Transformative Discourse in Walden; or, Life in the Woods

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Walden; or, Life in the Woods, a collection of Henry David Thoreau’s writings on the experiment of living alone, is a book of the highest praise. It speaks across an almost two hundred year gap in time to impart important lessons about humanity’s role in the natural world; and although the ideas are much, much older than Thoreau, the account given in Walden is decidedly impactful, especially today, as the human race’s migration into dense urban environments seems less like a long-term trend and more like a permanent development: one that has not only left much of the countryside depopulated, but also alienated generations of humanity from ways of life that were considered familiar just a handful of decades ago and the norm not long before that.

If you are unfamiliar with the book Walden; or, Life in the Woods simply know that Thoreau set out to discard the trappings of society and document a solitary, self-sufficient existence. Also know that he built a cabin, grew crops, and lazed and traipsed about in search of valuable insight. If you have even a passing familiarity with Walden, then the above statements should ring true, and you may even know that his book, which is a record of all the meaning that he gathered from his two-year-contemplation, can be distilled into a single important mantra: stop to listen and learn.

The need to listen is, after all, demonstrated in page after page of insightful analysis based on careful observation of the natural world. In his book, Thoreau listens to the wind, he listens to the birds, and he listens to all manner of men to hear what they have to say; he also heeds thunder, attends to desire and contemplates the meaning of books: all of which is to say that Thoreau not only understood the value of listening, but put the practice into action to demonstrate its utility to his readers.

However, Thoreau also seems to have known that the evangelism of this essential skill might fall on deaf ears, and he expressed as much in the adage that the men and women of his time were of a kind who ‘earnestly wish to be helped, and preface their appeal with the information that they are resolved, for one thing, never to help themselves.’ Thoreau, it seems, was acutely aware that his intended audience would willfully ignore the elements of his text which were a call for meaningful change. In other words, Thoreau knew that many readers would resist the integration of new values in favor of a more comfortable intellectual stasis.

In Walden the problem this behavior results in is best demonstrated through Thoreau’s description of the townsfolk. Thoreau found fault in this group not because they fell from nature, but because they shirked conscious endeavor that awakens the human spirit in favor of menial tasks such as reading newspapers. These people, Thoreau tells us, followed the news to exercise their supposed intellect; but Thoreau also reminds us that these informed citizens were doing nothing more than taking part in an intellectual sham. Thoreau explains that reading, in the manner of the average citizen of his age, was akin to gossip. In other words, 19th century Americans followed the news to the exclusion of all other sources of information.

If this reads like a modern take on social media culture, then it should be obvious that there are definite parallels to be drawn between the functions of a 19th century public house where citizens gathered to gossip and the comment sections of the most popular websites today. The mediums used to facilitate these interactions are obviously different, but the people of these two ages are essentially cut from the same cloth. And although the term “fake news” hadn’t been coined in 1854, it was apparent to most grounded thinkers of the age that tabloids were a diversion from intellectual pursuit and not a path toward enlightenment, i.e., it was known that reading did not always lead to greater understanding, for understanding requires listening.

Thus the idea that people’s tolerance for compromise has atrophied and ossified is nothing new. If we are to believe Thoreau, people of all stripes have been poor listeners for as long as humans have been capable of conversation. Although this phenomenon is extremely old, in modern times it may seem new again as it has been given a new designation. You may know the problem in its modern representation under the now common parlance of the bubble, a term which has taken on a new cultural significance in the wake of current political and social stratification. To be in the liberal bubble, for instance, means to lack the capacity for genuine engagement with conservative ideas, and to be in the conservative bubble refers to the denigration of liberal values. And now, at the forefront of awareness lie the existence of gender bubbles, religious bubbles, race bubbles, and class bubbles. In fact, the list of bubbles, both present and potential, is as long as the imagination, especially as new identifiers are created to further segregate groups into ever more distinct cultural niches.

This is not a problem in and of itself, as identification helps like-minded people accomplish complex tasks by pooling shared resources, but of great concern is the one thing the inhabitants of these groups all seem to have in common with one another: they are unable to earnestly engage with ideas outside their self-centered, entirely personal ways of knowing. And yet their need for recognition has led certain vocal members of these groups to speak out vociferously in an attempt to establish their particular niche as a recognized, nay necessary social group. To put it bluntly, people in bubbles do not under any circumstances attempt to listen, but they wish to make others listen at all costs.

The problem with a society that lives in bubbles is that they are protected from confrontational discourse. And thus those of us who require knowledge of rustic truths like the entreaty to listen, also happen to be the most likely group of people to resist its call. Rather than listen to learn from others, this group who Thoreau described in his time as only listening ‘to the fainest but constant suggestion of his [their] genius’ and falling prey to the ‘extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him [them]’ effectively self-segregated from purposeful conversation, i.e., they lived in bubbles.

In light of these facts, Walden; or, Life in the Woods is especially relevant today. Like any good missive, it contains wisdom that is as important for this generation as it was for every generation that came before. Just as Thoreau’s generation seemed to be trapped in metaphorical bubbles, so does ours. And although the book may appear to be a pronouncement written from within a bubble of its own making, it is certainly not. Nor is it necessarily a book about the actions of society, individuals, or even nature. At its core, it is a book that concerns how individuals act in the world; and since Thoreau tells us to stop to listen and learn before acting, it is primarily a book that teaches the necessity of engaging with ideas. Such a skill may seem quaint to modern readers, but in Thoreau’s age and now in ours, the need to listen was and is just as great, just as ignored, but just as potentially revelatory. And yet, as shown above, the same problem that prevented the adoption of such a simple value in Thoreau’s age still haunts humanity today.

Thus Walden is a treatise not on nature, but on a mode of meaningful self-actualization that Thoreau found lacking in the general population and hence worthy of exploration. His book is an illustration of the simple truth that there is no way to live deliberately without the ability to listen, and that the way to follow his famous credo is to develop critical faculties that give meaning to what is seen, experienced and heard.

It may seem odd to claim that nature is not the heart of Walden, for it is without a doubt one of the essential elements of the book, but to place it at the core of Walden is to overlook the fact that Thoreau, the character, lies at the center of each and every observation of the natural world. After all, it is Thoreau’s adventure that thrusts us into the pivotal action, and it is through his eyes that we gaze upon the natural world to catch a glimpse of our own subconscious, vis-à-vis Thoreau’s awakening. And thus it should be obvious that Thoreau is the linchpin upon which the natural world of the book turns, evidenced by the vivification of nature that plays out while Thoreau tunes in to his surroundings. We the reader become his ears, eyes and soul. And as such it is through Thoreau’s body and mind that we come to understand the verdict, illustrated in Walden and performed by Thoreau, that the natural world hints at the deeper meaning of life, and thus nature acts not just as a means of reflection but as a diviner of certain absolute truths: one of which is the aforementioned need to stop to listen and learn.

If you liked what you read, you can find more about Walden in part 2