Writing the Wild: Nature, Culture, and American Literature

On a different subject of Thoreau’s Walden: I was most fascinated by Thoreau’s opinion about education in the sense of theoretical schooling. He seems to consider the common approach of the educational establishments to be heavily flawed. By training an individual only theoretically, the student would not be able to put the gained knowledge into practice. Spending years at university, learning only from books and teachers, is no comparison to one day in the field. Thoreau’s approach to knowledge is learning by doing, and he considers the theoretical way a waste of time. He says of himself that he was rather surprised when he got to know after finishing his studies that what he had studied was actually navigation. He even contemplates that one day in the harbour with a real ship would have taught him more than his entire academic studies.

This deliberation is, in my opinion, very similar to his defiance of the railroad. He avoids the ‘new’ teaching methods of theory before practise and the gathering of institutionalized knowledge in favour of ‘the old ways’. Just throw the child into the water and it will learn to swim. In this arguement I find an essential question that is still strongly debated between anthropologists, humanists, psychologists, pedagogues and everyone with a slight interest in human development: the question of nature vs. nurture. Thoreau is definitely a supporter of the nature theory, alleging that man is born with innate features to deal with and overcome almost any given problem. He only touches the subject in Walden (although I cannot say that for sure, for I have yet to read the rest of it), but I think it is worth discussing.

I would like to discuss Thoreau’s approach to modern improvements and civilization in the chapter “Economy”. As we discussed in class, Thoreau seems to have a natural resistance against any kind of technological progress. He denounces the idea of faster communication in his statement abut the railroad and the telegraph. In his opinion, an increase in the trafficking of information is not an improvement, but rather a step backwards for mankind. As no-one hast to consider the message s/he wants to transport and the time it would take to do so anymore, communication would become dominated by meaningless chitchat. The fact that someone would have to undertake a journey of several hours, days or even weeks to give the designated recipient his or her message means that the time spent to achieve that aim has to be worth while the message. By taking away the way, the goal becomes meaningless.

I agree with Thoreau to a certain degree, for most of the information exchanged on a daily basis is pointless in deeper meaning, yet necessary for social interaction. But that is not limited to conversations over distance. And Thoreau misses the usefulness of the increase in information technology and speed, whether it enables people to react faster to or be informed about important events. The problem about the technological improvements and the communications revolution is that it makes the world smaller, less mystic. I think that is Thoreau’s main concern, for the greatness and the distance of the American landscape are something that heavily influenced him in his perception of the world and life itself: more than one can grasp or control, yet very intense to experience. It bothers him that such a great area can be “conquered” by some meaningless words, passing through in seconds, without even taking a look at its majesty and accepting it greatness. To me the writing in “Economy” seems to be full of defiance for all that mankind prides itself in, especially technological progress, civilization and a general feeling of superiority towards fauna and flora.