
Judgments of Henry David Thoreau (2015) - tambourine_man
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum
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folio
A couple of years after this essay appeared Jedediah Purdy published something
of a response in The Nation:

[https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/thoreau-radical-
se...](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/thoreau-radical-seasons/)

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EricE
Thanks - that was an excellent read!

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voisin
I think you can disapprove of the man and it sounds like it is correct that he
was disingenuous with backing his message with action, but isn’t it
conceivable that the message was still worth something and that the message
still speaks to us?

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chewz
Long time ago I have read Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and
Chomsky by Paul Johnson. They are almost all shown as misguided hypocrytes but
still some of them did caught spirit of the time and inspired people.

> A fascinating portrait of the minds that have shaped the modern world. In an
> intriguing series of case studies, Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy,
> Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz,
> Lillian Hellman, Cyril Connolly, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Kenneth
> Tynan, and Noam Chomsky, among others, are revealed as intellectuals both
> brilliant and contradictory, magnetic and dangerous.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55302.Intellectuals](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55302.Intellectuals)

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cafard
Do newer editions have an addendum covering Paul Johnson's own scandal?

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WhoIsSatoshi
I feel this article is more of a critique of character than it is that of
Thoreau's writing. I stumbled into Walden in my 30s and figured I'd continue
my classic exploration. After a month of trying to get through the first few
chapters, all I could tell myself was that I hated this book, and couldn't
figure out why in hell people were praising it. I wanted to make sense out of
it, get a grand picture: I wanted to extract the wisdom Thoreau was surely
pouring through the pages! I was miserable, my experience was horrible.
Reading felt forced, the text itself dense and unenjoyable. After some
thought, I resolved to just get through the pages, and not try to make sense
out of it, just cruising through. From then on, the pages and the words took
on a different meaning - it wasn't about an idea to be extracted, but about
simply enjoying the words on the pages. The moment I stopped trying to make
sense out of the book, I started enjoying the words on their own, and they
turned out to be the most beautiful friends through my reading.

"Walden" is my favorite book to this day. If you try to analyze it, you might
get lost in the weeds - I feel this is what happened with the author of that
article here - there's a story in it: Don't focus on it, just let your mind
wander and enjoy the pure, humble beauty laid bare throughout.

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controversy
Thoreau's philosophy is an existential one. It is rooted in his ethos. As
such, an ad hominem attack is a valid rebut to his system. The man extolled
the virtues of living on one's own. On reducing to the essences life by means
of a certain self-reliant stoicism. The man did not practice what he preached.
Therefore his entire view is bollocks. It's not humble, it's narcissistic
meanderings.

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_0ffh
>The man did not practice what he preached

Maybe the point is that he would have liked to be able to put what he preached
into practice, but wasn't. Maybe he couldn't even admit that to himself.
Still, this longing might make his preachings resonate with others sharing
that same desire. Just speculating here.

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cafard
The author has the merit of having actually read Thoreau rather than taking
him for granted because of his reputation. However, am I going to get rid of
_Two Weeks on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_ because I know that he has
limitations? No.

There are only flawed authors. The question is what the author provides that
one can't as readily find elsewhere. For Thoreau, the answer I think is, A
fair bit.

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dang
The submitted title was the HTML doc title ("Why Do We Love Henry David
Thoreau?"), which is a perfectly legit choice for an HN submission. But it
seems to be having a baity effect, so I've changed it to the least baity
substring of any of the titles options above. Please let's react to the actual
article now.

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082349872349872
What would Thoreau be doing in his cabin today? Back then he did a little
surveying as gig work (in between support from family and Emerson). In the
late 1990's I pictured him as a freelance web designer. Would the Thoreau of
2020 be dispensing wisdom from a hut on Bali, doing a little drop shipping on
the side?

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tonyedgecombe
That read as if the author went through everything they knew about Thoreau and
took the least generous interpretation they could for each case.

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nowledge
blows my mind no one ever brings up the walden storylines from doonesbury. it
touches on everything we are still debating to this very day.

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chj
It's silly to judge a man died 153 years ago using contemporary values. Walden
is one of the few books I read so many times that I lost count.

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controversy
Essentially we like him because he was like us: hypocrites? As the article
says he was full of him self. He was a liar. He didn’t live on his own. People
cared for him out of their own pocket. Those who love home do so because they
want to be like him: a lying moralist that hypocritically says that we are
better than you so listen to us. I hated him at 14. I hate him now.

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corporateslave5
I read Walden when I was 16 without knowing anything about him. I’ve never
felt so enlightened as that time. I don’t care about the literary critiques
and background information. That book lit a fire in my young mind

