Walden and Civil Disobedience (Penguin American Library) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I am not luddite, but my favourite quote from the book is this: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing to communicate". Does this say something about the Internet, newsmedia and our contemporary information overload, or what?

I liked the introduction and footnotes of Meyer. Just enough to provide context and explanation, but never intrusive. This book is as relevant today as it was during Thoreau's lifetime. Highly recommended.

To find a modern western man who so thoroughly embodies the wisdom of antiquity is as rare as "the tooth of a dragon, or the hair of a phoenix." Henry David Thoreau is such a man. More than a mere combination of past, present and future, he joins together the most mundane, prosaic and ordinary considerations of daily life with the loftiest and noble thoughts of mankind. Furthermore, he perceives the spiritual aspirations and practices of east and west as one coherent whole. He was well acquainted with the classics of both hemispheres--The Tao de Ching, The Bhagavad-gita, Vedic writings, The Iliad and more--and here, distilled for us common folk, is that wisdom as seen from the his viewpoint. Bertrand Russell has given what would seem the crown laurel to Thoreau calling him "a pure romantic"-in contrast to the weak romanticism of Victor Hugo, or the rather soft variety found in Emerson.

During his lifetime, 700 or so of the 1,000 copies he had printed of "Walden" wound up in his parents' attic, ostensibly making him a failure as a writer. Since then he has become a literary god, and without doubt one of the most influential writers of the past 200 years. It was Thoreau's tract entitled Civil Disobedience, written because of his objection to paying tax to the American government--a so-called democracy involved in slave trade, westward expansion, displacement of indigenous population and imperialistic annexation of Mexico--that gave fuel to human rights movements in the 20th Century. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. based their efforts on this small but amazingly powerful essay, which only goes to show that Confucius--one of Thoreau's favorite sage authors--was right; the thought of an intelligent man sitting in his room can kill a king and destroy his country. And so it was that slavery was abolished in the United States, India attained home rule and racial integration in the U.S. progressed.

Since the industrial revolution in the 18th Century, the central goal of western technological society has been economic growth. And to achieve an economic growth that is endless, corporations in the latter half of the 20th century have encouraged consumption that is mindless. But by the dawn of the 21st century, this central project has proven to be obsolete, for nature cannot sustain endless economic growth, and neither can the people in general. Nature has rebelled by refusing to absorb the transgressions against her dignity (pollution), and humanity has expressed insurgence through psychological and physical disease. Dr. Willis Harman has discussed the matter in detail in his book, "Global Mind Change" but, though more than a decade has passed since its publication, the important and timely points that it makes have yet to be assimilated by the public. Thoreau, however, was already tuned in to this problem way back in the 1840's. Astrologers attribute an overlap of a little more than 200 years between astrological ages, and this puts Thoreau in with the new Aquarians.

His observations--on economy, simplicity, learning, human nature, participation mystique when close to nature and the close proximity of God--are unpresuming, candid and at times downright hilarious. I say Henry David Thoreau is a philosopher sage amongst the American transcendentalists, and a man who was not unconcerned about his less educated or enlightened fellows. He took tremendous pains to share himself with us through his writings, and there are many innovations of his that are already being practiced by posterity. Not the least of these is the growing awareness that ADULT EDUCATION for men and women can be a lifelong pursuit. I agree with Dr. Harman that this is on its way to becoming the new central project of western society, known as it is presently by the name, The Personal Growth Movement.

In Walden the seeker will find lucid clues as to what the Aquarian Age is all about, its characteristics and even the means of cultivating the new consciousness. But this is not a book for people who like easy reading. Henry would demand of you that you read it with the same diligence and deliberation as it was written. It took him five years of refinement before he was satisfied with the manuscript. Walden will provide you and your descendants with many more years of pleasure and enlightenment than that.

Disobedience is the shorter of the texts, but probably more important. It is an attempt to justify moral anarchism and a call to act on individual judgements about justice.

Walden can be interpreted as an important treatise against consumerism and the dangers of specialization, as well as an appreciation of the natural environment. Those interested in anti-globalization/anti-free trade movements would do well to read Walden to gain an understanding of where anti-consumerism came from and an examination of its ethical implications. However, it also pays to remember that Walden is a failed experiment and, in the end, Thoreau returns to Cambridge.

Thoreau, as political philosophy, has certain problems. Moral anarchy and denial of the social contract is difficult to replace in civil society--Thoreau makes no more than the most vague references as to what could replace it, seeming to rely on the fact that his personal sense of justice is universal.

Nevertheless, Thoreau's conscience has resonance and is as relevant today as ever. His rejection of consumerism as the basis for society and its stratification also teaches important lessons.

Thoreau represents that first step in understanding the other part of American political thought--extremely different from that of the Constitution and Federalist Papers--but with profound connections to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King.