The Concord Elite

I always enjoyed reading Thoreau, mainly for two reasons. One, I feel the romantic relationship between man and nature described by the author is so beautiful, so ideal. To “live deliberately” with only the essentials necessary to life seems like such a simple, yet wonderful concept, that it makes me want to unplug and go for a hike. And two, I actually went to high school about ten minutes away from Walden Pond, so it was always fun to drive past the woods and be reminded of the rich history surrounding me. But let’s check back into reality. I should be ashamed to admit this (though I’m clearly not) – I am NOT a big fan of nature. I hate camping. I hate bugs. I loathe any environment without a proper heating or running water system. What I do enjoy are the aspects of nature artificially developed by man to make me feel like I’m one with Mother Earth, but I can still use my GPS and take a shower with vanilla coconut body wash, ironically not made from nature. Also, I never went to Walden Pond. Did you catch what I said earlier? I drove past it. Always.

So yes, reading Thoreau is an escape into the ideal relationship I should have with nature, which is what the author wants his readers to experience in Walden. He argues for simplicity, and that we should “keep our accounts on our thumbnail” and eliminate the superfluous items overcomplicating our lives. The only cure for our cluttered surroundings is simplicity, which Thoreau argues is the elevation of purpose. Nature, therefore, becomes the place where one should go to experience the sublime feeling of God’s existence. Subsequently, one will also recognize what is not divine by comparing the experiences of the social world to those of the woods. Of course, these ideas are great and wonderful. Who wouldn’t want to check out for a few days without worrying about emails and deadlines? However, Thoreau’s ideas are not only idyllic, but elitist, and in today’s society, this would be a difficult argument to debate against those who don’t have the luxury to escape.

In Thoreau’s “Reading” section, he also appears elitist in his ideas on the comprehension of the written word as the “perfect knowledge.” He argues that reading is a noble intellectual exercise that should not be done to merely pass the time. “The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind,” he says, “for only great poets can read them.” Therefore, Thoreau argues that we should become literate in these great texts in order to build wiser, more cultivated villages of noble men. “It is time that villages were universities,” he says, and that the inhabitants of these universities can pursue, with leisure, liberal studies for the rest of their lives. It seems too obvious to point out Thoreau’s idealistic thinking, but it is important to note that sense of elitist ideology. To whom is Thoreau writing? Men, of course. But his argument is meant to be understood universally. If that is the case, his ideas fail to connect with certain socioeconomic groups, and the unfortunate implication is that these individuals are inferior, for they are not wise, worldly, and they have yet to experience God.