Assignment 1 - Chap. "Economy" - Compare and contrast the perspectives of Thoreau and Robinson.

        Taking a rather individualistic approach philosopher and essayist Henry David Thoreau pursuits in the opening chapter of his book Walden how happiness collides with an austere lifestyle—a concept he understands as the suffering of self inflicted privations he lives by throughout the two year-period described in the latter book. Thoreau describes these two years and two months he lived besides Walden Pond, outlining his opinion on various topics and concerning how to live a ''good life'' in particular. He also addresses and discusses the practical issues of providing for himself in his self chosen solitude. A ''good life'' herby becomes one of earning and hard work; interestingly enough, being a philosopher himself does not prevent Thoreau to break down the essence of existence to an equation as simple as this: “None of the brute creation requires more than Food an Shelter” (Thoreau 7). This minimalistic, yet indisputably correct, view of the world and its inhabitants leads him to the conclusion, that one can only live a ''good life'' in this sense by abdicating the system of support laid out by family and society. In Thoreau's perceptions an earnestly lived life already holds all the knowledge that may come to those, who try to study it from the outside, while not properly taking part in it—the need of providing for oneself, the actual every day work of one living by Thoreau's ideal of an earnest life, pays off with fruitful leisure, instead of futile boredom.

        In a hardly compatible sense Marilynne Robinson addresses the social safety nets, Thoreau only sees as obstructive in the philosophical sense of living an earnest live, and its considerable advantages when it comes to the perception, creation and excellence of autonomy and safety in contemporary society. Needles to say, Robinson sees great advantages and prospects in the interacting with the social safety nets surrounding us. Ideally, networking within these nets of social safety happens on a base of respect, trust, information and a constant mutual education on behalf of the involved parties and individuals (cf. Robinson).

        Based on their different approaches I consider Robinson and Thoreau of little affinity. Simply by situating them in their context of their time and the according society gives me two very different expressions of their experienced possibilities. While Thoreau has a more philosophic view facing inwards on his rather introverted idea of happiness based on an earnest living (he applies more or less easily on himself), Robinson lives in a time of globalization and networking as a huge possibility for the acquirement of the exact information possibly needed to succeed at ones enterprises—therefore exploring a very extroverted and more purposeful guide for ones life. I therefore consider their ideas of neither contradictory nor complimentary, but simply addressing two different matters from two equally differential points of view.

E.J.

Works Cited:

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2009. Print.

Robinson, Marilynne. “Night Thoughts of a Baffled Humanist” in The Nation. 2011. Web. 28 December 2013 <www.thenation.com/print/article/164466/night-thoughts-baffled-humanist>.