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A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau

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A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau University of Kentucky UKnowledge Literature in English, North America English Language and Literature 6-11-2009 A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau Jack Turner University of Washington Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Turner, Jack, "A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau" (2009). Literature in English, North America. 70. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_north_america/70 A Political Companion to Henr y David Thoreau POLITIcaL COMpaNIONS TO GREat AMERIcaN AUthORS Series Editor: Patrick J. Deneen, Georgetown University The Political Companions to Great American Authors series illuminates the complex political thought of the nation’s most celebrated writers from the founding era to the present. The goals of the series are to demonstrate how American political thought is understood and represented by great Ameri- can writers and to describe how our polity’s understanding of fundamental principles such as democracy, equality, freedom, toleration, and fraternity has been influenced by these canonical authors. The series features a broad spectrum of political theorists, philoso- phers, and literary critics and scholars whose work examines classic authors and seeks to explain their continuing influence on American political, social, intellectual, and cultural life. This series reappraises esteemed American authors and evaluates their writings as lasting works of art that continue to inform and guide the American democratic experiment. A P O L I T I ca L C O M pa N I O N T O Henr y Dav id Thoreau Edited by Jack Tur ner The University Press of Kentucky Copyright © 2009 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com 13 12 11 10 09 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A political companion to Henry David Thoreau / edited by Jack Turner. p. cm. — (Political companions to great American authors) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8131-2478-0 (acid-free paper) 1. Thoreau, Henry David, 1817–1862—Political and social views. 2. Politics and literature—United States—History—19th century. I. Turner, Jack, 1975– PS3054.P65 2009 818'.309—dc22 2009007427 This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. Member of the Association of American University Presses Contents Series Foreword vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Thoreau as a Political Thinker 1 Jack Turner PART I: THOREAU AND DEMOCRacY 1. Thoreau’s Democratic Individualism 15 Nancy L. Rosenblum 2. Thoreau’s Alternative Economics: Work, Liberty, and Democratic Cultivation 39 Brian Walker 3. Thoreau’s Critique of Democracy 68 Leigh Kathryn Jenco PART II: CONSCIENCE, CITIZENSHIP, AND POLITICS 4. Thoreau’s American Founding 99 Bob Pepperman Taylor 5. Thoreau, Prophecy, and Politics 124 George Shulman 6. Thoreau and John Brown 151 Jack Turner v vi Contents 7. Thoreau and Lincoln 178 Harry V. Jaffa 8. Thoreau’s Apolitical Legacy for American Environmentalism 205 William Chaloupka PART III: REVERENCE, EthICS, AND thE SELF 9. Thoreau on Body and Soul 229 Susan McWilliams 10. Thoreau’s Religion 256 Christopher A. Dustin 11. Thoreau’s Techniques of Self 294 Jane Bennett 12. Thoreau’s Solitude 326 Thomas L. Dumm PART IV: THOREAU AND POLITIcaL THEORY 13. Thoreau and Rousseau: Nature as Utopia 341 Melissa Lane 14. Thoreau, Gandhi, and Comparative Political Thought 372 Anthony J. Parel 15. Thoreau, Adorno, and the Critical Potential of Particularity 393 Shannon L. Mariotti 16. Thoreau, Cavell, and the Foundations of True Political Expression 423 Andrew Norris Selected Bibliography 447 List of Contributors 453 Index 457 Series Foreword THOse whO undertake A study of American political thought must attend to the great theorists, philosophers, and essayists. But such a study is incomplete, however, if it neglects American literature, one of the greatest repositories of the nation’s political thought and teachings. America’s literature is distinctive because it is, above all, intended for a democratic citizenry. In contrast to eras when an author would aim to inform or influence a select aristocratic audience, in democratic times, public influence and education must resonate with a more expansive, less leisured, and diverse audience to be effective. The great works of America’s literary tradition are the natural locus of democratic political teaching. Invoking the interest and attention of citizens through the pleasures af- forded by the literary form, many of America’s great thinkers sought to forge a democratic public philosophy with subtle and often challenging teachings that unfolded in narrative, plot, and character development. Per- haps more than any other nation’s literary tradition, American literature is ineluctably political—shaped by democracy as much as it has in turn shaped democracy. The Political Companions to Great American Authors series highlights the teachings of the great authors in America’s literary and belletristic tradi- tion. An astute political interpretation of America’s literary tradition requires careful, patient, and attentive readers who approach the text with a view to understanding its underlying messages about citizenship and democracy. Essayists in this series approach the classic texts not with a “hermeneutics of suspicion” but with the curiosity of fellow citizens who believe that the vii viii Series Foreword great authors have something of value to teach their readers. The series brings together essays from varied approaches and viewpoints for the com- mon purpose of elucidating the political teachings of the nation’s greatest authors for those seeking a better understanding of American democracy. Patrick J. Deneen Series Editor Acknowledgments I am grateful TO Patrick J. Deneen and Stephen M. Wrinn for invit- ing me to edit this volume for the University Press of Kentucky’s Political Companions to Great American Authors series. Their counsel and encour- agement have been indispensable. Thanks to the authors of the previously published essays for letting me reprint their work and for modifying it to fit this volume. The authors of the newly commissioned essays completed their pieces on time, revised with good cheer, and were great fun to work with. Several anonymous reviewers pored over the original book proposal and first draft of the manuscript; their feedback significantly improved the vol- ume. Candace Chaney, Linda Lotz, Ila McEntire, and Anne Dean Watkins provided excellent editorial assistance. Benjamin Gonzalez provided expert research assistance. Rachel Sanders helped with the index. The Depart- ment of Political Science at the University of Washington is a wonderful atmosphere for scholarly work. My mother, Chris Turner, and life partner, Jillian Cutler, positively inspirit everything I do. Works like this one are intensely collaborative, and the editor can take credit for only a portion. Nevertheless, I dedicate my portion to the memory of Joyce Johnson (1911–2005). My great aunt—in both senses of the term—she was also my first teacher. Acknowledgments for the reprinted works appear in the chapter endnotes. ix Introduction: Thoreau as a Political Thinker Jack Turner WRITER, NATURALIST, THEORIST of civil disobedience, and anti- slavery activist, Henry David Thoreau (87–862) both inspired and ir- ritated audiences in his time, and the words he left behind both inspire and irritate readers today. Thoreau’s inspiring quality derives from the eloquence of his call to live more intensely, to “suck out all the marrow of life . to put to rout all that [is] not life . to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it prove[s] to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it . or if it [is] sublime, to know it by experience, and . give a true account of it.” Thoreau’s irritating quality proceeds from his tendency to insult “the mass of men” and to appear hypocritical. In “Civil Disobedience” (849), for example, Thoreau protests slavery vehemently and characterizes those who do not share his moral vehemence as “men of straw” and “lump[s] of dirt.”2 Yet just a few pages later he writes, “As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to.”3 Such statements provoked Vincent Buranelli—in a famous 957 Ethics article—to dismiss Thoreau’s political thought as “false and bizarre.”4 Buranelli had trouble deciding which was worse—that Thoreau was so illogical or that he was so self-assured in that “illogicality.”5 “Thoreau is not merely often wrong, but wrong to an incred- ible degree. He dogmatizes from nothing more solid than his own inspiration. It is difficult not to feel exasperated with him.”6 Notwithstanding Buranelli’s exasperation, the past half century has seen a steady accumulation of scholarship that takes Thoreau seriously as a 2 Jack Turner political thinker. The roots of Thoreau’s resurgence in contemporary theory are more political than intellectual. An inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr.
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