling manufactured goods to consumers, this is generally true.

But the economy has been "financialized." Billionaires now make their money by buying and selling stocks and bonds and futures and exotic financial instruments. They don't have to make anything or provide anything for regular people. I suspect that even the Walton family (who owns Walmart) currently get richer due to finance. 

In Rogue Economics by Loretta Napoleoni, she distinguishes between "stationary bandits" and "roving bandits." Stationary bandits can't bleed their victims totally dry, because they have to come back and rob them again later. This was the old way. Now that everything is globalized and financialized, roving bandits can destroy a region completely, to the point it will never recover, and move on. Chris Hedges' books about "sacrifice zones" in the US describe such places. 

So a sense of place, something Thoreau valued, is also a victim of capitalism.

[vulcanlogician]

As I've argued before, Thoreau hated capitalism, but even if you LOVE capitalism, you have to admit, nature makes capitalism and free enterprise possible. Try opening a Wal-Mart in the sewer. I bet business there will suck. That's a good argument (capitalist or Marxist) for not turning the world into a sewer.

Here I think we have to differentiate between 20th century capitalism and the newer kind. For the most part, the way it works now the billionaires don't have to worry about any nature but their own estates. 

In the olden days, Henry Ford had to pay his workers enough so that they could buy a car. He had a stake in consumers living fairly decent lives. As long as you make money from selling manufactured goods to consumers, this is generally true.

But the economy has been "financialized." Billionaires now make their money by buying and selling stocks and bonds and futures and exotic financial instruments. They don't have to make anything or provide anything for regular people. I suspect that even the Walton family (who owns Walmart) currently get richer due to finance. 

In Rogue Economics by Loretta Napoleoni, she distinguishes between "stationary bandits" and "roving bandits." Stationary bandits can't bleed their victims totally dry, because they have to come back and rob them again later. This was the old way. Now that everything is globalized and financialized, roving bandits can destroy a region completely, to the point it will never recover, and move on. Chris Hedges' books about "sacrifice zones" in the US describe such places. 

So a sense of place, something Thoreau valued, is also a victim of capitalism.

Even Marx saw it this way: 

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally
acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the
groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of
the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to
abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still
destroying it daily.
Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that
kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of
begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo...ifesto.pdf

See the bolded potion of Marx's quote. The family farm is dying because of agra-business. The conservative base is frightened that they may lose property rights over their farms because of State interference, but capitalism has already abolished the right of the petty farmer holder to own land. Anybody who has their hand on the pulse of the Appalachian farmer knows that, while he guards his wallet against the federal government, his wallet has already been picked dry and pronounced a permanent desert by the corporate exploiters.

As Thoreau put it:

Men think that it is essential that the Nation have
commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride
thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but
whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little
uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and
devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our
lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads
are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay
at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not
ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what
those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man,
an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they
are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They
are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is
laid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding
on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon. And when
they run over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary
sleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop
the cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an
exception. I am glad to know that it takes a gang of men for every
five miles to keep the sleepers down and level in their beds as it
is, for this is a sign that they may sometime get up again.

 
https://www.fulltextarchive.com/page/Wal...-Thoreau2/