literature review

Life and love: Thoreau’s life philosophy on man and nature in the age of industrialization

Junhong Ma

Published online: 22 September 2009 © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2009

Abstract Henry David Thoreau, who was ignored and dismissed by his contemporaries, now has become a global figure as the saint and pioneer of environmental protection. This

study intends to explore Thoreau’s life philosophy on man and nature encountering the

industrial civilization, which he believed caused the life alienation of nature and human

beings. In his reflection on industrial civilization, Thoreau inquired into the rationality of

science and technology, recognized the exploitation of life under the guidance of ratio-

nality and objected to the material culture in which people’s lives were eroded and

degraded. Beneath his fierce critiques, there is a great concern about the existence and

development of the whole universal life. He tried to find an ideal solution to the crises of

natural ecology and spiritual ecology of human beings. His critiques on industrial civili-

zation and his cosmological beliefs of life are still enlightenment for the alienated people

of today. The author thinks that Chinese people could also gain some revelation from

Thoreau’s life philosophy. Firstly, it stimulates us to rediscover and reinterpret the Chinese

classics, which have been ignored in China in the past 100 years, and to find our own

eco-wisdom; Secondly, it forces us to reflect on China’s development of modernization.

Keywords Reflection on industrial civilization · Alienation to life · Cosmological beliefs of life · Revelation to China

Henry David Thoreau, who was ignored and dismissed by his contemporaries, now has

emerged as one of the greatest American literary figures. Especially in the era full of

environmental crises, Thoreau’s works have attracted more attention than before and have

been regarded as the classics of green works. This study is intended to explore Thoreau’s

life philosophy on man and nature encountering the industrial civilization which he

believed intruded into people’s lives and brought to people a tripartite alienation: man and

nature, man and others, man and himself. Based on the close reading of Thoreau’s major

work Walden, we find that although Thoreau lived in the early days of the industrial

J. Ma (&) Department of Foreign Languages, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]

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Neohelicon (2009) 36:381–396 DOI 10.1007/s11059-009-0008-2

civilization when the western countries had a rapid economic development since the first

Industrial Revolution and people indulged in material enjoyment which the new inventions

and techniques brought about, he had already sensitively felt the impact of industrialization

and had foreseen the dilemma human beings would meet in the future. In his reflection on

industrial civilization, Thoreau used poetic language to inquire about the rationality of

science and technology, to describe the exploitation of life under the guidance of instru-

mental reason and to object to the material culture in which people’s lives were eroded and

degraded. He pointed out that man has lost the essential emotions and freedom of life

within the industrial society, becoming apathetic and hostile to life. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

1

In addition, there is a deep life philosophy (a cosmological belief of life) beneath

Thoreau’s fierce critiques on industrial civilization. It has a kind of reverence, value and

love to the whole universal life, whether it is human beings’ spiritual life or nature’s

organic life. Meanwhile, he believed that life exists in nature. The variety, vitality and

eternity of life in nature will awake people’s life consciousness and allow them a sub-

stantial release of instinctual energy, recovering their primitive life force and deep emo-

tional experiences. He was convinced that only if human beings keep the “productive

love” 2 to all the life that exists in the universe, can they avoid the disequilibrium of

spiritual ecology and solve the ecological crisis of nature. His thoughts are not outdated.

These critiques on industrial civilization and life philosophy on man and nature are still

enlightenment for the alienated people today. China could also derive some enlightenment

from Thoreau’s life philosophy. First, it stimulates us to rediscover and reinterpret the

Chinese classics, which have been ignored in the past 100 years, and to find our own

eco-wisdom. Second, it forces us to reflect on the development of China’s modernization.

Thoreau’s reflection on industrial civilization

Life alienation resulting from science and technology

In the long history of human beings’ development, they always tried to break away from

the constraint of nature. This gradually came to be true after the first Industrial Revolution.

Many new scientific inventions, such as the steam-powered engines, steam-ship, railroad,

and telegraphy, were developed. These were the most striking and revolutionary inventions

in the mid-19th century. In particular, the innovation in transportation (railroads and

steamships) and communication (telegraphs) both accelerated the western expansion and

shrank the globe. They had a world of effect. Of course, Thoreau knew that people derived

benefits from science and technology, such as convenience and improvement in production

efficiency. Each day there seemed to be many more new inventions and new machines to

improve their lives. But Thoreau was not so optimistic about these “New Inventions”. He

believed that “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from

serious things.” 3 He had mixed feelings toward science and technology. He was interested

1 Thoreau, H. D. (1966). In O. Thomas (Ed.), Walden and civil disobedience: Authoritative texts back-

ground, reviews and essays in criticism (p. 5). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 2 As for the description of “productive love”, Cf: Fromm, E. (1976). To have or to be? (p. 44). New York:

Harp Harper & Row. 3 Thoreau, H. D. (1966). In O. Thomas (Ed.), Walden and civil disobedience: Authoritative texts back-

ground, reviews and essays in criticism (p. 35). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

382 J. Ma

123

in science and read extensively in science, serving on the Harvard Examining Committee

in Natural Science. When he observed those botanies, he used scientific methods. Boswell

praised Thoreau by commenting that “he would be a transcendentalist and scientist too,

finding no conflict.” 4 It is obvious that Thoreau feared that science and technology would

gradually become a weapon for people to exploit nature and a monster of inward intrusion

and destruction to human life.

Thoreau had some reasons to justify his views. Firstly, science and technology had

become commercialized in the industrial society. It was tightly integrated together with

production, commerce and profits. In order to keep up with increased production, plentiful

resources were needed and exploited for production. People no longer regarded science as

a universal truth to be pursued. In their eyes, it only symbolized power and efficiency, a

weapon for them to conquer and dominate nature. Thoreau indicated that natural

exuberancy had been decreased by science and technology, which also destroyed the

harmonious relationship between man and nature. In the chapter of Sound in Walden, Thoreau took the railway as an example.

Railroad, the most important 19th century invention, was a revolutionary means of

transportation in Europe and in the United States. It started in the early 1830s. By 1860,

over 100,000 freight cars were rolling on rails and they were carrying 3.2 billion-ton-miles

of freight. It seemed that everything of civilization needed to go by rail. However, Thoreau

disliked the railway and thought it useless. What he saw were plenty of trees being cut

down for building the railway and for fuel, the original pastoral peace being broken by the

noisy sound, the wasting of energy, and the pollution of nature by the steam-powered

engine. Thoreau showed his strong loathing of the railroad in Walden, “The iron horse makes the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and

breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils.” 5 “I will not have my eyes put out and my ears

spoiled by its smoke and steam and hissing…” 6

And the railway changed people’s lives and thinking pattern unconsciously. It barged

into the world of human beings and seemed to be an indispensable part of people’s daily

life. Even their lifestyle was changed to a “train style”—“The startings and arrivals of the

cars are now the epochs in the village day. They go and come with such regularity and

precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them,

and thus one well-conducted institution regulates a whole country….There is something

electrifying in the atmosphere of the former place.” 7 In other words, the new inventions

and techniques made people mechanized and standardized. What they cared about were

efficiency, profits and money. Rarely would anyone want to take a bit more time to

experience life in nature. The guiding principle of the whole society was technical

efficiency, which potentially undermined the self and humanity.

Secondly, Thoreau argued that in the course of conquering nature, not only was nature

destroyed, but also people’s innocent feelings to nature had disappeared. Meanwhile, the

development of science and technology used up a great amount of nature’s energy; yet

saving up the excessive and repressed interior life energy of human beings themselves,

whose life degraded and shortened during the course of convenience and utility.

4 Boswell, J. (1990). The American renaissance and the critics: The best of a century in criticism (p. 134).

Wakefield, New Hampshire: Longwood Academic. 5 Thoreau, H. D. (1966). In O. Thomas (Ed.), Walden and civil disobedience: Authoritative texts back-

ground, reviews and essays in criticism (p. 78). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 6 Ibid, p. 82.

7 Ibid, p. 79.

Life and love 383

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The primitive vital force was lost then. Furthermore, man would act and think in a

mechanical way if he became accustomed to frequently using machinery for work. So in

Thoreau’s eyes, those people who drove and took the steamed-engine were much more

emotionless and mechanical than the machines themselves. For instance, train drivers drove

the unknown tireless train to send all the goods tirelessly to every place of the country

regardless of the weather or other factors. They never thought about stopping for a while to

appreciate the beautiful scenery of nature, and only stopped when they did not have enough

physical energy to drive the train. In this kind of work process, people could not completely

feel the pleasure and pride of work. They were gnawed by the conventional, dull and

nervous work, more like a “machinery person” without the emotional and cognitive

awareness of his essential innermost self. Thus, the spiritual mechanization hindered the

development of a colorful life and weakened the wild vitality and imagination little by little.

Thoreau wrote a panegyric on the French-Canadian woodchopper—Alek Therien. He

“admired Therien’s overflowing happiness and the thorough way he went about his work

with his axe.” 8 Therien had an inexpressible contentment and mirth in labor. The human

dignity, wild life force and freedom were preserved within such a working process.

Thoreau believed that labor was not only the activity that could bring material profits, but

also a play which makes man complete and developed simultaneously. Schiller noted that

“man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only

completely a man when he plays.”

Exploitation of life under the guidance of rationality

The competitive spirit in the age of industrialization would lead to a fragmented society

ruled by the principle, “every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” In view of

this end, reason is the “direction of the attack on the environment” which derives from the

“threefold urge (1) to live, (2) to live well, (3) to live better.” 9 Such a kind of reason changed

the relationship between man and nature from “I–you” to “I–it”. All the “others” were man’s

means and instrument for obtaining profits. Thoreau found that this kind of rationality was

ingrained and controlled people’s hearts, and also overflowed into American society. Both

the country and the individuals began to put profit before everything else.

For the individuals, their goal was to endlessly amass private wealth regardless of its

rationality. Their accumulation of wealth greatly depredated nature’s life. For example, in

the period of 1820–1860, the quest for immediate returns in agriculture led to a ruthless

stripping of natural resources. In the absence of national legislation and national power, the

timber, grasses, and minerals of the public domain attracted a headlong scramble by the

pioneers to cut trees, graze their cattle, and dig for ore. And the soil itself fared no better.

Americans generally lacked the incentives and patience to conserve the soil by using

fertilizers and by carefully rotating crops. They tended to look on land as a temporary and

expendable resource that should be used as rapidly as possible. Thoreau was shocked to see

that people discarded the “sacred art”—husbandry in ancient times. “Ancient poetry and

mythology suggest that husbandry was once a sacred art.” 10

Before the industrial

8 Walter, R. H. (1982). The days of Henry Thoreau: A biography (p. 190). Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press. 9 Marcuse, H. (1968). One dimensional man, studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society (p. 223).

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 10

Thoreau, H. D. (1966). In O. Thomas (Ed.), Walden and civil disobedience: Authoritative texts back- ground, reviews and essays in criticism (p. 111). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

384 J. Ma

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revolution, man was basically in harmony with nature. Farming was an economical pro-

duction process based on the natural growth and revegetation of the organism, which

cultivated life. The universe was regarded as an organic life, which had nothing to do with

the lifeless material world. Hunting was also regarded in this way. In the past, man went

hunting for food only. They would not kill much more than what they needed. In general,

man maintained a good relationship with animals in the forest. However, after industri-

alization, farming and hunting were no longer the traditional social activities for sustaining

life. They were now “pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by the people”.

Thoreau sighed and criticized that:

By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of

regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the

landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the

meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber. 11

In the eyes of most people, nature only had economic value and recreational value.

Obviously, they were in conflict with nature, which was regarded as an inanimate object

without any emotion. They only thought of how they could exploit nature and make it serve

their purposes. The forest thus became the raw material for meeting people’s demands for

food, clothing and shelter. “No man will go by a pile of wood.” “Mechanics and tradesmen

who come in person to the forest on no other errand, are sure to attend the wood auction, and

even pay a high price for the privilege of gleaning after the wood-chopper.” 12

But all these

things in Thoreau’s life had surpassed the idea of totality resources. He fiercely reproached

those who only regarded nature as a lifeless resource. He rebuked the peasant in Flint Pond

“who thought only of its money value; …who exhausted the land around it, and would fain

have exhausted the waters within it, drained and sold it for the mud at its bottom…” 13

Thoreau believed that for those who only sought to occupy all the natural resources had been

dehumanized and could not enjoy the real scent of nature.

Meanwhile, for the country, there was a great expansion of territory, arising from the

plunder and invasion of smaller nations. There was the rough exploitation of Indian soil

and the slaughter of the Indians in the westward expansion and land acquisition, the

U.S.–Mexican war, the slavery of the black people, and the so-called “philanthropy” to the

colonies. Under the guidance of instrumental rationality, they naturally regarded what they

had done as legitimate and reasonable. But in Thoreau’s opinion, both the society’s

planned annihilation of life in the national interest, and the unplanned deprivation of life on

behalf of private interests were totally wrong.

Thoreau believed that true America should not be a country that oppresses its people to

support invasion of other countries and exploitation of the lives of others. In his mind, the

whole U.S. nation, including the government and the individuals, had a feverish desire “to

have”. In the having mode, people cared more about the trivial things, while ignoring the

important things—their inward life. They were estranged from beauty, nature, man and

themselves. As the Frankfurt School scholar Fromm said, “In the having orientation, greed

for money, fame, and power has become the dominant theme of life”. 14

Thoreau pointed

out that human beings would lose the way to real civilization if they kept on the having

11 Ibid., p. 111.

12 Ibid., pp. 166–167.

13 Ibid., p. 131.

14 Erich Fromm (1976). To have or to be? (p. 19). New York: Harper & Row.

Life and love 385

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mode of life and non-attention to life. “Instead of no path to the front-yard gate in the Great

Snow—no gate–no front-yard—and no path to the civilized world.” 15

Objection to the materialism

Material culture overflowed in industrial civilization. Thoreau believed it was mainly

embodied in excessive consumption. People’s consumption was not due to true necessity.

They sought richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant

clothing, more numerous, incessant, and hotter fires, and the like. They seemed to have a

sort of “Elysian life” in consumption. People gradually slid into material and sensory

enjoyment. Thoreau was astonished to see that people affirmed their own value through

their exterior “possessions”, such as houses and clothes instead of seeking the dignity and

meaning of interior life. As to the necessities of life—food, housing and clothing, Thoreau

had his own opinions and standards. For housing, he believed that “many of our houses,

both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, huge halls and cellars,

seem to be only vermin which infest them.” 16

Furthermore, “In modern civilized society

not more than one half the families own a shelter.” 17

Even for those who had one shelter,

they must spend more than half his life commonly before his wigwam will be earned. In

addition, the clean paint and paper, Rumford fireplace, back plastering, Venetian blinds…

and many other things would cost him a lot. While “in the savage state every family owns a

shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants.” 18

Moreover, Thoreau mocked people’s worship of fashionable clothing. People ignored

the utility and practical value of clothes, only to have the great anxiety to be fashionable,

who dared not to wear patched clothes to go out. It seemed that one cannot rightly judge a

person’s value without the clothes. People preferred the garments to sound conscience.

Thoreau questioned such a civilization: “if the civilized man’s pursuits are no worthier than

the savage’s, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries and

comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?” 19

Thoreau

admired the very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages. Certainly

Thoreau was not asking people to degenerate to living in a cave or a wigwam or wearing

skins today. He only wanted people to distinguish what are the true necessaries of life.

Actually he believed that most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life

are not only not indispensable, but hindrances to the elevation of mankind. People were

degraded and enslaved in such a consumptive living pattern. In order to obtain the

superfluities, they made humbler toil. Thoreau pointed out: “Most men, are so occupied

with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be

plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much

for that.” 20

Apart from the foregoing two aspects, within such a material culture pattern, people’s

association became “surface meet surface”. Their leisure time was alienated as well.

Thoreau indicated that “society is commonly too cheap.” People met at meals three times a

15 Thoreau, H. D. (1966). In O. Thomas (Ed.), Walden and civil disobedience: Authoritative texts back-

ground, reviews and essays in criticism (p. 86). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 16

Ibid., p. 94. 17

Ibid., p. 20. 18

Ibid., p. 20. 19

Ibid., 23. 20

Ibid., 3.

386 J. Ma

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day, but at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each

other. They agreed on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this

frequent meeting tolerable. They usually preferred talking about trivial things, especially

their “appetite for ‘news’. After a night’s sleep the news is as indispensable as the

breakfast…, such as robbery, murder, burning…” 21

They lost the authentic care about

themselves, man and the world, who took “shams and delusions as soundest truths, while

reality as fabulous.”

At the same time, in the market-oriented society, alienated consumption resulted in an

alienated relationship between man and nature. Nature was no longer the medium for

people to communicate with each other. “It turned out to become the objects for people to

control and dominate in commercial competition.” 22

People heedlessly measured nature by

the bushel and the dollar only. So on such an occasion, how could the scent and freshness

of the life force of nature be smelled and felt? Thoreau wrote in Walden that “the ambrosial and essential part of the fruit is lost with the bloom which is rubbed off in the market cart,

and they become mere provender” and “the fruits do not yield their true flavor to the

purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market.” 23

Thoreau believed

there was but one way to obtain it—plucked the fruit by oneself. In other words, he asked

people to experience life in nature, yet few did this. When people wallowed in the material

enjoyment and pursuit, their primitive life force had been vanished little by little. They

could no longer taste the pleasure of plucking fruit in the field.

Thoreau despised and pitied his fellow villagers and wished to be a chanticleer to wake

them up from their spiritual slumbers and make them into a new generation of men. He

tried to minimize his own needs in Walden. He determined to test an opposite extreme.

How simple can a life be and still be a good one? He had proved to himself that one needed

very little to be happy. Most people seemed to think that the more things they have the

better off they would be, and they enslaved themselves to acquire what turned out to be

only a burden. He found that, by working about 6 weeks in a year, he could meet all of his

living expenses. All of his winters, as well as most of his summers, he had free time for

study. Therefore, he put forward to live in simplicity, in which people can go toward a

higher spiritual life and a primitive rank and savage one. He believed that if one simplified

his life, “self-culture could be attained” 24

because simplicity endowed people with power

to face one’s life bravely. And without the luxury around, people would live a sincere life

and free of anxiety and fear.

In fact, what Thoreau criticized has been discussed heatedly by modern scholars in the

20th century. It particularly has some similarities with the ideas of the Frankfurt school

scholars. The difference between them is that they theorized their reflection and criticized

the advanced industrial society from all domains, made further and systematic revelation

on the alienation brought by the industrial civilization, especially stressed the constraint

and domination to human beings of the ideology. However, Thoreau reflected it

and developed his life philosophy in prose statements. He was ahead of his time, who

realized that the industrial civilization based on the rationality of the Enlightenment had

21 Ibid., 67.

22 Raymond, G. (1981). The idea of a critical theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt school (p. 39).

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 23

Thoreau, H. D. (1966). In O. Thomas (Ed.), Walden and civil disobedience: Authoritative texts background, reviews and essays in criticism (p. 116). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 24

Boswell, J. (1990). The American renaissance and the critics: The best of a century in criticism (p. 240). Wakefield, New Hampshire: Longwood Academic.

Life and love 387

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ruined nature’s organic life and suppressed human beings’ life instinct. So he tried to

deconstruct the binary opposition between man and nature through his critiques and called

for a rediscovery of life instinct.

Thoreau’s “life philosophy” on man and nature

Thoreau sensitively sensed the conflict between nature and industrial civilization had been

involved in the problem of existence and life quality of human being because the alienation

of humanity was accompanied by that of nature. The highly developed industry and

limitless exploitation of nature all brought in the wild of spirit. Most people behaved like

the “one-dimensional man” as Marcuse defined. What most people did was hostile to life,

not only to theirs, but also to the whole worldly life. In this way, industrial civilization

caused alienation of man’s spiritual life and nature’s organic life. Thoreau was disgusted

by this and wondered why man had forgotten how to live and how to love. He was afraid

that the Americans would become enslaved to money, so-called success and material

gratification. He tried to find a solution to the alienation of life in the industrial era.

Through the practice in Walden, he attained his own philosophy on man and nature: to

make life experience and exploration in nature, and to love all the life that exists in

universe so that we can restore the natural feelings of “mine”, recover the essential

freedom of life and develop the harmony of man and nature.

Life experience in nature

In Thoreau’s opinion, a true life should be full of vivacity, growth and vitality. It involves

perception of life, natural growth of the organism and active creation of living things and

everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. While in a society based on the alienated labor,

the perception of human being became dull and blunt: people only perceived things

through its exterior forms and functions in society. 25

They lost curiosity and sincere

feelings to the world. It is impossible for one to feel his own life existence and the life

existence of others within an alienated industrial society.

Since the 19th century, the pastoral harmony had disappeared little by little. “Across

new England and much of the eastern United States, the land had once been tamed and

farmed through a relentless clearing of forests, piling of rocks, and toiling in fields and

barns.” 26

Thoreau thought it was horrible that man was torn away from the primary union

with nature. Their life was worn out by the idea of obtaining wealth. Most people were not

living, but “making a living”. Many people were condemned to spend their lives in

“having”. The civilized people have been accustomed to the instituted life designed for

them. Their perception and emotion to life were dulled and flattened. Therefore, Thoreau

believed that it was imperative for people to recover the deep emotional experiences first if

they want to have a true life. But how do people recover their primitive life force and break

away from the constraint of industrial civilization? Thoreau favored a return to nature in

which people could get a substantial release of instinctual energy. He believed that “the

25 Marcuse, H. (1989). The aesthetic dimension (L. Xiaobin, Trans., p. 132). Beijing: Sanlian shudian.

26 Foster, D. R. (1999). Thoreau’s country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape (p. xi). Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press.

388 J. Ma

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vital, tonic effect of restoring man to emotional and cognitive awareness of his essential

innermost self” 27

could be uncovered and rehabilitated in nature.

First, nature taught people how to face life. In Thoreau’s eyes, Nature’s four seasons

were in a good concert with each other—born in spring, grew in summer, faded in autumn,

stored in winter. Thus nature was an integrated life in a great harmony with its eternal

calm, and full of everlasting orbs. The faded life would be the beginning of another new

life. There was an eternal life in nature without fear of “death”. In nature, the individual

life can be preserved and extended.

Second, nature can infuse the vitality into human beings’ dull life because there is a

kind of wild vital force preserved in it. The deeper Thoreau looked into nature the more he

recognized that it was full of life vitality and variety. In nature, all the universal lives were

really “to be”, not “to have”. In the having mode, people cared more about the trivial things

and ignored their inward life, gradually alienating from nature, man and himself. Thoreau

was disgusted by that kind of “having” life. He preferred “to be” in the universe as nature.

He was convinced that nature would lead men toward a true, inalienable life of our own.

Hereby he consciously turned to nature, taking nature as a dose of medicine for saving the

soul of people in industrial society. He felt that in wandering among mountains and forests,

springs and rocks, cravings for fame and fortune were wafted from the mind. Amid the

countless sounds of nature, the cry of a bird, the chipping of insects, the blowing of wind,

and the note of rain all stirred in his heart a feeling of superb elegance. Within nature, he

understood that the original essence would never wither and that the divine spark instilled

life into everything it touched.

Moreover, nature’s exuberancy aroused Thoreau’s life consciousness. Therefore, he

sought to gain it through life experience in nature. He found great pleasure in hoeing beans,

bathing in the pond, fishing in the boat, walking in the woods, observing trees and animals.

In his eyes, life was so charming within nature. He believed that the natural yearning for

outside activities of our ancestors is still within us. When we were young, we loved to stay

outdoors, even in wet and cold. But when we grew up in civilization, we accepted the

conventional life and lost our instincts. Thoreau admired American Indians very much

because they lived in a simple and primitive life—a poetic kind of life. For Thoreau, the

individual man, was less and less visible in the growing industrial and agricultural

enterprise and blunt to life. He hoped to restore the sensuous instinct found in nature.

Because in nature, one can listen, touch and feel the blowing of the free-and-easy spring

breezes, the flowing of the clouds, the greenness of trees and the chirping of birds with

their beautiful plumage. All of them lived in harmony, filled with vigor. “Life itself was a

source of joy so great that other, meaner joys should not be compared with it.” 28

In such

life experiences, human beings also became a part of nature through their perception

system and mutual penetration between body and environment. People not only saw the

living world, but also walked into the world and played together. At such times, nature and

man’s hearts blended as one. Thus he summoned people: “If we would indeed restore

mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple and

well as nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a

27 Richardson, R. D. Jr. (1986). In B. Moser (designed and illustrated), Henry Thoreau: A life of the mind

(p. 226). Berkeley: University of California Press. 28

Boswell, J. (1990). The American renaissance and the critics: The best of a century in criticism (p. 237). Wakefield, New Hampshire: Longwood Academic.

Life and love 389

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little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become

one of the worthies of the world.” 29

Love of life—reverence for all the life in the universe

In the industrial civilization, human beings were estranged from life. They were indif-

ferent, numb and insensible to life, no matter what it was—man or nature. Thoreau saw

people’s real life worn out in the pursuit of money and devastation of the ecology of nature.

He felt heartache and anxiety for it. Therefore, he actively tried to awaken people’s life

consciousness and proposed to revere, value and love all the life in the universe. Thoreau

positively practiced his ideal in reality. First, he showed his great concern about nature.

Since the enlightenment age, “nature is perceived as neutral, disenchanted and essentially

pure matter, structured according to laws and capable of being known through a mathe-

matically formulated universal science. It has no intrinsic significance. It is, therefore, open

to manipulation and alteration.” 30

Whereas Thoreau, through his experience in Walden,

had found that in essence all the myriad things of the world are the same. Stone, grass,

wood and animals are all the organic life of the universe. Man is just a parcel of the cosmic

life. Thoreau never took life existence of beings for granted, but beheld it as something

unfathomably mysterious. So in his eyes, all the creatures were marvelous in the world.

Even the shape of a tree or the trembling of a leaf would make him wonder. Therefore, he

argued that all the life in the universe should be reverenced and valued.

In his works, Thoreau conveyed to the reader a sense of nature that he experienced: all

the living things have the will of life and are full of vitality. So in his mind, even the life of

a weed deserved to be reverenced and had the right to live beside the beans. So when

hoeing beans, Thoreau was very generous to let the weeds grow up with the crops. He

believed that human beings had no rights to get rid of another organism’s life. He wan-

dered in the woods everyday to get familiar with each “neighbor” of his. Even once

Thoreau made friends with a rat under his floor. In his attentive eyes, each life had its own

beauty, even the wind, rain, seasons, pond, etc. were all full of life. In particular, the life of

the earth was the very life to be revered. They were absolutely not the lifeless material

things. Thoreau respected and loved them without any preference. He described himself as

“one who loves winter as well as summer—forest as well as field—darkness as well as

light…to be raised at any season, by day or night, not by the pulling of any bell wire, but by

a smart stroke upon any pine tree in the woods of concord.” 31

For him, the real benevo-

lence was to preserve life, promote life and make it realize its value. After all, the most

valuable thing for all the organisms was life itself. Thoreau was interested in the preser-

vation of the venison and the vert more than the woodchoppers, and if any part was burned,

he grieved with a grief that lasted longer and was more inconsolable than that of the

proprietors themselves. Thoreau also sharply criticized people’s cruelty in killing animals

only for their feast or fashion. “Is it not a reproach that man is a carnivorous animal? True,

29 Thoreau, H. D. (1966). In O. Thomas (Ed.), Walden and civil disobedience: Authoritative texts back-

ground, reviews and essays in criticism (p. 53). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 30

Raymond, G. (1981). The idea of a critical theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt school (p. 152). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 31

Walter, R. H. (1982). The days of Henry Thoreau: A biography (p. 124). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

390 J. Ma

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he can and does live, in a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a

miserable way…” 32

Meanwhile, respecting the life of all living things will bring one much more sincerity

and happiness. Thoreau took nature as the rare “bosom friend” and another extension of his

existence. He had communion with nature with unusual intensity, moments of almost

mystic trance. When he paid many a visit to those trees, flowers, ponds, soil and so on, he

touched and embraced them just like a lover. Thoreau could even tell the name of each

plant, discern it and learn its habit. In addition, he talked to creatures in nature and dated

with the trees on snowy days. No weather could interfere with him tramping eight or ten

miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow-

birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. It was evident that Thoreau regarded nature

not only as an entity in some sense external to humankind, but as one in essence with it. In

his life, there was a true joyfulness and peacefulness. In contrast, we modern people just

appreciate all those beautiful trees and flowers from a looker-on perspective. We never pay

attention to their living habits and outlook, let alone their names. We only consider them as

amusements for us to enjoy when we are free.

In fact, Thoreau not only showed his love and concern for nature, but also showed his

great solicitude for the human being. He was an active reformer. He strongly reproached

the so-called “philanthropist”, whose drastic “philanthropy” straightway sought out the

Esquimaux and the Patagonian, and embraced the populous Indian and Chinese villages.

They took the globe as a great green apple and ate it before it was ripe. The capitalist took

the “philanthropy” as an excuse to exploit the colonies, obtaining their own happiness at

the expense of others. Thoreau trusted that philanthropy should be the only virtue which

was sufficiently appreciated by mankind. But it should not be partial. He had a heart full of

compassion for the suffering and the tried. He refused to pay the poll-tax, which was

mainly used for the U.S.–Mexican war. He also strongly opposed slavery in America. His

life and love consciousness led him to work for the abolitionist cause by delivering

speeches and organizing meetings to protest slavery, defending the abolitionist John Brown

and frequently working as a conductor on the Underground Railroad to help the blacks

fleeing the south.

Thoreau developed a kind of harmonic consciousness of love in his heart. He cared for,

knew, responded, affirmed and enjoyed all the living things in the universe: man and

nature. He realized that love was the fountain of all life. Love and life were the basic spirits

of the universe. One would lose his way without “love” in his “life” because love could

promote the interior life of each individual and the whole universe. Thus although Thoreau

worried about the impact of the industrial civilization, he was optimistic about human

beings. He believed that people could have a “poetic residence” in the world so long as

they have a strong will of life and consciousness of love.

Thoreau’s revelation to modern people

There was a kind of universal sentiment in Thoreau. He proposed the cosmic equality of all

the creatures in the universe. He was absolutely not the “nullifier of civilization” and the

anti-social man who wasted his life as the critics commented. He did not wallow in the

material gain and did not follow or imitate others blindly, but always integrated his own

life with the whole universal life and transcended all kinds of temptation. Thoreau

32 Ibid., 143.

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concerned about human beings, knowing the world, devoting to the world and was happy

with the world, who achieved the “universal state” 33

as Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan

defined. He never felt lonely and helpless within his life. In the utilized and mechanized

industrial world, Thoreau insisted on pursuing the harmony between man and nature and

was strongly opposed to man’s hostility and apathy to life. He appealed to people to seek

true freedom, justice and equality. He thought that each person should experience life,

explore life and revere life. In Thoreau, there was a genuine healthy humanity.

As a matter of fact, Thoreau’s book Walden still remains a practical, usable manual on how to lead a good and just life. It offers readers an ethical view of life that begins in self-

rule and ends in public and social commitment to the next generation. Thoreau was

concerned about the existence and development of human beings, and the harmonious

coexistence between man and nature. What he opposed and proposed are both meaningful

to today’s man. He was a link between the past and the present—a precious relic of days

which the modern man should not forget. His critiques on industrial civilization and ideal

solution are not outdated. They still speak to modern people because the conflict between

man and nature he predicted has not been eliminated and has become even more serious,

especially in some developing countries. On the one hand, developing countries need to

develop industry and economy to improve their living standard. On the other hand, they

inevitably exploit and harm nature in the process of development. They overemphasize the

growth rate of GDP, but ignore all-round, coordinated and sustainable development. So

how does a country maintain harmony with nature while undergoing modernization? There

is no doubt that China has also encountered the same problem in the process of its

modernization. Therefore, Thoreau’s ideas could give China some insight from the

perspective of culture and reflection on modernization.

Thoreau and China

Enlightenment for China’s modernization

Thoreau’s critiques on industrial civilization can still provide warning to China’s mod-

ernization. It seems that the conflict he predicted between man and nature brought about by

industrial civilization is impossible to avoid. China has focused its development strategy on

economic construction and taken the conflict between growing material and cultural needs

and backward social production as the principal contradiction since 1978. Therefore, it is

the aim for China to develop the productive forces vigorously and promote the Chinese

modernization as rapidly as possible. Development is no doubt the central theme of China.

Science and technology certainly play an important role in the development of industry.

The Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping put forward “Science and technology is the first power

of production” in 1988. From then on, China has put much emphasis on the function of

science and technology in the process of its modernization. People have benefited greatly

from the development of science and technology, which has changed their lives tremen-

dously and brought convenience and utility to them. Using science and technology, people

have begun to do a lot of work to try to control and transform nature, making it serve

human beings. Many people believe that the idea that “nature could be shaped to man’s

purpose” is achievable. What Mao Zedong expected in his poem about turning the

treacherous Three Gorges into a navigable lake has come true. People wrongly believe that

33 Youlan, F. (2007). Xin Yuanren (New interpretations on the origin of human nature) (pp. 48–49).

Beijing: Sanlian shudian.

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China has a vast territory and abundant resources. However, the problem coming along

with development is environmental pollution. It is mainly water pollution and air pollution,

with the former being more serious. The Dian Pond, Tai Lake, the West Lake, the Yellow

River, and the Yangzi River have all experienced different types of ecological damage. The

beautiful sceneries of these places which have ever been commended in poems are now

totally different from their original look. The grand view of “the Yellow River’s water

moves out of heaven. Entering the ocean, never to return” described in ancient Chinese

poet Libai’s poem has already gone. With economic development and the market econ-

omy, the conflict between human and nature is becoming more and more prominent. Most

people only see a useful resource as something to be exploited instead of seeing its natural

vitality. Such ignorance of nature’s life will inevitably bring revenge from nature. In recent

years, China has suffered many natural disasters, such as the flood in southern China in

1998, the legendary sandstorms in 2002, the blizzards in southern China and the Wenchuan

earthquake in Sichuan in 2008. In addition, there have been some man-made disasters, such

as the 2005 Jilin Petrochemical Corporation chemical plant explosion that spilled

carcinogenic pollutants into the Songhua River.

Meanwhile, with the development of Chinese economy, the living standard of people

has improved greatly. “Consumption” has gradually become the prevailing social forma-

tion in China, which has stimulated the development of the economy and elevated the GDP

to some extent. Although China has not achieved a consumption level as high as that of

western developed countries, more and more Chinese are beginning to increase their

consumption levels. Cities and rural areas in China are obviously affected by consumer

culture. In the past, the traditional virtue of thriftiness is gradually being discarded and

even mocked by young people. Showing-off and enjoyment of luxuries are becoming

increasingly popular in China. Some young consumers in the Moonlight Group prefer to

pay by credit card and spend all they have earned each month. They like to buy expensive

outfits, cosmetics, jewelries and other luxurious items. Their purchases obviously have

surpassed ordinary consumption. All of this demonstrates what Thoreau noted in Walden— that consumption is not due to real needs, but comes out of a strong desire to have material

property. The excessive consumption and living style not only influences the ecological

environment, but also degrades people’s spiritual life. In this kind of material consumption,

people are inclined to be mediocre with little attention to their spiritual life and nature’s

organic life. Instead, they are fascinated by and immersed in the mass culture produced by

the culture industry. For instance, the TV programs “Super girl singers competition”,

“Happy boys”, “Mass election for the cast of TV show A Dream of Red Chambers”, etc. All these have set off an enthusiasm for “making stars” around China. These young

participants want to be overnight sensations through media and gain its involved bonus.

Some of the young students even play truant to participate in the selection, wear heavy

make-up, lose weight excessively, imitated blindly and yell hysterically to seek a kind of

sensory stimulation and blindly catch fashion and luxuries. Furthermore, the audiences are

fascinated by the weird and ludicrous performances and gain a kind of release in this

carnival. In such consumption of mass culture, people have no interest in exploring their

own inward life and gradually degenerate into “one-dimensional man”.

In contrast to Thoreau’s age, we have much quicker means of transportation in the sky

and on the ground. We have indeed obtained great success in improving our living

environment. But at the same time we have spiritual and ecological crises. Thoreau’s

works are like a dose of sober medicine, which force us to think carefully about how to

develop China, how to balance the development with preservation of nature. Fortunately,

in recent years, China has begun to recognize the ecological problems and is trying to

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develop in an all-round, coordinated and sustainable manner. Protection of resources,

environmental protection and ecological conservation have been markedly strengthened.

China has also actively made great efforts to strengthen environment management. The

improvement in Beijing’s environment is a good example. If all the nations in the world

attach great importance to the environment, keeping a harmonious coexistence between

man and nature, we can surely avoid ecological ruin.

Arouse reinterpretation of ancient Chinese classics

Thoreau’s cosmological beliefs of life embodied in his works remind us of the eco-wisdom

in ancient Chinese philosophy. From him, we can see some ideas of Confucianism and

Taoism. As a matter of fact, Thoreau was indeed influenced by ancient Chinese philoso-

phy. He introduced Confucianism in The Dial, a journal established by Emerson. He published around 40 brilliant excerpts of Confucius in it. In his representative work

Walden, Thoreau quoted statements from The Analects of Confucius and the Doctrine of Mean more than ten times. He received some inspiration from Confucianism, such as, “The ideas of Mean”, “benevolence”, “having few desires”, “follow the nature”, “love people,

love all nature” “self-perfection”, “happy to lead a simple and virtuous life”, etc. He made

his own understanding and interpretation in his works. No matter whether he misread the Four Classics, he absorbed some ideas of Confucianism and added his own interpretation, transcending the Confucian concepts of hierarchy and human centralization. In particular,

he adopted the idea of “Zhi Zhong He” (致中和) (“Let the states of equilibrium and

harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth,

and all things will be nourished and flourish.”), 34

and integrated into his transcendentalist

thought. He took nature as man and liked to have dialogues with nature without any

prejudice. He kept a benevolent heart to all the life in the universe, which he believed could

bring the harmonious coexistence between human and nature.

In the modern theoretical horizon, there have not been exact evidences that Taoism

influenced Thoreau, but some inferences suggest that Thoreau possibly accepted Taoism

through the French sinologist M.G. Pauthier’s translations of ancient Chinese philoso-

phy. 35

Thoreau’s ideas have some similarities with Taoism, such as “The Tao takes what is

natural as its model”, “the moderation of desires”, “self-contentment with one’s lot”,

“inaction or non-interference”, “return to nature and simplicity”. 36

“The unity of nature

and human” is believed to be the highest level of Taoism. It refers to three kinds of unity:

unity of man and nature itself; unity of man and himself, unity of man’s will, character,

sentiment, ideal and natural spirit and laws. The Taoist, considering the relationship

between man and nature, man and himself, humanity and natural law, favors to return to

nature. 37

On this point, Thoreau and the Taoist are different in expression, but have the

same conclusion. In addition, with regard to “techniques”, the ancient Chinese philosopher

of Taoism Zhuangzi already consciously realized the negative effects brought about by

34 The Chinese/English Four Books, translated by James Legge, revised and annotated by Liu Zhongde and

Luo Zhiye (Changsha, Hunan Press, 1992), p. 27. 35

As for detailed descriptions on Thoreau’s relations with Taoism, cf. Changfang, C. (1991). Thoreau and China (pp. 89–113). Taipei: San Min shudian. 36

Tzu, L. (1995). The book of Tao and Teh (G. Zhengkun, Trans., pp. 33–53). Beijing: Peking University Press. 37

Jiajin, G., & Chenggui, H. (2003). Taoism and Lao Tzu’s ecological ethics. Inner Mongolia Social Sciences, 24(5), 61.

394 J. Ma

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techniques. He was the last person to simplify techniques to instruments. Zhuangzi saw

that techniques gradually led away from people’s lives and become the tools for people to

use. In Heaven and the Earth, Zhuangzi clearly showed us his critique regarding techniques

through a fable: an old gardener was fetching water with a jar to water his vegetable fields.

He had been working hard at it but not efficiently. Zigong suggested using the new

machine well-sweep to water the field because it can water a hundred plots a day. The old

man angrily rebuked, “a man who employs an ingenious machine must do ingenious deeds

and that a man who does ingenious deeds must have an ingenious mind. A man with an

ingenious mind will not be pure and simple, a man without a pure and simple mind will

have an unrestful spirit, a man with an unrestful spirit will not attain Tao. I do not use a

well-sweep not because I don’t know that it works well, but because I feel it a shame to use

it.” 38

Moreover, Zhuangzi used the words “Fan”, “Gui”, “Fu” (all these words mean

“return”) many times to emphasize that people should come back to his original life

experience to find a way to solve the alienation of human being and nature. 39

Conse-

quently, Zhuangzi’s philosophy coincides with Thoreau’s critiques on science and tech-

nology and his expectation to experience and explore life in nature so that we could solve

the tripartite alienation between man and nature, man and others, man and himself.

But these ancient Chinese philosophies which inspired Thoreau have been discarded

and ignored in the past 100 years. The doctrine of mean is regarded as being unwilling to

keep forging ahead and Zhuangzi’s philosophy is regarded as a hindrance to the devel-

opment of Chinese science and technology. All of these philosophies are regarded as

outdated thoughts. Some historical factors have been involved. Since the Opium War in

1840, China had been invaded by the western countries with the danger of being com-

pletely colonized. The Chinese people tried to do all kinds of exploration to save the nation

from extinction and make China wealthy and stronger. The earliest exploration was the

Westernization Movement of the Qing government. The Westernization Group advocated

imitating the West, learning their advanced techniques to resist foreign aggression and

strengthening the development of industry and business to make China rich. They believed

that the reason for China’s backwardness was the ignorance of technology. If China wanted

to change its weak situation, it must attach importance to science and technology. So they

translated many scientific books, introduced western scientific knowledge and technology

and developed modern scientific education in China. Thereafter, China experienced the

1898 Reform Movement and The Revolution of 1911, both of which hoped to develop

China. Later, the May Fourth Movement initiated the transition of the Chinese society from

“ancient” to “modern”. The traditional culture was fiercely criticized and believed to kill

people’s creativity and constrain people’s thought. They called for “Sai Xiansheng”

(Mr. Science) and “De Xiansheng” (Mr. Democracy), stressing the urgency for China to

develop science and democracy. During the Cultural Revolution, these ancient philoso-

phies were totally defined as feudal remnants and needed to be discarded. In the reform and

opening period, western material culture, science and market economy poured into China.

When Chinese people had contact with the outside world, they found that there were big

economy gaps between western countries and China. They were eager to get rid of poverty

and backwardness, and develop the economy. Therefore, such ideas like “inactive”,

“having little desire” and “contented in poverty and devoting to things spiritual” certainly

38 Zhuangzi. (1999). Zhuangzi (W. Rongpei, Trans., p. 187). Hunan: Hunan People’s Publishing House &

Foreign Languages Press. 39

Xiaoli, S. (2006). A study on the aesthetic ideas of Zhuangzi about existence (p. 36). Beijing: Com- mercial Press.

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cannot conform to the times because the development of economy needs to stimulate

consumption and the desire of material. The ancient Chinese thoughts were ignored again.

While Thoreau who was enlightened by the ancient Chinese philosophy had a great

influence on American nature writing, his ideas about nature have rich ecological meaning

and have become the symbol of non-anthropocentric environment ethics now. His repre-

sentative book Walden has become a classic, which continues to influence more and more people to devote themselves to environmental protection. He has become a global figure

across the west and east. In an age of globalization, the ecological crisis has become the

global problem which has attracted worldwide attention. China is not an exception. Many

scholars begin to make systematic studies on the ancient Chinese ecological thought,

rediscovering and reinterpreting the ecological ideas of Confucianism, Taoism and

Buddhism, etc. As a matter of fact, no matter whether Confucian, Taoist or Thoreau, all of

them have attached great importance to universal life. Their thoughts, beyond the geo-

graphical frontiers between different nations, become the integration of nation and human

beings. In an age full of ecological crises, each nation needs to contribute its own eco-

wisdom and have communion with others so that human beings can find a way to solve the

crisis of natural ecology and avoid the disequilibrium of spiritual ecology.

Acknowledgment The author wishes to thank Professor Wang Ning for his insightful advice and generous help in the writing of this essay.

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