In my 1950s-1960s education, David Henry Thoreau (1817-1862) was an integral part of learning what America was and what it stands for as it had been for many generations. We all got a real education, grade by grade, repeating any grade year that was not testably learned. The two most prominent essayists of early 19th Century America were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (his reversal pen name).
Perhaps the most evocative phrase was written by Thoreau in the concluding chapter of his most famous work “On Waldon Pond.” (I think I remember long ago seeing the great actor Paul Muni recite this phrase in a movie – perhaps “The Last Angry Man.”) It is a testament to American Exceptionalism’s most basic preeminent VALUE – Personal Liberty and Individual Self-Reliance – the diametric opposite to the contemporary Idealist’s lust for Social Organization and the Power to impose it on Society.
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer – let him step to the music that he hears, however measured or far away.”
If you sincerely believe that you value ‘the Truth, the Whole Truth and nothing but the Truth,’ you should do yourself a very private favor. Go to Grokipedia and read the entry for Thoreau and then privately think about how it fits into today’s world.
[Or you can join the Thundering Herd of College-Educated Idealists stamping out Personal Liberty and Self-Reliance. Ignore Thoreau entirely. Study Saul Alinsky. Learn coercion for Social Justice.]
