Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 22:03:00 -0500
From: George Trail <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU>
Subject: Re: PLC: Thoreau


[My usual brackets, g]

>On Mon, 17 Nov 1997, George Trail wrote:
>
>>
>> You know, Hank Thoreau had some interesting ideas about anarchy, the first
>> of which was that it has had a bad press, and the second of which was that
>> its "forms" were infinite. What he knew better than was that anything was
>> formless.
>
>What?
>
>> He called, some of y'all might remember, not for no government
>> _immediately_, but immediatly for better government. This has led some
>> folks who don't pay attention when they read (whose number is legion) to
>> presume that he was not an anarchist and to find him pious about "nature"
>> or some other abstract distraction.
>>
>
>George,
>
>cites - or quotes - please.  And what the devil does the last sentence in
>the first paragraph mean? [I've reread it a dozen times. It means what it
>says. This is another, and inferior version of what it says: "Thoreau knew
>that the concept 'formless' was nonsense (to wit, as soon as one says 'X
>is formless' one contradicts oneself--that is, one cannot answer the
>question, to what do you refer by X?)
>
>before I begin to argue with you clarify please:  what do you mean by
>anarchy? and how is Thoreau not pious about "nature"?
[That's the point. You have already decided to argue, but you know not with
what. The question is what does _anybody_ mean by 'anarchy']

[I can't answer the "nature" question that quickly, but suffice it to say
that Thoreau never listened for an impulse from a vernal wood. He was no
bleeding Wordworthian (WW never held an axe, and those who have are not
sentimental about 'nature.') ]

{For cites, read _Walden_ and "Civil Disobedience." _Walden_ is, of course,
what Joyce would call a "collosal leg-pull" (check his list of stuff you'll
need to hang in the woods--his 'expense voucher')].

Understand, I love Thoreau,
cheers,
[g]
>thank you
>deaun.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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