Walden (Or, Life In The Woods) by Henry David Thoreau

Walden (Or, Life In The Woods) by Henry David Thoreau is one of my favorite novels of all times. I came across it in my junior year of high school in AP English III, when we read an essay from it in our AP text book. The essay reflected many thoughts that were similar to quite a few of my thoughts on technology at the time, so I thought I would go out and by the book for a summer reading. I’ve never read the entire book at once, but I have skipped through and read chunks throughout the book that seemed interesting at the time, some of which I have purposely reread up to four times because I enjoy it that much. I fell in love with this book, and it actually inspired me to take this class in the first place, so I figured I would share it with you guys in a blog post as a book I recommend for those who enjoy topics related to the ethics of technology, or anybody who has enjoyed the more current discussions in this class. This is because the novel shows many ideologies similar to those of the more classic philosophies of technology we have been discussing in class, while giving close up real life examples from the period of Industrialization that can easily relate to and show the intensity of these effects in modern society.

This novel is actual a collection of journal entries from Henry David Thoreau which he wrote during a retreat. This “retreat” was actually an escape from a society that he saw was falling apart to the extent that life was losing meaning. Thoreau discusses the effects he has seen technology have on society since Industrialization, and how technology was beginning to have the ability to control lives of individuals. He points out specific examples of people trying to make their lives better with technology but instead piling of complications and slowly taking away meaning of life. He decides to take a retreat in the woods living a simplistic lifestyle to find out what it really means to live.

Quotes from Walden, Or Life In The Woods:

 

 “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” 

"It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which we morally can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."