I remember a
moment, when I was sitting in a restaurant. There were some woman sitting next
to us which didn't talk to each other and just played with their mobile phones
and wrote text messages and so on.
An imagination of this situation would be a nightmare for Henry David Thoreau.
To be more precisely, even letters are unnecessary for him. He gets along without all this things in his life. Now the question is:
How would Henry David Thoreau react to today's more complex technological advancements and social media? How would he react to a world, where letters are antiquated and people can't live without mobile phones, internet and other technical progress?
I can anticipate: It won't meet with his approval.
"Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. " ( Thoreau 58)
That is the reason he retired and lived next to Walden Pond with only those items he needed to survive, how he tells in his book "Walden; or, Life in the Woods".
He just had a house, which protected him from rain, but it was cold and drafty in winter. Nevertheless he didn't complain about it but rather it was everything he needed and so he was content.
Nowadays most of us wouldn't be able to live like this because we used to live luxurious.
Thoreau thinks that the internal improvements "are all external and superficial". ( Thoreau 60)
All this luxury and the heedless expense ruined the nation and many families. There is only one cure for them: " A rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose." (60)
In addition Thoreau believes that the nature gives us so much so that we can abstain from mechanical servants like an alarm clock.
All in all Thoreau couldn't live in the world, how it is today. His attitude would be the same and I think that's the reason he would seal himself off from the society again.
An imagination of this situation would be a nightmare for Henry David Thoreau.
To be more precisely, even letters are unnecessary for him. He gets along without all this things in his life. Now the question is:
How would Henry David Thoreau react to today's more complex technological advancements and social media? How would he react to a world, where letters are antiquated and people can't live without mobile phones, internet and other technical progress?
I can anticipate: It won't meet with his approval.
"Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. " ( Thoreau 58)
That is the reason he retired and lived next to Walden Pond with only those items he needed to survive, how he tells in his book "Walden; or, Life in the Woods".
He just had a house, which protected him from rain, but it was cold and drafty in winter. Nevertheless he didn't complain about it but rather it was everything he needed and so he was content.
Nowadays most of us wouldn't be able to live like this because we used to live luxurious.
Thoreau thinks that the internal improvements "are all external and superficial". ( Thoreau 60)
All this luxury and the heedless expense ruined the nation and many families. There is only one cure for them: " A rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose." (60)
In addition Thoreau believes that the nature gives us so much so that we can abstain from mechanical servants like an alarm clock.
All in all Thoreau couldn't live in the world, how it is today. His attitude would be the same and I think that's the reason he would seal himself off from the society again.
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