Thoreau, Schulz, and Purdy

In many ways, I agree with Schulz on her point that Henry David Thoreau is a narcissistic misanthrope as throughout the book I have noticed that is quite full of himself-not only especially notable when he talks about philanthropy, but also almost any time he speaks of humans or humanity in general. He expresses great disdain about how others live. I also agree with her on the point that she makes about him having written the book as a prescription as to how people should live as, even though he says not to aspire to live like him, he makes any other way of living seem sinful and foolish. He very much is trying to tell other people how to live their lives in “Walden”. Schulz also pointed out a lot of facts that I was unaware of, one of which being that he was only a twenty minute walk from society. I find it amazing that Thoreau was able to so closely examine what seems like such a large amount of Nature in such a confined amount of space. But in her pointing out how close he is to society, one starts to see how much he twisted his “truths”. But I don’t feel as much of a disdain for Thoreau as Schulz seems to have. I feel like all authors are entitled to some sort of creative license and while Thoreau definitely should’ve been more forthcoming about the many things Schulz has misgivings about I still think Thoreau deserves to be a classic albeit more due to the poetic and ecological effects of the book than his own personal and philosophical musings about humans. 

As for Purdy, Anthropocene is a word I had seen before in passing but never really knew the definition of. I’m also not sure that I’m reading his article correctly. To me it seems as if he’s saying that humans and human goings-on are intrinsically a part of Nature and that Thoreau inadvertently explores this fact. If that is the case, I can see where he is coming from, especially when Thoreau discusses the railroad and the human interaction with the pond in fishing and cutting ice.