Walden and Civil Disobedience

Walden and Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. ”— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

WALDEN AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Henry David Thoreau

CONTENTS

Title Page (#u985e95d4-254f-530d-8912-acba48206ee7)

History of Collins (#u6de6b908-80dc-5b15-bec1-9830d0803132)

Life & Times (#udb403d56-03b1-51af-8418-a7af009d87b6)

Walden (#u1ffe33ed-9614-53b1-b39a-591bbd21d598)

Economy (#u702dfdd6-452b-5a8f-9e85-e7471f5581a9)

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For (#u77462768-47c1-53f4-a655-732cf3b7e0f9)

Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Sounds (#litres_trial_promo)

Solitude (#litres_trial_promo)

Visitors (#litres_trial_promo)

The Bean-Field (#litres_trial_promo)

The Village (#litres_trial_promo)

The Ponds (#litres_trial_promo)

Baker Farm (#litres_trial_promo)

Higher Laws (#litres_trial_promo)

Brute Neighbors (#litres_trial_promo)

House-Warming (#litres_trial_promo)

Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors (#litres_trial_promo)

Winter Animals (#litres_trial_promo)

The Pond in Winter (#litres_trial_promo)

Spring (#litres_trial_promo)

Conclusion (#litres_trial_promo)

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (#litres_trial_promo)

Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from the Collins English Dictionary (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

History of Collins (#ulink_2d19ad63-fb4c-5bfc-9516-7c60fe99ae1b)

In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.

Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner, however it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.

Aged 30, William’s son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and The Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.

In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.

HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.

Life & Times (#ulink_298d0a8c-b915-5dcd-99af-4ab177fdac4c)

Slavery is always driven by economics. In order to maximize profits, it is unnecessary to attract a labour force, it is unnecessary to pay wages, and it is unnecessary to provide more than the most basic utilities. The Atlantic slave trade began at a time when there were burgeoning commercial interests between European and New World nations, which meant that access to an unlimited workforce at relatively low expense was enough to initiate a trade-triangle that was to last for around 300 years. European trading ships would sail to the west coast of Africa, where they would purchase shipments of slaves from Arab slavers in exchange for cargoes of European products. The ships would then sail to the Caribbean and North America, where the slaves were sold for profit to plantation owners. The ships would then return to Europe laden with commodities to be sold for further profit.

Plenty of people made a great deal of money directly from the slave trade and that money filtered down to all levels of society in the West, supported by all manner of secondary and tertiary industries. In effect, the modernization of the West’s infrastructure was significantly funded by the free labour of African slaves. Thankfully, that process of modernization also included moral and ethical developments. Public consciousness became enlightened enough to see that slavery had to end.

When the Atlantic slave trade began it was a different story. Africa was regarded as a mysterious wilderness populated by peoples primitive in both culture and mind. Africans were consequently viewed as animal-like, and hence treating them as livestock was considered reasonable. They were viewed as the perfect workforce – human enough to be capable of useful work and to understand orders, yet not human enough to warrant comfort, wellbeing, and freedom. The myth of the inferior Negro mind was perpetuated because it suited those who had something to gain. In time, the idea became so ingrained in Caucasian populations that it became self-perpetuating, with the oppressed behaviour of the Negroes satisfying negative stereotypes and thereby affirming beliefs.

This vicious circle still lies vestigial in the ugly face of modern-day racism, but in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the tide was turning for the better thanks to an increasing number of liberally minded intellectuals who saw through the illusion of Caucasian racial superiority upon which the slave trade relied. In Britain the leading light was William Wilberforce. He headed a parliamentary campaign to abolish slavery, which eventually succeeded in 1807 with the Slave Trade Act. This act aimed to abolish slavery within the British Empire and this was finally achieved in 1833.

In the US, where slavery was a part of everyday life, the abolition cause took longer to foment. In 1849, a seminal essay was published by Henry David Thoreau, entitled ‘Civil Disobedience’, in which the author vented his discontent with the US establishment. In part, his motivation was his opposition to slavery. The following year the government added fuel to the fire by announcing the Fugitive Slave Act. As the divide between the North and South was already in evidence, and many slaves were seeking refuge in the North, the directive was that all runaway slaves should be returned to their ‘owners’. This was viewed as an awkward compromise by a government trying to preside over two vastly different ideologies. The 1850 act was so despised by the abolitionists that it was dubbed the ‘Bloodhound Act’, in allusion to the tracking dogs used to hunt down the slaves.

Tensions between northern and southern states would continue to rise for another decade, before the American Civil War broke out in 1861, lasting for four bloody years. In 1860, the newly elected president Abraham Lincoln launched a campaign to restrict the practice of slavery and the scene was set for a showdown. Bellicose sentiments finally came to a head and all-out war was the result. It proved so divisive that even family members found themselves enlisting on opposite sides, ready to kill kith and kin for the sake of their heartfelt beliefs.

It wasn’t about slavery per se, but about what slavery represented. In the northern states it was generally thought that progressive, enlightened people should know that slavery was an unethical practice. Thus, the anti-slavery cause was as much about being superior of mind as it was about achieving manumission for the Negro. The opposite was true in the southern states. They clung to more traditional values and resisted change, and thus the anti-slavery campaign seemed emblematic of the more sophisticated northerners’ habit of telling them what they should and shouldn’t do.

‘Civil Disobedience’ itself might be described as a passive-aggressive directive. In essence, Thoreau suggests that the way to affect change is by non-cooperation, or disobedience, because the outcome is then the disempowerment of government. He observes that regimes are self-supporting structures, so proactive opposition has the effect of strengthening that structure. Non-cooperation, on the other hand, has an undermining quality because the integrity of the structure relies on those who form the foundations. As they begin to perceive the regime as ineffectual, they walk away and the structure collapses. So, to Thoreau, the most important thing is to establish a clear moral basis on which to object to an ensconced governmental system and then allow it to erode its own footings.

Thoreau’s gripe wasn’t about party politics, but the general approach to government in the US. Thus, the message of ‘Civil Disobedience’ infiltrated the upper echelons of power, causing politicians to analyze their common views objectively. In fact, all those who read it found themselves reflecting on their collective behaviour and wondering whether Thoreau might be right. ‘Civil Disobedience’ became a catalyst for cultural change, which is why the slavery issue took centre stage. It was the most obvious blot on the new cultural landscape that Thoreau had inspired people to hope for. Slavery became what less refined people practised, because they lacked the ethical and moral fibre to understand their wrongdoing.

This drive towards a better way of acting and reacting to the world became known as transcendentalism. At its root was the fundamental idea that humanity is good when stripped back to basics, and that society, culture, and religion only serve to corrupt this goodness when left unchecked. As humans are generally deferential in nature, they are easily drawn into regimes and the danger comes when no one knows any different. When normality is never contrasted with other ways of viewing the world, people lose the ability to reflect and alter the status quo. Thoreau encouraged people to transcend normality to achieve a better way of living life, by looking inwards at the basic human condition. Therein lies his basic argument against slavery: all humans are equal when societal and cultural layers are stripped away. When we take things down to what lies beneath, we are all nothing more than members of the same species.

Due to the insightful nature of ‘Civil Disobedience’, it has often been referenced when populations have been driven to civil unrest by governments or regimes. It has universality because it has a generic message that applies to any era. For that reason, Thoreau’s wisdom has lived on in his writing. It seems that humanity has a habit of settling on unsatisfactory societal norms, but that is because society is a human construct. There is no one right way of running society, but there are plenty of wrong ways, and Thoreau’s words are all about maintaining the process of self-monitoring in an effort to do our very best in perpetual pursuit of the ideal. The act of civil disobedience is therefore the driver to keep things evolving, while civil obedience only allows a society to become set in its ways, so that the rot sets in.

Thoreau himself was very much a renaissance man. He was a polymath and lived a life intellectually removed from popular society. He put his own theory into practice a few years before his death. He built a cabin in a remote location and lived there for two years, so that he could get back to nature and become lost in his thoughts. His rationale was that he could be more objective by living a self-reliant lifestyle. He documented the results in his book Walden, published in 1854. Among the people who visited his cabin was a runaway slave. The author helped him flee to Canada, where slavery was not practised. This event is among many that generate deep philosophical discussion in the book, about how American society should emerge into the modern world. He died in 1861, just when the great cultural shift in America was being played out in the theatre of battle.