If Thoreau were to move to Walden today, would he bring the Internet? Maybe.
Thoreau is one of technological innovation's most famous critics. But there’s a different side to Thoreau’s relationship with technology that says a lot about our own continuing struggle to strike the right balance between individual serenity and an interconnected planet.
Leaves cloak the entrance to The Thoreau Institute in Lincoln, Mass., July 29, 2004. Op-ed contributor Danny Heitman observes: 'Thoreau seemed aware of this tension between repose and connectedness, and even he wasn’t a purist in trying to square it.' With the world at our fingertips, even on vacation, Thoreau 'invites us to consider what we stand to gain – and what we’re willing to pay – for having what we want when we want it.'
John Nordell/The Christian Science Monitor/File
Baton Rouge, La.
One hundred and sixty-seven years ago today, on July 4, 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a small cabin near Walden Pond in Massachusetts. He used the next two years to develop “Walden,” a book that contemplates the promise of nature and the perils of progress.
Today’s anniversary, coincidentally the same day as America’s birthday, invites a question:
If Thoreau were to move to Walden today, would he bring the Internet with him?
At first glance, that idea seems silly. Thoreau is, after all, one of the world’s most celebrated skeptics of technological innovation, and his barbs about advances in speedy communications and commerce are legendary.
“I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper,” he told his 19th century readers. “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas,” Thoreau famously complained, “but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.”
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