Thoreau Was Actually Funny
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And yet I don't think the author has really proved his point. Having a sense of humor doesn't make Thoreau any less painfully earnest. Martin Luther liked bawdy jokes too, and that in no way lessened his seriousness. If anything, joking about peeing on the bushes seems to confirm Thoreau's boorishness. I still feel a kind of adolescent immaturity in him: a lack of self-doubt, and a preponderance of self-importance.
It is not easy to find a good balance of gravity and levity. Those concepts are too clumsy, I think, because you need both---in the right measures, at the right times, and towards the right things. And I think in general the world could use more gravity towards the things Thoreau loved. And on the other hand the world could also use more self-doubt, more understanding toward your neighbor's weakness, more charity, but that is hard to find in Thoreau.
This article is just the introduction to a book, so perhaps later the author better proves his point, although it sounds like a hard thing to do, because the argument looks like a non sequitor. Did Jesus' jokes suggest he didn't mean it?
. . .
By the way, I do like the author's approach in looking for humor where we have been taught not to expect it. That is a great way to ready Moby Dick, I think: things like sharing a bed with a savage, but also the long digressions about rigging or scrimshaw or whatever. It helps to feel some indulgence toward the author, and trust that he is leading us on a detour to show us something "cool", but also something personal, like a private joke.
A good friend once suggested that the Book of Jonah is an early specimen of Jewish humor, and I think he was on to something. What if its genre is joke? (It could still be no less divine Scripture for that.) That last bit sure sounds to me like a punchline: "And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left; and also much cattle?"
> I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.
and
> "I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
Among other influences, these quotes helped me to break free of my "golden fetters." I quit my high-paying and "prestigious" career, which was sucking my soul, and escaped the big city in favor of a simpler lifestyle. Haven't looked back once.
That's not to say that this essayist's point of view is "correct," but I found it to be an enlightening point of view.
Pond Scum by Kathryn Schulz
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum
This vision cannot survive any serious reading of “Walden.” The real Thoreau was, in the fullest sense of the word, self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control, adamant that he required nothing beyond himself to understand and thrive in the world. From that inward fixation flowed a social and political vision that is deeply unsettling.
This article however casts a new light on Thoreau, showing a side of him I think I completely missed the first time through. I will probably give his stuff another go around in the next year.
As for suggestions, Walden is very pleasant. I favored more the small interactions he has with the local wildlife or other small musings, rather than the social commentary, but still overall a very nice, cozy read.
“done in an admirable manner, in a strain of exquisite humor, with a strong undercurrent of delicate satire against the follies of the times. Then there were the interspersed observations, speculations, and suggestions upon dress, fashions, food, dwellings, furniture, &c., &c., sufficiently queer to keep the audience in almost constant mirth…The performance has created ‘quite a sensation’ amongst lyceum goers.”
then it does truly seem that I've learned (and been taught) the very antithesis of his meaning. The joke was on us!
I suppose it comes down to whether or not works should stand on their own. I know nothing of Thoreau or his life, so inferring whether or not he's a witty social commentator (which I wouldn't, based on experience) or a stuck up brat is very difficult. I'd say work ought to stand on its own on that basis, although maybe I'm being a lazy reader.
> I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.
> There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today?
Walden is often recommended but can seem a little out of context in a world that has industrialized and tends toward bowling alone. Even so, it's worth understanding Walden for the perspective Thoreau puts forward concerning the usefulness of inventions and their reflection on and in communities.
> As with our colleges, so with a hundred "modern improvements"; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages; he is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey.
A much shorter read in the same vein–and without all the digressions about the economics of farming beans–is "Life Without Principle". I recommend reading that first over Walden as something of a primer. By the time of Life Without Principle Thoreau was giving public lectures and had gotten better at shorter arguments (though he likely felt that to-the-point declarations were not the path to wisdom but that a round-about argument which required quiet contemplation while walking was).
> Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free. We tax ourselves unjustly. There is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxation without representation. We quarter troops, we quarter fools and cattle of all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter our gross bodies on our poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance.
Thoreau was eccentric but purposefully. He's one of America's great philosophers and well worth reading.
I might be projecting a bit, biased by personal struggles with (what I think are) the same issues today.
There's undeniably some great insights in Thoreau's work, but many parts - such as the one you linked to - show that he was kind of a douche.
The first time I realized that someone whose work I deeply admired was a total asshole, many years ago, was eye opening for me. The art can be sublime, and the artist can be the lowest of scum. It makes talented people with a lovely personality that even more admirable.
(Also reminds me of one of my favorite quotes for people working in prestigious, competitive environments: "we're all talented here - differentiate yourself by being kind")
What irks me is that most people delve to much into if Thoreau did this or that, if what he wrote resonates with you, take it as it is.
You don't need to agree with a person fully to find nuggets of wisdom in their work that can last you a lifetime.