Assignment Two – On Chapter Two “Where I Lived, and What I lived For”

Marshall McLuhan is widely regarded as the originator of media theory. In his well known 1964 chief work Understanding Media McLuhan argues that “all media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values” (McLuhan 199). Even though Henry David Thoreau died more than a century before the publication of Understanding Media, and the media landscape of the pre-Civil War era can hardly be compared to its post-World War II equivalent, it is safe to say that he would have been a determined advocator of McLuhan's statement.

In his autobiographical book Walden, Thoreau appears as a fierce critic of what his contemporaries consider news, which in his mind is nothing but gossip and lacks genuine news value (Thoreau 91). Moreover, he condemns the tendency to accept any kind of deception as true, “while reality is fabulous.” (Thoreau 94). In accordance with transcendentalism, Thoreau endorses the return to nature and “perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us” in order to grasp the sublimity of life. (Thoreau 94). It is therefore certain that Thoreau, if he lived nowadays, would despise not only every kind of technical innovations, but especially those that haven driven society farther away from nature and its virtues. In his mind, every new technology, be it radio, telephone or television, would only contribute to distraction from the actual matter of concern, or would enhance that, as Thoreau himself puts it in Walden, “our vision does not penetrate the surface of things.” (Thoreau 94). It is more than doubtful that Thoreau had the ability to cope with said inventions, and therefore it is obvious that the internet would imply a complete overload for him. The internet is omnipresent and offers an infinite amount of information rushing through ever increasing numbers of communication channels, distracting not only at home but also and especially outdoors. The triumphant advance of the smartphone makes more and more people look into a phone instead of their surroundings. Thoreau criticizes that in his time, people merely saw their environment but did not see beyond. Today, we don't see anything anymore except digital pixels aligned to random words and images. But it does not end there. Not only adults have lost touch to what Thoreau loves dearly—although it occurs in a new dimension now, this has been the case for centuries even before Thoreau's time. Something that might utterly devastate him is that even children, whom he attributes to “play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men” (Thoreau 94) are at risk of losing their imagination, mental capacity and impartiality since they grow up sitting in front of various screens instead of playing outside and experiencing their surroundings.

To say that Thoreau would be confused by what we call technical improvements would be an enormous understatement. The modern world depicts the exact opposite of what he cherishes in Walden. People have estranged themselves from nature much further than any transcendentalist could have ever imagined, and this development keeps on gaining momentum. This world irritated Thoreau in the nineteenth century – what it would do to him in its present state is unthinkable.

Works cited:

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 2. ed. New York: New American Library, 1964. Print. Mentor Book. - New York, NY, 1948- 2765.

Thoreau, Henry David, and Jeffrey S Cramer. Walden. New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press, 2004. Print.