We need Henry David Thoreau today

"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 he hears, however measured or far away." Many readers will recognize this as a quotation by Henry Thoreau. Other famous passages appear in the recent three-hour PBS documentary, "Henry David Thoreau." Produced by Ken Burns, and beautifully written by others, the film brings us the essential naturalist and dissident that lay behind his popular works, "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience." The documentary is a work of art, covering Thoreau's time spent living beside Walden Pond, his decade-long writing of "Walden," philosophical thought, nature, and experiences in — and reflections about — his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. Throughout, a pre-Civil War world comes to life. Young Henry was an individualist at birth, but it surely energized him intellectually that he grew up in the remarkable village of Concord, for among its 4,000 souls were Nathanial Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and the dominant literary figure of the age, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau's life coincided with the emergence of a short-lived Transcendentalist movement, which stood against growing materialist views of life and the (perceived) declining spirituality of mid-nineteenth century America. Emphasizing that knowledge could be gained not only through the senses, but through intuition, Transcendentalists asserted that humans are born with moral imperatives that can be discerned through self-examination: Who are we? Where are we? What is life? By removing restraints on their innate virtues, disciplined individuals could overcome the corruptions of society's institutions. Freedom was the lodestar in Thoreau's life, encompassing personal autonomy and moral conscience — a sentiment deepened by the sad perception that around him "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." More than merely a pessimistic observation of neighbors, Thoreau was diagnosing a profound, timeless human condition: the tendency to conform to societal expectations, to sacrifice personal authenticity for security, and to bury true passions under the weight of mundane routine. At the opening of "Walden," he writes, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Again and again he thinks of nature in terms of beauty and purity, always alert to see God therein. Walden Pond was "God's Drop," where he could commune with the spirit of the universe. He believed in the forest, and meadow, and clean water: "In Wildness is the preservation of the World," he wrote. Little wonder that many see Thoreau as the father of our environmental movement. Living in the woodlands of Walden (and the 10-by-15 cabin he built) gave Thoreau a distinct vantage point from which to examine society at large. In often searing commentary, he expressed his indignation over the widespread disregard for human rights, whether it was slavery (he became an ardent abolitionist), the mistreatment of Indians, or war against Mexico. It was midway through his pond sojourn that Thoreau spent a night in the Concord jail for refusing to pay a poll tax that funded, in his view, a pro-slavery, imperialist war. Alarmed that the promise of the Founders was being betrayed, Thoreau penned "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience," becoming a champion of nonviolent resistance as the primary form of protest. Not immediately, but through much of the twentieth century, his essay positively shaped history. Political reformers such as Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the Indian independence movement against British rule, told colleagues that Thoreau's ideas on peaceful resistance had influenced him greatly. No book guided Martin Luther King, Jr., more than the Bible, but he wrote in his autobiography that it was Thoreau's essay on the duty to resist unjust laws that led him to integrate peaceful resistance with the Christian ethic of love. In such leaders we find inspiration to examine our own ideals and consider how we may enlist them in service to others. Thoreau is less appreciated today than half-a-century ago. Our cultural standards are damaged, having become so heavily materialistic and consumer-driven that to modern readers the sage of Walden often appears as preachy and uncompromising. Moreover, in our political atmosphere, conservatives may disapprove of his anti-business temperament. Yet seldom has Thoreau been more relevant. Our federal government is zealous in its anti-environmental projects, criticizing land management advocates as "environmental terrorists." As glaciers retreat and Antarctica melts, elected officials bark that environmentalism "is the greatest threat to freedom." Attacks on civil liberties and free speech have become commonplace. Thoreau is speaking to us today — and we would be wise to listen. Ron Lora, a native of Bluffton, is professor of history emeritus at the University of Toledo.