Engineering News

I've always been a fan of Thoreau.

But to him, this day, I would say: Your words were brought to me, sitting in the comfort of my home, while I was strolling along a world-wide information highway, this highway being the latest product of the Industrial Revolution you disdained.

Touché

Thoreau is a subject that I haven't visited in quite some time and haven't studied enough... I never finished reading Walden, oh so long ago... the folly of youth, I suppose. How many books have been written about he and his fellow Transcendentalists? (A quick search in the university library catalog with Thoreau as a Title keyword produces 233 citations! What if we included all of the well known Transcendentalists?! I'm sure much of the information is redundant, but still...)

Like fire, technology can be both bad and good depending on its use. Thoreau and his companions were influenced by Eastern thought. He was attracted to what would be called the "inner life." I think, for the most part, he would have been skeptical of anything that distracts from the pursuit of that. We can all be shown to be inconsistent in our lives, juxtaposed against our ideals. Ideals can be our inspiration and aspiration.

His comments about fashion, for instance, show valuing function over form. Clothing, as a covering for the body, vs. how that covering is "fashioned."

He is probably best known for his essay, Civil Disobedience and the book Walden. Ironically, his inspiration from Vedic scriptures returned full circle in his being an inspiration for Gandhi. And Gandhi, in turn, influenced Martin Luther King. (A Taoist circle (Taiji), perhaps?)

This has given me the inspiration to look at Walden and Thoreau anew. I found one "Cliff note-like" summary that looks attractive. I, likely, will spend some time there. Thanks.

I wonder how Thoreau would have got along if he didn't have access to technologies such as a wood cabin where he could sit and comfortably gaze into his own navel?