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Did she? That's a point worth considering on top of the fact that Thoreau was basically squatting on Ralph Waldo Emerson's property the entire time.
So now I feel like talking about Thoreau for a minute. I understand that he was in opposition to the way society was beginning to function, so he sought reprieve from it all. Society began to require that everyone work grueling jobs in the city just for basic survival. And if you wanted land to live on, you had to work hard to buy that land. This was a concept in its infancy at the time.
Thoreau didn't like where society was headed, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He didn't like the way nature and basic human rights were being displaced by industrialism.
He lived on the cusp of time when nature and human rights were being taken from people. He clearly saw what was happening and he opposed these changes. Fortunately he had a friend who let him build his dream life on his land. And apparently he had an aunt who fed him
If not for those two generous people in Thoreau's life, he'd have no other option but to join the masses enslaved in city life.
I'm a Thoreau-ian.
I'm trapped in our industrialized society and I want out. I crave to go back to basics. To build my own humble home. To live off the land and the sun.
Those are difficult things to do now when our government doesn't allow it anymore unless we have hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars up front. Living such a basic "Little House on the Prairie" life is a birth-given basic human right, but our government has deemed such lifestyles illegal.
All I want to do is get my hands dirty, sweat, and create a genuine life from scratch. It's a primal instinct. Why does the government deny us this?
Greedy government and landowners.
The woman in this thread's story somehow had $70K to buy her one acre with. She is a fortunate woman.
You and me together. I have done some - renovated a dilapidated home, built hay sheds, installed solar, we have three working gardens, chickens, so on and so on and we did all this with full time jobs (mine is from home). However, I am not totally off grid yet and I don't know if we will ever be. The difference is, I admit this and I am clean about where my money goes and where it comes from - I am a professional who works from home, my wife had a HUGE student debt (she went to vet school and these things tend to be expensive). I toiled for years in an office to make money in a high-responsibility, high paying job (she slaved 12+ hour days in various clinics) to be able to pay off the student debt, to be able to pay off the diesel truck, the horse trailer, so on and so on. We did not have "Daddy" to leave us a section of land in Montana and we did not serve in the Army to get all sorts of benefits (like VA or pension) after we left employment.
At this point we are seriously considering selling our renovated home which happens to be in an area that is exploding with popularity - if so, we will have cash on hand to "rinse and repeat", buy a piece of land somewhere else, put 4-5 shipping containers on it, do everything from scratch. In any case, I started years ago with reading all them "get away from the office and go back to the land books". There are two approaches - one is Roy's "Mortgage free" where you live like an animal in a tent winter and summer while you are building your home mortgage free AND working a second or third job in town (yeah, building a house is a full-time job and of course you need money for the house materials AND food and clothes and medical insurance etc.). The other approach is have enough cash on hand to buy a place outright. Most (95%?) people are in the 2nd group - these are the ones with ex-corporate lives that now write the books. I think 99% of those neglect to tell you how they got into the farm - the book starts with "We left the city and found our dream farm..." - yeah, you just leave the city and a farm falls into your lap.
Then there are people on this forum who claim that subsistence farming is a way of life and it can be done. They mention apprenticeships for people who don't have education and money to get into owning land (I think of these apprenticeships as free slave labor but whatever). I agree with this particular person with one HUGE caveat - you have to own your land fair and square when you start. Even after that you will be living a measly existence dependent on crop success and failure (more often failure than success) and it is certainly not the life for everyone. Be careful of what you want
Also note that some people on this forum are well to do and own multiple properties across the country. For them self-sufficiency is more like a game and less like a lifestyle - that's my opinion and I am sticking to it
One more thing - living in the boonies with two pennies to your name may be liberating but it can also be one step away from disaster (or should I say, one illness or medical condition from disaster?).
Did she? That's a point worth considering on top of the fact that Thoreau was basically squatting on Ralph Waldo Emerson's property the entire time.
This is correct; it was Emerson's land that Thoreau used to build his cabin. He and Emerson and Bronson Alcott (father of the Alcott sisters) were philosophers, all published authors and all part of that New England Transcendentalist movement of the time. They were also close friends.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zelpha
So now I feel like talking about Thoreau for a minute. I understand that he was in opposition to the way society was beginning to function, so he sought reprieve from it all... He didn't like the way nature and basic human rights were being displaced by industrialism...He lived at the cusp of time when nature and human rights were being taken from people.
What Thoreau had against the government was its sanction of slavery; he was an abolitionist. See his essay on Civil Disobedience, often published in the same volume as Walden. Thoreau was also a vegetarian and a pacifist. While he often broke bread with Emerson, he was busy planting beans and potatoes and could feed himself quite well. I have been to the Walden Pond site in Concord MA. The cabin is gone, of course, but the pond is still there. I recommend a visit if you are ever in the area!
The size of Walden Pond surprised me when I saw it. I hadn't realized that it was so large.
Thoreau's family owned a pencil manufacturing business in which Thoreau participated actively. He developed several new manufacturing procedures.
He commented that he didn't consider a gun necessary on a trip to Maine unless the traveler were on a hunting trip. He apparently had no problem with either hunting or guns.
He commented that he didn't consider a gun necessary on a trip to Maine unless the traveler were on a hunting trip. He apparently had no problem with either hunting or guns.
Hmm...Nor'Eastah pointed out that Thoreau was a vegetarian and a pacifist. Are you sure he would be one to carry guns for hunting? Something's contradictory here.
This reminds me of an article I read once in a magazine about women who had "reinvented" their lives. In every case, they had left a "corporate" job to do something they were "passionate" about. In every case, they had someone else footing the bill (i.e. working spouse, parent, inherited money) for their ability to "bravely" jump into following said "passion". Easy to go off on a sabbatical when someone else is pretty much supporting it.
Hmm...Nor'Eastah pointed out that Thoreau was a vegetarian and a pacifist. Are you sure he would be one to carry guns for hunting? Something's contradictory here.
He was referring to an individual preparing for a trip to Maine. That should have been evident from my previous post. He did write more than Walden. This is from The Maine Woods. I was unaware that Thoreau was a pacifist, only that he opposed the Mexican War. He certainly never expressed the opinion that the US should have remained under British rule rather than fight two wars for independence.
There is only one reference to vegetarian eating in Walden that I know.
“One farmer says to me, 'You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;' and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he walks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.â€
Thoreau does not state in this famous quotation that he is a vegetarian.
If I am wrong please correct me. Otherwise, the seems a good place to end the discussion.
... I'm trapped in our industrialized society that I was born into, and I want out. I crave to go back to basics. To build my own humble home. To live off the land and the sun.
Those are difficult things to do now when our government doesn't allow it anymore unless we have hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars up front. Living such a basic "Little House on the Prairie" life is a birth-given basic human right, but our government has deemed such lifestyles illegal.
All I want to do is get my hands dirty, sweat, and create a genuine life from scratch. It's a primal instinct. Why does the government deny us this?
... I want to have a life from scratch too.
Corporations are greedy, government is evil, yawn, I agree, yawn, really I do, but, I have been here before.
If you:
feel 'trapped in our industrialized society',
... "crave to go back to basics',
... "To build my own humble home. To live off the land and the sun',
... "want to do is get my hands dirty, sweat, and create a genuine life from scratch',
''It may be vain to ask why the imagination will not be reconciled to flesh and fat. I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a reproach that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live, in a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable way - as anyone who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn - and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet. Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilised. ''
The bolded seems to imply that his practice was that of a meat eater.
''The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and, besides, when I had caught, and cleaned, and cooked, and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. it was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth. Like many of my contemporaries, I had rarely for many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, etc.: not so much because of any ill effects which I had traced to them, as because they were not agreeeable to my imagination. The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appears more beautiful to live low and fare hard in many respects; and though I never did so, I went far enough to please my imagination. I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind. ''
This is the closest he comes to stating that that he was a one time a vegetarian. His use of had rather than have indicates that this was no longer his practice. Thoreau was aproduct of the Harvard liberal arts program. Rhetoric was one of the disciplines taught. He knew how to express himself and how to conceal himself. He was a master of the art.
We must never forget that Thoreau was an abolitionist of the most radical sort. These people were known for their hypocrisy. While preaching brotherly love they happily praised John Brown, a convicted murderer. While condemning negro slavery they had no problem employing Whites, mostly young girls, who were usually kept in far worse conditions than slaves. I have no idea how many employees Thoreau had so I'll refrain from speculation beyond mentioning a graphite grinding device he invented meant to be used by factory girls.
Thoreau played at life and was disingenuous in describing his life. He enjoyed playing with words, e.g., the had-have distinction, to mislead.
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I suggest the following work for an illustration of both his business acumen and business ethics. The author describles the Thoreaus and their business at length.
I have been a 'vegetation' for over 40 years. I don't really care what other people do. This is what I do. I took an oath to first do no harm. I take it this means to include all sentient beings. However, I do feed on milk and on eggs, because it does not harm a hen to take her eggs, she lays many more than she could ever hatch. And if you do NOT milk a fresh cow it will harm her. She makes more milk than her calf ever needs. I feed on the reproductive excess of my pets. The combination of rice and beans, or cereals and milk, these make complete proteins.
Now, there are three reasons I give myself where I could take a life. 1. To put a creature out of it's misery. 2. In self defense or defense of my creatures. 3. To survive. In a survival situation I would be just like any other creature who kills in order to survive. If I were in a plane crash in Alaska I would eat lemmings.
This is the way I have been living for quite some time. I don't preach or care what other people do. I happily sit down at the table with meat eaters and get along just fine.
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