In Henry David Thoreau: A Life, Laura Dassow Walls presents a beautifully written, intimate portrait of this American philosopher, ecologist (a term that would not come into popular use for another 100 years), and political thinker and dissenter. Walls writes that to Thoreau, nature was not a separate sphere from mankind but a “grand, serene immortal, infinitely encouraging, though invisible companion” through which mankind and nature share the earth. By tying us to material goods and commerce, society enslaves us. To Thoreau, “man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” As a committed Transcendentalist, he sought to nurture the “divine principle” that lurked within him, and in each one of us.
In his epic work, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, he argued, in words that still echo, that when society causes injustice, our duty is not submission but resistance. In this regard, he famously refused to pay taxes to protest injustice, particularly slavery, and accepted a (brief to be sure) time in jail for his dissent.
When he died at 44 from tuberculosis, his friend and sometimes critic, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said that “[t]he country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost.”
Please join us to discuss this complex man and his life as we try to address what his words and deeds mean for us today.
Newcomers are always welcome. To be added to the Book Club's email list, use the form below to contact Earle O'Donnell. Earle will send out the Zoom link on on January 7.
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