“Hello there!

Are you

AWAKE?”

Words of Henry David Thoreau, Walden author

What does this mean? How can we be “awake” to the day?

What happens if we’re not? If we NEVER are?

Are most people asleep to life, running on autopilot?

Thoreau’s Life

Born 1817

Harvard Graduate

Teaches but quits – “No rules!” Early Anarchist.

Now what … writing?Wants to share ideas on nature

Becomes Emerson’s friend and protégé, and receives land in the woods outside Concord to build a cabin and live in solitude

Here, beside Walden Pond, he settles, observes and journals – the basis of his classic Walden:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhP7PKoRmmYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaE4EvM-UF4

Emerson taught, Thoreau acted. His “activism” included:

-Living in the woods-Refusing to “have a job”-Speaking out against slavery-Opposing invasion of Mexico-Protesting by paying no taxes

The last got him thrown in jail,where he wrote the classic essay “Civil Disobedience”

The message: Disobey unjust laws, work toward anarchismand union with NATURE’s laws

He wrote a speech defending John Brown that inspired abolitionists

Wrote 2 million words about the 25 miles around his hometown – early ecology

““He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty. – Nathaniel Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter author)than beauty. – Nathaniel Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter author)

““Thoreau's facial Thoreau's facial hair will most hair will most assuredly deflect assuredly deflect amorous advances amorous advances and preserve the and preserve the man's (virginity) in man's (virginity) in perpetuity.” perpetuity.” –Louisa May Alcott (Little Women Author and Transcendentalist)

THOREAU’S DEATH ( @ Age 44, 1862)

-Contracts tuberculosis; survives 30 years-Finally it flares up and he knows he will die soon..-He spends his last years writing and walking when he can

-His friends are fascinated by his “tranquil acceptance of death”-His last words: NOW COMES GOOD SAILING… -At his funeral, Emerson laments his “laziness,” saying he could have been so much greater if he’d “worked” harder.

-However, he would influence the next generation powerfully…

100 Things ChallengeIn groups, see if you can come In groups, see if you can come

up with up with a list of no more than a list of no more than 50 items50 items you could survive you could survive with. Unlike Thoreau, you’ll with. Unlike Thoreau, you’ll be allowed a FRIDGE, be allowed a FRIDGE, SHOWER AND STOVE for free. SHOWER AND STOVE for free.

Articlehttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1812048,00.html

Vid - http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6994343nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaE4EvM-UF4

Tips – http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/6-easy-tips-for-living-with-100-items-or-less.html

"Civil Disobedience""Civil Disobedience"

"The government is best which governs least." Like Locke, he felt government should exist only to protect the people.

Individuals must sometimes go against the government if their conscience dictates it.

“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right." Rather than passively waiting for justice, people need to act for it. Otherwise, they are just as bad as the evildoers.

Because the United States government waged unjust wars and continued to promote slavery, Thoreau felt he could not pay taxes that supported these injustices. Rather than trying to use the corrupt government's system of voting for change, he chose to take action and withdraw his monetary support, even if it meant going to jail. “Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."

“The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.… Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”

Thoreau: Each individual must do what is right, regardless of law or popular

sentiment

A later Thoreau speech, criticizing Massachusetts's government for helping southern states capture escaped slaves under the Fugitive Slave Law, sums up the issue nicely:

"The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

What should concern Massachusetts is her own slaveholding and servility. Let the State dissolve her union with the slaveholder. She may wriggle and hesitate, and ask leave to read the Constitution once more; but she can find no respectable law or precedent which sanctions the continuance of such a union for an instant. Let each inhabitant of the State dissolve his union with her, as long as she delays to do her duty."

Just as Thoreau was influenced by the Indian religion Just as Thoreau was influenced by the Indian religion HinduismHinduism, whose Pantheistic views are similar to Thoreau’s , whose Pantheistic views are similar to Thoreau’s

nature-religion, Thoreau influenced Indian independence nature-religion, Thoreau influenced Indian independence leaders leaders like the famous Mahatma Gandhi, who lead the like the famous Mahatma Gandhi, who lead the people of India to peacefully defy their Imperial British people of India to peacefully defy their Imperial British

rulers and win their independence.rulers and win their independence.

“Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. He was one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced. At the time of the abolition of slavery movement, he wrote his famous essay ‘On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.’ He went to jail for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable.” –Mahatma Gandhi

Martin Luther King Jr.on Thoreau and Resistance

“Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice…”