Thoreauvian Modernities: Transatlantic Conversations on an American Icon

Antimodern Thoreau

43 We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were. We are a race of tit-men, and soar but little higher in our intellectual flights than the columns of the daily paper. Walden 107 Undoubtedly, in any discussion of “Thoreauvian modernities,” it is somewhat provocative to call Thoreau an “antimodern,” but provocation is not out of keeping with this eccentric writer. The quotations to be discussed will reveal more than a simple opposition to what was modern in his time: Thoreau was a keen observer of the changes taking place in his society and a most perceptive critical thinker of antebellum America as the country became increasingly industrialized and urbanized. He was well aware of the new forces at work, and his criticism allowed him to free himself from the prevailing conventional notions of his time and to develop a fascinating mode of thinking well in advance of his age. Like so many romantics, Thoreau was a misfit in his century and did not even try to adapt. The choice of a literary life gave him the opportunity to maintain a distance from the “confused tintinnabulum” of his contemporaries (W 329), to analyze the changes, and to urge his readers to be aware of what was wrong with the new society. He said that he would have preferred “not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century,” but he never intended to go West among the Indians or to live in complete isolation. He added that he just wanted to “stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by” (W 329–30), that is, to be a witness, a close observer of the century he disliked, though at times it did Michel Granger Antimodern Thoreau 44 Michel Granger fascinate him. His Journal and essays sift and qualify his many contradictory reactions toward this new mode of life. Thoreau’s distrust of progress and of what he termed “so-called improvements ” led him to the assessment of what had become received ideas or prevailing dogma. It made him view his age from a distinctive angle, according to an antimodern mode focused on the negative new forces that shaped society, in particular the current insistence on an economic approach to human questions. He became an observant, critical thinker who did not share the major assumptions of the period and did not generally adhere to the ideology that propelled American society. He was thus in a position not only to see through the prevailing discourse that blinded the majority but also to perceive the failures and inhuman errors. Thoreau’s Ambivalent Jeremiad on Modernity Antimodern Thoreau, however, explicitly perceived himself as modern in an 1852 remark that served to define his point of view; when he was mistaken for a pacifist Quaker in Quebec, he replied: “I thought, if there was any difference between us, it might be that I was born in modern times” (PJ 4: 379–80). After his return from Harvard, he had been under Emerson’s mentorship and had been intellectually shaped by Transcendentalism, an intellectual avant-garde movement dedicated to undermining those traditions that the Transcendentalists felt were weighing too much on contemporary America; Thoreau accordingly rejected the burden of the past, the authority of previous generations, and the opinions of Philistines. His critical attitude toward the past did not mean that he blindly followed contemporary trends, adopted the cult of progress, or believed in the positivism of science. On the contrary, Thoreau raised many objections to the forces that were transforming American society. His resistance required qualifications, reversals , and reticence as he expressed his disgruntlement over the dominant ideology of the mid-nineteenth century. Thoreau’s ambivalence is nowhere more obvious than in his combination of pessimism and optimism. Most often, he expected negative consequences from the materialistic, technological, scientific evolution, just as he severely criticized political institutions and leaders who were incapable of distinguishing between good and evil. He belonged to the rural world, a setting which in his view was conducive to conscience and Antimodern Thoreau 45 the capacity to criticize the decadence of modern times. He placed moral value in this opposition to society and the government of the majority, having scant hope that society might improve, since he had a very low opinion of “the mass of men” (W 8). When he vents his pessimistic criticism of modern society...