I'm so lazy/ uneducated - justin

"Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study the classics; in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be." (p.95, in my copy)

Me, in response: "Woops."

Honestly, I don't disagree with this but the idea of learning Latin from scratch, now, seems impractical. I may be screwed on this one.

"The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers...Even the college-bred and so called liberally educated men here and elswehre have really little or no acquaintance with the English classics."(p. 100)

Here he calls us out more directly. For my part anyway, he is completely accurate. I don't really know the English classics that well, and only have a vague idea of how and when they tie into the history of the western world. Reading this criticism motivates me. I feel like starting our book club (for nerds) anew, from the very beginning. What if we put together an outline of the history of western thought and literature through our book club? I'm game. What the hell else do we have to do with ourselves?

Incidentally I am starting to think Thoreau was either an insanely hardworking scholar, or had no life to speak of, or a bit of both. Did he ever marry? If not that'd explain a bit.

"Indeed, there is hardly the professor in our colleges, who, if he has mastered the difficulties of the language, has proportionally mastered the difficulties of the wit and poetry of a Greek poet." (p. 101)

Ok so now he calls out the professors.

The general idea in "reading" seems to me to be: Don't waste time on books that Thoreau thinks are garbage(didn't provide a whole lot of guidelines here), and if you are going to try and be a thinker and a scholar, then don't half ass it. Read everything (of value) !!

Method to the Madness?

He definitely rants. Are we supposed to have some underlying fabric of a philosophy to fit these rants into? I don't have the book in front of me right now, but I'm sure he is jumping around, expecting us to be able to jump with him. Either that, or his bits of wisdom are intended to stand on their own, and they really shouldn't be presented as a single book.

But then, as you said, he is obviously well educated. So, what is he doing? At one point in "Uncommon Learning" he says conventional schools force learning - which in his mind is represented by a meandering brook- into a rigidly carved, straight trench through the countryside. So, is Economy and the second chapter his expression of the meandering brook?

I do like that Thoreau feels that how he has to say what he has to say is as meaningful as the explicit arguments he makes. I'm trying to immerse myself in his half-crazed hobo trance just to see if I can mentally go some of the places he is going here. Actually, you know what, the next time I read a chapter of his I'm going to go out into the woods to read it. I'm going to be cheesey like that.


Side Note* Imagine how kids would respond to Thoreau walking into their classroom, and then leading them into the countryside for a lesson.

What the hell is he talking about?

Ok, the section where he's talking about the sun coming into his home because he has no curtains, and then starts rambling about the Greek myth about Phaeton... I feel like I'm listening to a crazy homeless guy who obviously was once put together enough to educate himself rant and rave at a mailbox. We're going to need to talk about this part.

Quote

This isn't anything particularly groundbreaking, but lest I forget: I really like the way Thoreau wraps up his little anecdote - which follows his diatribe about the evils of excessive and unnecessary property or "burdens," as he considers them - about turning down a mat that a local woman offered to him by saying, "It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil."

Good stuff.