Green Living in Thoreau's Walden and the Balance of Nature & Industry

Our definition of Green Living still gives credit to Henry David Thoreau for creating the basic concept, despite his own era's modern conveniences seeming close to ground level primitive compared to what we have now. Whether you can argue the case that a balance of nature and industry is the most workable for the modern-day individual, Thoreau stayed adamant that living with nature was essential to getting away from what he thought was a desperate way to live in an approaching industrial and technological age. Such a classic of literature that started a whole new philosophy on how to appreciate living and nature shouldn't be mocked by a cold soul who's never tried Thoreau's experience.

Yet Thoreau found critics who mocked him for one basic problem in his book: He didn't live exclusively within nature. Consider it the early version of Al Gore preaching to the choir and getting maligned for not necessarily doing everything he preached.

It may have been childish then when Robert Louis Stevenson criticized "Walden" a while after it was written by calling Thoreau's experiment unmanly. If you think there's a contentious divide among those today who warn of global warming and those who think it a myth, the Victorian Era of America was pretty much bathed in skeptical attitudes about ideas that didn't fit with an age of progress. Thoreau's philosophy spat in the face of progress and right when America began heading head-first into the industrial age. For men of the era, living among nature rather than the comforts of modern design was mocked as being highly effeminate.

Thoreau was able to override any of that criticism and proved you can matter in the world through a communion with nature and your personal God that dissipated feelings of depression being mocked by one's fellow peers. That fulfillment is the greatest message of Thoreau and one that most people adhere to--or at least temporarily. As Thoreau, most people end up going back to modern-day society after communing with nature for a while. Of course, even the communing with nature on vacations today isn't anywhere close to the level Thoreau took it to. But he never said that his recommendation should be something one should do every day for the rest of one's life.

He was later called out for fudging his experimental natural living near Walden Pond by walking back into civilization on a daily basis to buy a minor modern convenience or two--though mostly as a method of deriding those conveniences. Many forget, too, that his mother came to visit him every weekend to provide home-baked desserts that didn't mix well with the natural foods he was living on. His experiences were ultimately only a partial experiment that also told as much about society around him than it even did about Thoreau. As equivalent to Al Gore coming up to a farmer and chiding the farmer for using pesticides, too much water or gasoline to run his plow or tractor, Thoreau famously did the same thing to an Irish farmer he encountered during the middle of his journey into nature.
____

It was the Irish farmer John Field who had to endure the lecture of Thoreau's philosophy when a major rain storm precipitated Thoreau's need to find shelter near Field's farm, hence an inconvenient meeting. Perhaps an Al Gore-like slide show showing what would eventually happen to the American Dream in future decades could have convinced Field (or anybody) to give up the adherence to the Industrial Revolution in those days. While Thoreau was one of our greatest writers, undoubtedly hearing a lecture from him wasn't conducive to taking action. With so much progress happening at the time of "Walden", John Field seemed to think Thoreau was a true outsider who didn't know what he was talking about.

Those familiar with the trajectory of "Walden" know that Field refused to take Thoreau's advice of walking away from his creditors, mortgage and farming duties to live strictly within nature. Perhaps Field was aware that Thoreau wasn't necessarily adhering to his own philosophy by walking into nearby Concord, MA on a daily basis to read a newspaper among other things. Field might have also sensed that Thoreau would be going back to his own creditors, mortgage and modern conveniences once his experiment was over. It was made clear that the American Dream was in sight by Field and he was going to attain it, despite being dirt poor at the time.

As with most theories (political or otherwise) that require compromise to two different sides in order to sustain a balance and prevent chaos, Thoreau took the Transcendentalist Movement and realized the necessary balance of modern society with nature. He didn't want to build it up too much in "Walden" so his message wouldn't get branded as a failure. His actions, though, speak to the notion that it's a long road to completely tearing ourselves away to a complete sense of Green Living. The prospect of attaining the American Dream pulls us into its orbit through the ongoing evolution of technology that isn't always eco-friendly. And despite the Transcendentalist philosophy proponing just a simpler way of life rather than shunning all of society, the onslaught of new technology at the time of "Walden" was too intoxicating for many to even consider running away from it for a short time.

Thoreau, as we know, managed to create a strong following anyway. He also managed to keep a relatively simple life in his post "Walden" years that was somewhat criticized at his funeral where his lack of desire in progressing himself still befuddled many of his closest friends who agreed with his writings.

As we've seen with Al Gore, who's somewhat of our modern day and much more powerful Thoreau, keeping that balance of nature with our mind-numbing progression of technology places human beings into daily battles over which way to go. We still have a long way to go before everybody does what they're supposed to do to make the dream of Green Living in the world a shared process. Plus, with Gore being called out occasionally for using technology he's adamantly warned contributes to global warming, the connective string to Thoreau's trek back into civilization during "Walden" is more than noticeable.

Working out an economic balance so Green Living can thrive now is going to be one of the pressing issues of our future. Reason being, the Industrial Age Thoreau derided gave way to a status quo in the 20^th century that made his vision a lot more challenging to implement for even wannabe Thoreaus. Individual responsibility is obviously growing, yet the balance where nature and jaw-dropping technology work in a perfect new form of Transcendentalism is still in a tailspin as the corporate control of the situation keeps the tug-of-war going...

Source:

http://publicliterature.org/books/walden/xaa.php