ON PHILOSOPHERS

Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury,
whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.

There are nowadays professors of philosophy,
but not philosophers.

Yet it is admirable to profess because
it was once admirable to live.
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts,
nor event to found a school,
but to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates,
a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically,
but practically.

…but why do men degenerate ever?
What makes families run out?
What is the nature of luxury which innervates and destroys nations?
Are we sure there is none of it in our own lives?

Excerpt, Walden by H. D. Thoreau “economy”

ON THE COST OF HOUSING

In modern civilized society
not more than one half of the families own a shelter.
In the the large town and cities where civilization especially prevails,
the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole.
The rest pay an annual tax (rent) for this outside garment of all,
become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams,
but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live…
It is evident that the savage owns his shelter
because it costs so little,
while the civilized man hires (rents) his commonly
because he cannot afford to own it;
nor can be, in the long run, any better afford to hire (rent.)

Excerpt, Walden by H. D. Thoreau “economy”

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I picked up the old copy of Thoreau: Walden and Other writings which I remember reading as an undergraduate student forty years ago.  The pages with yellowed edges have highlighted passages that impressed me at that young adult time.  I intend to read Walden again.  I find the same passages move me today.  The first section of Walden is entitled “economy.”  Thoreau offers observations on the various effects of American-New England economy of the 1840’s upon the rest of life.  It interests me that in Thoreau’s day, money and the accumulation of wealth was foremost in the American mind.  That has not changed.  America has always been “the land of opportunity.”

Thoreau admired the indigenous people, Indian tribes who lived here before our arrival.  Clearly the Indian had a different view of the land, and of wealth accumulation than did the newcomers from England and Europe.  Perhaps the difference is the principle reason that European culture was inevitably destructive of the Indian culture and society.

In the first quotation Thoreau opines on the effect of affluence upon philosophical inquiry.  I love the concluding personal questions with which he finishes his reflection upon this topic.

In the second, Thoreau offers his opinion upon housing, and the cost of shelter.  It seems to me that not much has changed since the 1840s.  A very small proportion of our people own their homes outright.  A majority are paying off a mortgage note, or are paying rent.  Thoreau offers that this circumstance is in fact, a state of unending servitude.