In class we discussed Thoreau’s way of characterizing a home; “What is a house but a sedes, a seat?” Initially I thought of the analogy of comparing a seat to a house was because of the way in which one can rest in seat, someone can feel comfort while sitting in that seat. It wasn’t until another classmate brought up the idea that a seat is not permanent but that of only something that serves a purpose until we no longer need it. To me, when I sit in a seat I feel a sense of individuality, as the seat is only mine maybe just for that moment, but nonetheless it is still mine. Thinking about now the No Impact Man documentary, this analogy sparked a familiar theme that I felt was evident throughout the film. Collin Beaven received a lot of critiques regarding his experiment because of how extreme it was but Beaven’s response was not that he was doing the most because he expected everyone to do the most but to do that of what is necessary to sustain a comfortable “seat” for themselves and those who might “sit” in the seat after them. The question that I have from this combination of Thoreau’s work and Collin Beaven’s “No Impact Man” experiment is: Do you believe that it is the responsibility of the current and present owner of the “seat” (eg. humanity sitting on the earth knowing that further generations are supposed to sit on it after them) or is the job of the new owner of the seat to maintain, repair, or enhance their “seat’?
In the most broadest of terms of this analogy and going back to Thoreau’s use of the word seat, to answer this question I first think of the literal class seats that I sit all the time for class. Going back as far as I can remember, in all class settings I was told to push in my seat after myself. We were taught to push in the seat after ourselves because it would not only leave the room more tidy and organized once we left, but it also gave the next student who was going to sit in that seat a sense of a fresh start, a clean and respected workspace, a spot where they too can feel comfortable enough to rest. When thinking of the earth as the seat of humanity, why is the same practice of “pushing in our seat” and leaving the spot we used identical to how we found it, such a different concept when thought of on a larger scale like that of saving humanity rather than just being nice for a peer?
I think this is actually a quite profound analogy in all its simplicity, given that a seat could be a helpful daily visual and physical reminder of our smallest actions and how they affect the world around us. This could be used as a tangible tool to keep us present in monitoring our actions and ensuring whatever we touch or do, we do it with good intentions for whoever is to come next; be it pushing in the seat, recycling the can, composting food waste, etc. It’s these daily activities that accumulate throughout ones life, that compound exponentially when every human on earth is making decisions that ultimately exacerbate and perpetuate the state of the planet. Some things are impossible to un-hear, or unlearn, and I want to thank you for this manageable device that I can now implement daily, to attach my actions to the chain of events that could potentially occur after it.
In the “Solitude” chapter of Walden, Thoreau says, “While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.” He later goes on, “Though [the rain] prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of” (131). I absorbed these words as an argument for the power of perception. It seems Thoreau puts on ‘rose-colored glasses’ to alter his perception of ‘reality’ when less desirable situations arise. If something, such as too much rain, were to occur he doesn’t take it personally as if a bad thing were happening to him, as if due to the rain his viable sustenance would suffer, he realizes, alternatively, that the less desirable occurrence could be beneficial in a different facet of life; removing the ‘self’ from the interconnectedness of unpredictability encompassed within life’s happenings. This appears to be linear with most Buddhist teachings in relation to suffering. Thoreau doesn’t allow anything in life to be a burden, aided by his patient and persistent perceptions. I believe humans are innately, subconsciously engulfed in the ‘self’ -often suffering from taking life’s happenings too personally, although tragic situations inevitably transpire throughout one’s life, and individuals should feel valid in navigating their feelings post-traumatic experience. My question is: if we alter our perception of these negative situations to adhere to the mindset whereabouts we analyze all potential positive outcomes, pay tribute to them, and learn from them and set in motion utilitarian solutions that perpetuate future successes for not only individuals but mass populations of human and nonhuman entities, is it possible we could abolish negativity in its entirety -and how would this malleablize society? Do you think that this is a feasible and sustainable lifestyle to achieve individually? Collectively? -and is this the lifestyle you think Thoreau could be advocating for?
Thoreau discusses his relationship to the labor he relies on to survive, explaining, “As I had little aid from horses or cattle, or hired men or boys, or improved implements of husbandry, I was much slower, and became much more intimate with my beans than usual” (148). He emphasizes the importance of “labor of the hands” (148), complaining that “husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely” (156). Through this criticism, it seems to me that Thoreau is both condemning industrialism and reemphasizing the importance he places on self-sufficiency and the individual. Although he recognizes the increased efficiency of industrialism, especially in industrial agriculture, he believes that this system removes the intimacy and art of labor. What should the goal of labor be? Why is it important that people feel a connection to the products of their labor?
In the film “No Impact Man”, a particular scene (31:00) portrays Colin reading through the criticism and even death threats he and his wife are receiving in backlash to how obscene his project is. He seems to just laugh them off, but briefly questions himself and the validity of his work, only to recollect and realize he is at least doing something and following his conscious. In the same scene, Michelle is having a discussion with a writer who initially was very critical of Colin’s work but comes around to understand the importance of what he is doing. They talk about why people are so enamored and upset with Colin’s project and come to the conclusion it’s due to the realizations of consumption people have within themselves and the sense of guilt that corresponds.
Another scene (1:09:00) shows an older man explaining his doubts in Colin’s work, telling him, having no impact individually doesn’t take away from the fact that there have to be systemic changes in order to reverse the hole we have dug ourselves; and essentially corporate capitalism deems individual efforts useless. While Colin is initially at a loss for words in response to this, he develops a strong argument against the uselessness of individual actions in a later scene (1:19:50). Colin justifies individual action through the engagement in society it causes. In his particular case he is drawing enormous amounts of attention to the problem which at least makes people think about how they can help, or similarly to the critical writer, invoke a feeling of guilt. In a sense this individual action has the ability to lead to collective action. Personally, if my individual action has the chance to get someone else involved in helping with reaching a sustainable society, that is enough for me to feel justified. Furthermore, a big problem I see is a lack of action at all as it feels like we often sit around and twiddle our thumbs as a society trying to figure out what’s the best course of action instead of actually getting shit done. Individual action is at least a step forward in my mind and relates back to Colin’s philosophy that you should do what feels right in correlation with a sustainable society instead of just choosing to do nothing.
I wonder how others feel about this idea of individual action and the validity of Colin’s work. Is he doing all this for no reason because individual action has no effect on the grand scheme of politics that shape our society? Or did his no impact project have a significant impact on where we are headed societally in terms of thinking sustainably?
Throughout Walden, Thoreau places a large value on independence. He also repeatedly notes that in poverty one finds the most wealth. “It looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is” (307). In Walden’s conclusion, he goes on to speak about simplifying one’s life “do not trouble yourself much to get new things…” (308). Thoreau speaks to wealth as a burden, something that hinders your life rather than helps you. However, Thoreau is practicing voluntary poverty. While I agree with him that we should all embrace simplicity, I can’t help but think that Thoreau likely has a family he can call upon if he is ever in need. Thoreau mentions that people are often above being supported by the town, and would prefer to support themselves by dishonest means. What if someone doesn’t have a town (or in our case, a government that provides many social services) to lean upon when they are in need? When he talks of the blessings brought on by poverty, is it reasonable to take his assessment with some form of skepticism? In addition, do we think his views on poverty stand the test of time, or would our current world complicate these views?
As mentioned in class, Thoreau continuously stresses that if one is doing something that doesn’t bring them joy then they should stop. In the film, “No Impact Man,” the wife was having a lot of trouble with the project and didn’t enjoy most aspects of it. In terms of being a No Impact Man, I feel as if a lot of people wouldn’t enjoy doing the things that Colin and his family participated in. What would Thoreau think about a mass of people whom deciding against doing something for the greater good? At that point, is environmental health worth it if people are working too much to save it?
In the conclusion, Thoreau mentions the difficulty for people to go out and explore and experience new things on their own. On page 302, he mentions “it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of ones’s being alone” (Thoreau 302). One should live the life they want and enjoy it. If you live the life you enjoy the most in a way that brings you the least amount of stress, you will benefit the most. Throughout his own voluntary exploration at Walden Pond, Thoreau discovered that “if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours” (303). Life is too short to live an unhappy life. To what extend does Thoreau believe we should live blissfully and chase the life that we have always imagined? What message do you think he would want to give to us college students?
Thoreau continuously discusses basic necessities and the importance of self-reliance throughout Walden. Thoreau shares that he does not use tea, coffee, butter, milk, fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them… He goes on to describe John Field, the Irishman, “But as he began with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay for them, and when he had worked hard he had to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system, — and so it was as broad as it was long…for he was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated it as a gain in coming to America.” (194) Thoreau sees this cycle as a negative, that having to work to provide yourself with certain things is somewhat like slavery. That the only “true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.” (194) While I understand wanting to have self-reliance, is it really worth disregarding the simple luxuries of life? Why is it that this type of economy that John Field is participating so bad? Perhaps maybe the discontentedness is what Thoreau is trying to avoid.
During the film “No Impact Man” the community farmer makes a harsh criticism of Michelle Beavan explaining that her living a no impact life does not counteract the fact that she works for a company who produces lots of waste and supports capitalism. In the chapter Higher Laws Thoreau says “we cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has sadly neglected him” (200). Do you think that this idea could be related back to how people pollute unknowingly and therefore cannot be held accountable? Or do you think that their is no ethical capitalism, even if it is simply doing your job?
Thoreau and “Man” from No Impact Man are very similar in their efforts to show society that an alternative lifestyle is possible. Thoreau did this off the grid in a small Massachusetts cabin by himself, whereas Man pursued an alternative lifestyle in a New York City apartment, along with his wife and child.
I genuinely believe that Thoreau would respect Man’s efforts to highlight the opportunity for an alternative way of living. If you can live without electricity, refrigeration, technology and grocery stores in the Big Apple, I think that Man AND his family proved that you could purse and achieve alternatives anywhere.
We talked about it in class, but I do think it’s strange that Man titled the film about him and his family, No Impact Man. On his talk shows and public speaking events, he spoke alone and without his family, despite ALL of their commitments to alternative living. I think that highlight the efforts of the entire family would have inspired more families to change and not just individuals.
Do you think Man would’ve made a bigger impact on society if his family accompanied him on talks and tv appearances about alternative living? Also, what would you rename the film to better include and highlight the collective efforts of his family?
During this week’s readings and classes, I wondered a lot about what the meaning of ownership was, particularly to a house. Growing up in the same house my entire life, and now living in Boone with school, I wondered if I could consider that house, I spent my first 18 years in home anymore. This brought a number of questions to mind, but it made me think most about Thoreau’s perspective of what a house is. He sees it more as temporary, and this made me think in perspective of the house I grew up in, which is over 100 years old. There have been many other inhabitants of that dwelling, and eventually other people will inhabit it. This shows that ownership is truly temporary with nearly all things. Watching no impact man, reducing consumption was a large part of completing Beavan’s goal. Watching him and his wife have to cut out so many material things in their lives, that they “owned”. Once these material things were gone from their life, they were faced with challenges that come with being removed from something you “own”. My question is how might you deal with having to give up things you “own” in order to live a simpler life?
Thoreau is all about living a simple life and living minimalisticly. In the film “No Impact Man” he attempted to do just that in New York City by producing no trash, saving for compost, purchasing no goods except for food grown within a 250-mile radius, using no carbon-based transportation, and using no paper products, including toilet paper. Although him and Thoreau may have disagreed on some things I am torn on Thoraeus opinion of the experiment. I want to say that Thoreau would say he kind of did it half-ass by making the effort to live minimalistic and reducing his global impact but he failed to get out and connect with nature in the same ways that Thoraeu had. On the other hand, times have changed and doing what Thoraeu did at Walden pond would be near impossible in New York City. However, living in New York City definitely had its perks in this experiment in regards to not using carbon-based transportation. In the city everything is so close together that riding your bike everywhere seems practical but imagine if someone in rural North Carolina had attempted this experiment? In rural areas everything is so far apart that the idea of not having a car or something of the sorts seems like it would place a huge hinder on the experiment. Although, living in a rural area would defineltey have its perks in the experiment in regards to connecting more with the outdoors and the possibility of growing your own food. My question is, how different would this experiment be is someone in a rural area had attempted it? Would it be harder or easier? And would Thoreau be indifferent of the experiment conducted in a rural setting rather than the city or would he favor one more than the other?
One of the biggest things that Thoreau has emphasized in economy is that you only need four things in order to have a truly happy and sustainable life. These things are food, shelter, water, and fuel. In the film No Impact Man, he does his absolute best to achieve a similar lifestyle in modern times. Despite him giving up just about everything in his life including electricity, gas-powered items, shipped food, and many other things his lifestyle still had many differences from Thoreau’s. The main difference I noticed and something I believe we talked about in class was the sense of individuality that Thoreau preaches whereas Colin in No Impact Man lives with a family. Individuality seems to be a very big part of Thoreau’s ideal lifestyle even going as far as to say “I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” (128). While I do think this is open to some interpretation I think that this proves his ideal vision of life is in solitude. Colin, in No Impact Man, had a wife and a baby daughter which to me seems to completely go against this vision Thoreau had. Now I don’t necessarily agree with this part of Thoreau’s vision however I do think it has some merit in terms of sustainability. As much as I want to have children and hopefully will, I do realize that having a child is one of the worst possible things you can do to the environment. Despite all of this I still think that Colin regardless of all his flaws and issues is a very strong person for being able to do what he did. However, this makes me question if Thoreau would genuinely approve of his lifestyle or if he thinks he can do more? It also makes me curious if it is possible in our society to do any more than Colin did to live fully sustainably?
In Thoreau’s “Walden,” Thoreau speaks often of enjoying his time spent alone. In the chapter “Solitude,” Thoreau states, “In the midst of a gentle rain […] I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and uncountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant […]” (124). He continues to emphasize his comfort in being alone by saying, “some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rainstorms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon […] when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves” (125). While Thoreau spent most of his time alone, except for the occasional visitors he met along the way, he questioned the idea of solitude, stating, “I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another (126). Thoreau’s reaction to others questioning his solitude seems somewhat far-fetched to me, as I do understand the point he is trying to make, but I feel as if he sometimes thinks too philosophically for his own good. While I agree that every man and woman is living under the same sky and on the same ground, how is that enough to be considered not solitary living?
Thoreau believes that solitude, in a sense, is the best way to unravel your thoughts, but I question his implications of sustainable development. One of the main aspects of sustainable development is collectivism and community-based ideals, which Thoreau seems to unintentionally debate. While one can learn a good deal from individual thoughts and actions, these thoughts can only go so far if they are not discussed with others. I believe that time spent alone is important and good for the mind, but at some point, there needs to be a shift in directing thoughts and ideas towards others. How can others learn or support an idea if it is never to be brought to their attention? Why does Thoreau prefer to be alone so often when thinking, when he could learn so much from other people, especially those who are from the area he has inhabited? What is the importance of collectivism from Thoreau’s point of view, if any?
Our discussion in class yesterday resonated with me a lot, especially when thinking of what to base my discussion question on. We discussed many quotes from Thoreau’s book, but one stuck with me in particular; “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind,” (14). In No Impact Man, Colin’s wife, Michelle, spoke briefly about her impending health issues as a result of her lifestyle. I feel it’s fair to assume that entails a poor diet and little exercise, something Americans as a whole (with the exception of some, of course) easily fall victim to. It may be bold to claim that things like fast food are “luxuries” given the horrible nutritional consequences that coincide with it, but it is. So is TV, video games, books, or literally anything else we have a huge volume of access to in our society. That being said, Thoreau was entirely right. This lifestyle, as ~luxurious~ as it may be, was a hinderance on Michelle’s health and well-being. They even followed up on this later in the film, that Michelle’s nutritional health got significantly better upon only consuming the local in-season vegetables from the farmer’s market. She went from being en-route to what I believe(?) was early onset diabetes, and was able to make a drastic lifestyle change for both herself and her child. This led me to think what the hardest thing for me to give up would be, the most difficult lifestyle change. I grew up as the youngest of 6 kids, with 3 older brothers. A lot of my things were theirs, or hand-me-downs. That being said I played a LOT of video games growing up, and to this day it’s one of my favorite pass-times, a form of escapism and anxiety relief. I truly do not know who I’d be if I didn’t have those experiences, as they led me to meet a lot of people. I feel like that would be the hardest change for me to make, though it would save a lot of energy for genuinely productive pass-times.
My question is for my fellow classmates, I guess:
What would be the hardest thing for you to give up, or the hardest habit you’d have to break? What do you think you’d replace that time with?
Thoreau finishes “The Bean-Field” in describing the interconnectedness of humans and nature as it pertains to farming, particularly describing that “These beans have results which are not harvested by me.” (Thoreau, 157) He explains that, because the beans can prove useful to the woodchucks and the weeds can prove useful to the birds, his harvest cannot really fail. He continues on to assert that, “The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.” (Thoreau, 157) In the previous chapter, he makes clear that he believes a husbandman should not view the soil as property, but rather should regard he act as a “sacred art” as it once was viewed, suggested by “ancient poetry and mythology.” (156) However, I cannot help but think that a farmer can still retain a spiritual tie to the land, while still hoping that they will be able to reap the toils of their labor through their harvest. For Thoreau, the bean field is a part of his experiment in self reliance, but for the farmers that he is advising not to be anxious, this is their livelihoods, their means of existence, subsistence and survival. Sophie raised an important question regarding the possible privilege associated with voluntary poverty, and I think that is applicable in reading this section from the bean field as well. Do you think that Thoreau’s opinions on how a farmer should and should not live might be not fully informed, given his limited scope of experience in the matter? Do you think that growing food for a profit rather that self sustenance removes the possibility of having a reciprocal relationship with the land which can nourish both the farmer and the land? Consider a local, small scale farmer who sells their food at local markets in order to have the money needed to survive, they might respect the land and ensure the soils fertility, refrain from using harmful pesticides or insecticides, and participate in a slew of other sustainable farming practices.. If this farmer has worries about having a good harvest, would this exempt them from being a “true husbandman” as Thoreau suggests?
There are many times in Walden that Thoreau talks about poverty and what he calls ‘voluntary’ poverty. This makes me question his thoughts on poverty and what he thinks poverty truly means. In this quote from the Bakers Farm section, he states, “With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor life, his Adam’s grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting feet, get talaria to their heels.” (pg. 197) My interpretation of this quote is that according to Thoreau these people will always be poor just because of their choices. If this was the case, there wouldn’t be many people in poverty if they could make certain choices as Thoreau could. It’s hard to break away from poverty once one is in it, especially in our capitalistic society. In a way, Thoreau’s ability to break free from society is a privilege that many people can’t achieve by themselves. When it comes to Thoreau’s take on ‘voluntary’ poverty, he truly wasn’t living in poverty. He was able to decide where he wanted to live, what he wanted to grow and eat, etc. He even had the choice to decide to go back into society. These are choices that many people in poverty do not get to make. Is Thoreau’s idea of poverty a series of choices you can make to prevent being in it? Can everyone in poverty choose to follow this ‘voluntary’ poverty?
In chapter 15 “Winter Animals” Thoreau talks about a hare that often visited his cabin “to nibble the potato parings” (Thoreau, Walden, 715) that he had previously thrown out. Thoreau explains at first glance the creature was “trembling with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor wee thing, lean and bony, with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws..Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy, almost dropsical.” (Thoreau, Walden, 716) When he takes a step towards it shifted into a swift, stealthy wild animal again. While reading this chapter I was challenged to understand the significance behind his writing. I know that throughout Walden, Thoreau tends to observe things for deeper than they appear but compared to the rest of the book, I am having trouble correlating what this chapter about winter animals is trying to portray and how it relates to the main message of living a simple, minimalist life? Does this have to do with Thoreau’s connection with nature?
In the chapter higher laws, Thoreau speaks about how hunting is a necessary part of a boys education. He writes “We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected” (212). Thoreau then goes on to say how once he is introduced to the forest he can then decide the type of man he wants to be, wether that be a hunter or to put the gun down, writing “is he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind” (213). This made me wonder if Thoreau saw hunters as bad people, because he uses the words “better life” when talking about not hunting. Why does Thoreau feel like you need to try hunting out to figure out the type of man you are going to be? What if you have no desire to even pick up a gun does that automatically make you a man with a better life?
“It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pondside; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! (303)”
I found this quote to be both interesting and impactful. As I read Thoreau’s conclusion I picked up on several moments where he seemingly aims his writing at the reader in a way that calls for inspection of ones self. I found his imagery in this passage painted a picture in my mind of the paths in which we might take throughout our lives. Perhaps some of the paths we choose are chosen simply because they are well worn and seem to be headed in the right direction. Thoreau speaks to taking an introspective approach to how we live our lives, reminding us that sometimes our choices are based more on conformity than one might think. That being said, in what ways would our society and our world differ if we each studied our choices more rather than falling victim to following the most worn paths? Would the world be better off ecologically speaking if we all made choices that were more individualized, or would the earth suffer at the hands of introspective thought and action?
In the chapter Baker Farm, Thoreau said something that I think Collin from No Impact Man would relate very much to. He writes, “for he was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country where you are at the liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.”
I’ve always been very conflicted on how I feel about Thoreau (and now collin), I described them both as ‘arrogant loners.’ They both have a tendency to act like they are better than other people because of the ways they choose to live their lives. People in other countries live like they did (without electricity, without the ability to buy whatever they want, having very little environmental impact, etc) every day, yet the only mainstream stories we hear about trying to drastically reduce environmental impact are from white American men (this makes me think about how the documentary was called “No Impact Man,” even though Michelle and their daughter were also apart of it).
Do you think a story of someone living without these luxuries in other countries would have been as impactful as Thoreaus or Collins? Why do you think they decided to make an Americanized version of this living instead of moving to another country and experiencing this life authentically? How would someone who has come to the United States after experiencing life like that feel about either of their stories? Would they find them arrogant, as I do, or would they agree that “the only true America is that country where you are at the liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these [luxuries]?”
The Documentary “No-Impact Man” follows Colin Beavan and his three-person household as they attempt to live for a year without making a negative impact on the earth. This experiment, illustrated in depth by this documentary, forced Colin and the audience to re-evaluate the way they live and the impact their daily activities have on our climate. This concept of gaining self-awareness (and arguably social awareness) within Colin’s story is parallel to themes Thoreau demonstrates in his writings. Existing within a climate crisis is uncomfortable and even when we are not consciously considering the state of our environment, the anxiety lingers in the back. That being said, this is not a new occurrence. Thoreau writes to the people that are unconnected and passively unfulfilled in their lives. These are the overworked laborers who appear to be stuck in a system of materialism and unnecessary wants. Thoreau offers the question “How can he remember well his ignorance–which his growth requires–who has so often to use his knowledge?” (Thoreau, Walden, 6).
This growth that Thoreau speaks of develops from a place of self-reliance and simplicity.
Colin and Thoreau’s experiments, however, are fueled by the community of people and the natural world that surrounds them. Individual development is important in the process of developing new insights and ways of living, however, it should not be a replacement for the collective efforts.
What is the role of self-awareness and individual growth and how do those ideas relate to the larger natural and man-made systems we exist in?
This week we read more of Walden and watched the documentary, “No Impact Man”. If Thoreau lived today, would he take a collective action/community response to combating anthropogenic climate change, or would he be like Collin and take a lone wolf (no impact man) approach?
Towards the end of “The Bean Field,” Thoreau offers some very unique insight on peoples’ relationship to the land, especially in the context of farming or self-sufficiency. He explains how agriculture was “once a sacred art,” but has transitioned far away from such through the collective pursuit of profit through the land (156). Thoreau states, “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 us deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber,” (156). He continues this discussion, quickly concluding the chapter saying “These beans have results which are not harvested by me… How, then, can our harvest fail?” (157). I believe his thoughts on agriculture and relations to the land directly tie to his discussions of wealth. If we are concerned with personal wealth gain through robbing the land in search of profit, we not only hurt the land, but we hurt ourselves. Concerning ourselves with increasing the wealth of nature over time results in more noble, spiritual, and purposeful wealth gain. “It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer’s barns,” says Thoreau (157). Does Thoreau truly believe the alternative gains of life from relations with the land in the interim are worth more than surviving through production and cultivation of the land? Rather, I do believe a balance exists, and that this is an overgeneralization, or something of the like, that is too far-fetched. He continues this thought process in the following chapter, talking of unequal possessions and where robbery occurs between each other, rather than from the land. “I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown,” (163). Without the pursuit of profit, could thievery and robbery of nature similarly be unknown? What examples (if any) come to mind regarding robbery (in a less material, more theoretical sense; robbery of the mind, of the land) in everyday society today? What is missing? How can we fulfill these robberies in ways that promote and enforce alternative relations, and alternative “wealth” gains collectively, and not just full-fill them in the short-term for yourself specifically in the Global North? Where do you think no-impact man and his family fall in this discussion?
Both Thoreau and Colin Beavans from ‘No Impact Man’ made it clear they were searching for what they individually deemed ‘the good life’. Beavans questioned if it was “possible to have a good life without wasting so much” and Thoreau sought to determine if the ‘good life’ was separate from society and the status-quo. What surprised me was that both men knew off the bat they would not be able to succumb to this lifestyle permanently, and each saw it as their own personal experiments, for what I could presume to be for personal gain. Does this mean neither men truly believed the ‘good life’ could be achieved permanently in today’s society? Did the negative reactions from outsiders have any affect on their long term goals with their projects? If so, do you think that if they had more gradually moved into these lifestyles (rather than Mrs.Beavans announcing she was cutting everything cold turkey or Thoreau up and building himself a cabin in the woods in the blink of an eye) that perhaps they would have been perceived in a more understanding matter from their peers? I am curious to know if they would have, respectfully, had more “followers” or supporters on their journeys if they hadn’t been so “outlandish” right off the bat (in other words, breaking the status-quo/societal standards).
In reading Walden so far, Thoreau reiterates the point that you should live your life without wanting or having the unnecessary luxuries. He claims that excess goods require more labor and hinder the individual with worries. In “Baker Farm” Thoreau runs into a family who has immigrated to America from Ireland. Thoreau lectures the family on how the only true America that you should live in does not require you to participate in the bargaining of excess goods (105). These excess goods excited the family and Thoreau continued to lecture the father on how to best use his land. This interaction made me think of the family in “No Impact Man.” The wife did not understand at first the reason for giving up all of her favorite luxuries and the husband kept pushing for more things to be gotten rid of. It was a constant battle between the two with what was being given up for the sake of the project. Both of these times make me think what needs to be given up in order to see life purely? What motives should be behind such drastic life changes? If someone encourages you to change your life would you be able to?
I want to discuss Colin Beavans decision through Thoreau’s eyes because while I don’t think he would disagree with what Beavans did, I don’t think he would agree with some of the things he did. Thoreau valued farming and becoming one with nature that way. I think that then looking at “No Impact Man”, he would be, not frustrated, but maybe disappointed that people in New York City couldn’t farm. Mainly because when he farmed, it was for himself and to see how people couldn’t do that would be saddening to him. I wonder how he would react to the news that the waitlist for community garden plots are years long? As for the Beavans eating vegetarian and local, I think that Thoreau would be thrilled that someone else tried eating less animal products. But I wonder if he would agree with the reasons why they went vegetarian, knowing that they’ve never had to hunt in their lives? Would Thoreau agree with their decisions or would he look at their decisions and realize how the problems he was concerned with in his time have now grown exponentially?
While reading Thoreau’s text and watching No Impact Man, I began to think of the conversations between Henry and Colin and what they would agree and disagree on. I also asked myself if their perspectives would change if they were able to meet.
Thoreau lived his life the way he wanted to and only did the things that made him happy. His simplistic way of life satisfied his wants and needs. Thoreau lived in a small house and made little to no negative impact on the environment. Through this, we can assume that Thoreau lived a happy life. Similarly, Colin Beavan and his family changed their lifestyle to have little to no impact on the environment. They reduced his energy usage, started buying seasonal produce, stepped away from technology, biked or walked everywhere, and started using eco-friendly products. The film clearly showed that this lifestyle change was not simple and easy. These gradual changes were set up in phases that helped them slowly transition to a simpler life. Do you think this simple life made them happy in the ways that it made Thoreau happy?
Colin’s wife had a difficult time agreeing with these changes in their family. She wanted to get coffee most days and was shocked at the fact that Colin was washing their clothes in the bathtub with borax. Did this simple way of life make her happy? It seemed as though it did not make her happy and that it actually her less happy than before. She had to put away all of her cosmetics and changed her consumption when it came to clothing. Does having a simpler life with fewer things in pursuit of helping the environment make everyone happy? How would Thoreau answer this question?
In both Walden and No Impact Man, the pursuit of voluntary poverty and minimalism is at the center of their experiments. I’m curious as to whether the ability to choose to live with less and to choose poverty is a demonstration of privilege, and that choosing to live this way is much different than having to live this way.
If both of these men eventually went back to their old way of life, with their old luxuries and conveniences, does their claim that living with less is the best way to live life really hold any value? Those who are unable to choose that life and instead are forced, like those living in poverty today, I imagine are unlikely to romanticize their experiences and see them in the same philosophical lens that Colin and Thoreau did. Does their ability to escape their current circumstances at any given point (Thoreau going to the store, Colin turning electricity back on) detract from the message and intentions of their experiment?
I find it hard to listen to the advice they give when neither of them made the decision to live in that way indefinitely, seeing their experiment as more of a sign of ability and privilege rather than sacrifice or nobility.
Throughout some of the later chapters, the animals that have began to surround Thoreau at his cabin. He goes into extreme detail when talking about the sounds they are making and even the patterns to which they are making these sounds. How is this significant to the idea of wanting to be one with nature and trying to immerse yourself in it? Also, he goes into tremendous detail about the train he sees passing by where he lives, he describes what he smells from each of the train cars. Why does he go into such great detail just from seeing a train transporting goods, is it just because he is in awe from seeing the locomotive, or is it something deeper than this?
In the film, “No Impact Man” and the book, “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau, both narrators feel obliged to document their seemingly-freeing experience from the material world during their attempt to coexist with the natural world. The basic justification Colin Beaven has for doing the interviews and writing his books is to inspire others, and the purpose of ‘Walden’ seems to do somewhat the same. Although, Thoreau claims to have written the book to answer questions from the public, and to record his findings. The way he writes while very interesting, does have a huge intentional influence through the way he philosophizes. He makes many claims about how a man can only truly be free or how a man can be fulfilled thus Walden feels almost like a manifesto or a bible in some dimensions. Our in class discussion of “No Impact Man” got a lot of criticism from my peers on how Beaven’s year of “no impact” felt performative. Even in 2021, “van life” and “tiny homes” are trendy and often times recorded to share a unique and envious lifestyle often times recorded to post on youtube and television shows. It seems like often times when people embark a journey of a natural lifestyle they have this deep yearning to make it public contrary to the fact that the lifestyle is supposed to symbolize one that is more self-reliant, private, and intimate. My question is why for Thoreau specifically and people who also record these new seemingly better lifestyle must be so performative about it, I feel like it has something to do with vanity almost.
This week we watched “No Impact Man” and the film followed a man and his family on their journey to reduce all sources of waste in their life, similar to Thoreau’s experience at Walden. The Beaven’s received a lot of hate from the general public during their year-long experiment. Michelle was so surprised how people could give so much hate to something they weren’t involved in. She ended up having lunch with someone who wrote a critical blog about them and explained how a lot of people find anger at even the question of changing their routine and lifestyle. In Thoreau’s “Economy” he states, “man has invented, not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it, at first a luxury, arose the present necessity to sit by it.” This quote points out how people have blurred the lines between luxury and necessity and I think “No Impact Man” portrays the harsh resistance people have against losing those luxuries.
Why else could the Beaven’s have been receiving hate for their experiment? Do you think Thoreau experienced similar criticism from society as a reaction to his experiment?
In Thorau’s “Bean Field” chapter, he discusses his planting of beans and a little of the history of the field he was working on. He mentions that “early in the morning I worked barefooted…” What do you think the importance of this was to Thoreau? Was it another way for him to feel more connected to nature, more grounded and ‘one’ with the soil and earth around him?
In Thoreau’s piece Life Without Principle he states, “The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job”, but to perform well a certain work, and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel like they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love of it.” What I took from this quote was basically the saying “do what you love and you will never have to work a day in your life”. But, how was one supposed to figure something like that out during the pre and post industrial age when jobs were not being made for the love of the work but for the necessity for a human body? How can we change our mindsets today about work and what work will not feel like work to us? Do we have opportunities to get out of this mold of “working for money” or will it always be the easy way out?
On page 147 in the chapter “The Bean Field”, Thoreau discusses how indigenous peoples planted corn and beans and how white men came and destroyed their agricultural ways. This is obviously referring to the three sisters’ technique of planting corn, beans, and squash as they are nitrogen fixing crops that help with soil health. During this time, these sorts of realizations were not prominent by other typical white individuals. How could we infer that Thoreau would react if he saw a major like SD working in the modern world studying traditional growing techniques and trying to implement health back into agriculture after watching industrial monoculture take over our agricultural practices??
No Impact Man was an interesting documentary about a man trying to limit his impact for one year. I thought the movie was a little dramatized in certain parts and I noticed then he was very obsessed with this from the start. Colin Beaven is an intense person and that made for a compelling one hour in 30 minutes. I do think he could have designed the documentary in a different way but that’s neither here nor there. I believe that Colin got a lot of push back in the beginning from people who did not want to face facts that today they were contributing to a problem that nobody likes to talk about. Connecting this to the reading we did this week starts with Thoreau’s idea of voluntary poverty in which the Beavon family somehow got into even if it was rather brief in the grand scheme of things. I thought the effort of the family was interesting and tied back towards this thought process in some ways. I also wanted to look at another part of the reading we did this week. In the chapter Higher Laws Thoreau said that “we cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has sadly neglected him” (200). This quote talks about how young children should be pitied because they do not know what they do to pollute the earth. This quote is important because children should be educated, but adults should be held accountable. I think the possibility that people are angry and defensive about their polluting ways is very noticeable in this documentary.
Do you think these people will ever take accountability or do you think that there is no responsibility with these people?
In the documentary, No Impact Man, a family of three (the Beavens’) attempts to live without leaving a carbon footprint for an entire year. At the end of the day, that is all one can do to limit their impact on climate change, so I believe they were doing something with both good intentions and positive outcomes. At certain points in the movie, the husband and the wife found themselves struggling to break certain addictions or attachments to certain things. Toward the end of the documentary, Colin Beavens says something along the lines of: we were not trying to challenge ourselves to live miserably for a year without all these luxuries, we were experimenting to see how we could still enjoy life and find joys in doing the simple and more sustainable things. This same idea is very prevalent in Thoreau’s book Walden. In the chapter, Solitude, Thoreau discusses his life living alone in the woods. He describes his feelings of contentment with his solitude and does not seem to let loneliness cause him negative emotions. He includes stories of times when he has had visitors come by his house while he is not home and they would leave little trinkets or notes or something made from the nature around. The way he describes these things tells the reader that even though he is living a simpler life without the ease of luxuries and technologies, he is still able to enjoy his life and appreciate joy wherever found.
Would you rather be rich and stressed out or poor and content? Poor and rich are very subjective terms, but I’m referring to capital. A better way to ask this question would be: what are the true reasons the Thoreau and Colin Beaven are able to live with content while rejecting the materialistic aspects of society? How has society itself caused a detachment from reality or a false reality for some people?
Throughout No Impact Man, I experienced a variety of emotions and thoughts as I watched Colin Beavan set out on his experiment to live with no environmental impacts for a year, forcing his family to complete this with him. While a lot of people found his experiment to be a positive, good-intentioned one, I overall really disliked the film because of Beavan’s performative nature. Though seemingly well intentioned, I continued to notice lots of small hypocritical actions throughout the film, such as getting upset with his wife when she complained about quitting coffee cold turkey, despite having a caffeine addiction, though he was allowed to use electricity to write on his blog throughout that year. I also wonder how much electricity was used in the production of the film, from charging cameras, to all of the technology used in the editing process, and then the amount of people that used electricity in their own homes to watch the documentary after it was created. Beavan’s actions felt performative because he stated that his only goal was to inspire others, but now has written articles in the Atlantic and the New York Times, has a documentary made about him, and has published a book about his experience, showing that he likely had other intentions from this experiment as well. I also struggle with the idea of individual consumers being responsible for climate change. Should individuals be expected to make major life changes in order to stop climate change— despite many people not being in privileged positions to do so— while only 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions, and were not held accountable in that film?
Colin Beavan and Michelle Conlin from the documentary film No Impact Man made drastic changes to their New York City household by taking on the challenge of making “no impact” for one year, which includes not using toilet paper, removing their TV from their house, shopping completely local, giving up consumerist shopping completely, and not using cars. Their drastic shift into total sustainability brought uneasiness from Conlin, who was less enthused about giving up her simple life pleasures such as lattes, reality TV, and recreational shopping, and was not a fan of the loads of negative media attention they as a family received. The film captured the couple’s disagreements on what lengths they should go as a family with Beavan usually having the final say.
Thoreau in his book Walden also describes the sacrifices he made in his two year stint of living in the woods, while also defending some of his actions by stating, “If we live in the nineteenth century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the nineteenth century offers? Why should our life be in any respect Provincial?” Reading, pg. 114
Would Thoreau agree with Beavan’s opinion that all actions with any form of environmental or economic impact is inherently bad and should be replaced with something more sustainable? Would Thoreau go to the lengths that the Beavans did if he lived in the same time period as them, or would he consider the No Impact movement as something “provincial” given the societal context of the early 2000s?
This reading, as well as the film, brought to mind the question of what gives someone moral authority to write about topics such as these? Specifically, what qualifications would Thoreau consider valid in advocates for a given social cause? Would he consider total immersion in the experience to be essential, as he does in Walden and in the film No Impact Man? He mentions throughout Walden that he does it for himself, not necessarily to encourage others to do so. In the chapter Solidarity, Thoreau writes: “With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature…I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern me much more,” (p.216). He talks a lot about experiences and exhibitions as means of involving oneself with nature, so I wonder if this is what he considers as part of the criteria for those with the moral authority to write people and encourage advocacy for a certain cause, in this case, living sustainably and close with nature.
In Thoreau’s ‘Solitude’ we find him exploring how the forms of production we engage with effect the character of society, specifically the potential for individuals to achieve some form of self-actualization. The forms of production characteristic of the pre-industrial revolution required a more intimate, personal relationship to the products of labor, be it the toil of a farmer or the carving of a carpenter. With the industrial revolution came the separation of craftsman and craft, making production an instrumental process devoid of artistry and fulfillment. Thoreau is essentially asking us “can we reasonably believe that individuals can find fulfillment in a society where their lives are dependent on a form of labor which provides neither meaning nor fulfillment?” Thoreau would argue that this cannot be reasonably argued, and that his reasoning for embarking on the journey that became ‘Walden’ was in part a desire to find fulfillment and meaning where otherwise he could not. The acclaimed director Ingmar Bergman wrote that “Here, in my solitude, I have the feeling that I contain too much humanity.” What this illustrates is exactly the position advocated by Thoreau regarding his time at Walden, and furthermore the motivation for said position. In finding a form of solitude, Thoreau sought the time and conditions to find greater self-understanding, importantly through the “labor of the hands” (148), or the production of his survival by his own means.
Often, Thoreau is criticized because people feel like his analysis fails to consider the position of people who have to labor in order to earn money to sustain their survival, let alone consumption and disillusion by luxury, or material goods. However, one passage, made me reconsider this conception, where Thoreau writes: “Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine.” This is an analysis repeated by many economists and economic theorists. The alienation of man from his labor is a concept which is known to have profound impacts on the workers and their relationships to the work, as well as the world in which they perform and reside in. Where Thoreau describes the laborer as, “… through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.” This may sound like it is looking down upon a laborer, asking why they cannot rid themselves of the facade in which they are actively participating. However, I think what Thoreau is trying to say in this passage is that the laborer is very ignorant to the possibilities, these finer fruits of life, and unable to achieve them because the framework they are able to conceive, due to the circumstances they have been provided, is one where their lives have to center around labor, and they are unable to take this time to be more than a machine who produces labor. Further, I do think Thoreau shows an example of ways that one can divorce themselves from this process without indebting themselves, that is, of course, if they have no dependents, no prior obligations, etc.
I want to raise the question, for whom can Thoreau’s lessons from his experiment best apply, and why? Does this analysis of his importance only exist on an axis of affordability, or can these lessons be impactful across classes?
SD 3800 Voices in Sustainable Development 
In class we discussed Thoreau’s way of characterizing a home; “What is a house but a sedes, a seat?” Initially I thought of the analogy of comparing a seat to a house was because of the way in which one can rest in seat, someone can feel comfort while sitting in that seat. It wasn’t until another classmate brought up the idea that a seat is not permanent but that of only something that serves a purpose until we no longer need it. To me, when I sit in a seat I feel a sense of individuality, as the seat is only mine maybe just for that moment, but nonetheless it is still mine. Thinking about now the No Impact Man documentary, this analogy sparked a familiar theme that I felt was evident throughout the film. Collin Beaven received a lot of critiques regarding his experiment because of how extreme it was but Beaven’s response was not that he was doing the most because he expected everyone to do the most but to do that of what is necessary to sustain a comfortable “seat” for themselves and those who might “sit” in the seat after them. The question that I have from this combination of Thoreau’s work and Collin Beaven’s “No Impact Man” experiment is: Do you believe that it is the responsibility of the current and present owner of the “seat” (eg. humanity sitting on the earth knowing that further generations are supposed to sit on it after them) or is the job of the new owner of the seat to maintain, repair, or enhance their “seat’?
In the most broadest of terms of this analogy and going back to Thoreau’s use of the word seat, to answer this question I first think of the literal class seats that I sit all the time for class. Going back as far as I can remember, in all class settings I was told to push in my seat after myself. We were taught to push in the seat after ourselves because it would not only leave the room more tidy and organized once we left, but it also gave the next student who was going to sit in that seat a sense of a fresh start, a clean and respected workspace, a spot where they too can feel comfortable enough to rest. When thinking of the earth as the seat of humanity, why is the same practice of “pushing in our seat” and leaving the spot we used identical to how we found it, such a different concept when thought of on a larger scale like that of saving humanity rather than just being nice for a peer?
I think this is actually a quite profound analogy in all its simplicity, given that a seat could be a helpful daily visual and physical reminder of our smallest actions and how they affect the world around us. This could be used as a tangible tool to keep us present in monitoring our actions and ensuring whatever we touch or do, we do it with good intentions for whoever is to come next; be it pushing in the seat, recycling the can, composting food waste, etc. It’s these daily activities that accumulate throughout ones life, that compound exponentially when every human on earth is making decisions that ultimately exacerbate and perpetuate the state of the planet. Some things are impossible to un-hear, or unlearn, and I want to thank you for this manageable device that I can now implement daily, to attach my actions to the chain of events that could potentially occur after it.
In the “Solitude” chapter of Walden, Thoreau says, “While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.” He later goes on, “Though [the rain] prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of” (131). I absorbed these words as an argument for the power of perception. It seems Thoreau puts on ‘rose-colored glasses’ to alter his perception of ‘reality’ when less desirable situations arise. If something, such as too much rain, were to occur he doesn’t take it personally as if a bad thing were happening to him, as if due to the rain his viable sustenance would suffer, he realizes, alternatively, that the less desirable occurrence could be beneficial in a different facet of life; removing the ‘self’ from the interconnectedness of unpredictability encompassed within life’s happenings. This appears to be linear with most Buddhist teachings in relation to suffering. Thoreau doesn’t allow anything in life to be a burden, aided by his patient and persistent perceptions. I believe humans are innately, subconsciously engulfed in the ‘self’ -often suffering from taking life’s happenings too personally, although tragic situations inevitably transpire throughout one’s life, and individuals should feel valid in navigating their feelings post-traumatic experience. My question is: if we alter our perception of these negative situations to adhere to the mindset whereabouts we analyze all potential positive outcomes, pay tribute to them, and learn from them and set in motion utilitarian solutions that perpetuate future successes for not only individuals but mass populations of human and nonhuman entities, is it possible we could abolish negativity in its entirety -and how would this malleablize society? Do you think that this is a feasible and sustainable lifestyle to achieve individually? Collectively? -and is this the lifestyle you think Thoreau could be advocating for?
Thoreau discusses his relationship to the labor he relies on to survive, explaining, “As I had little aid from horses or cattle, or hired men or boys, or improved implements of husbandry, I was much slower, and became much more intimate with my beans than usual” (148). He emphasizes the importance of “labor of the hands” (148), complaining that “husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely” (156). Through this criticism, it seems to me that Thoreau is both condemning industrialism and reemphasizing the importance he places on self-sufficiency and the individual. Although he recognizes the increased efficiency of industrialism, especially in industrial agriculture, he believes that this system removes the intimacy and art of labor. What should the goal of labor be? Why is it important that people feel a connection to the products of their labor?
In the film “No Impact Man”, a particular scene (31:00) portrays Colin reading through the criticism and even death threats he and his wife are receiving in backlash to how obscene his project is. He seems to just laugh them off, but briefly questions himself and the validity of his work, only to recollect and realize he is at least doing something and following his conscious. In the same scene, Michelle is having a discussion with a writer who initially was very critical of Colin’s work but comes around to understand the importance of what he is doing. They talk about why people are so enamored and upset with Colin’s project and come to the conclusion it’s due to the realizations of consumption people have within themselves and the sense of guilt that corresponds.
Another scene (1:09:00) shows an older man explaining his doubts in Colin’s work, telling him, having no impact individually doesn’t take away from the fact that there have to be systemic changes in order to reverse the hole we have dug ourselves; and essentially corporate capitalism deems individual efforts useless. While Colin is initially at a loss for words in response to this, he develops a strong argument against the uselessness of individual actions in a later scene (1:19:50). Colin justifies individual action through the engagement in society it causes. In his particular case he is drawing enormous amounts of attention to the problem which at least makes people think about how they can help, or similarly to the critical writer, invoke a feeling of guilt. In a sense this individual action has the ability to lead to collective action. Personally, if my individual action has the chance to get someone else involved in helping with reaching a sustainable society, that is enough for me to feel justified. Furthermore, a big problem I see is a lack of action at all as it feels like we often sit around and twiddle our thumbs as a society trying to figure out what’s the best course of action instead of actually getting shit done. Individual action is at least a step forward in my mind and relates back to Colin’s philosophy that you should do what feels right in correlation with a sustainable society instead of just choosing to do nothing.
I wonder how others feel about this idea of individual action and the validity of Colin’s work. Is he doing all this for no reason because individual action has no effect on the grand scheme of politics that shape our society? Or did his no impact project have a significant impact on where we are headed societally in terms of thinking sustainably?
Throughout Walden, Thoreau places a large value on independence. He also repeatedly notes that in poverty one finds the most wealth. “It looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is” (307). In Walden’s conclusion, he goes on to speak about simplifying one’s life “do not trouble yourself much to get new things…” (308). Thoreau speaks to wealth as a burden, something that hinders your life rather than helps you. However, Thoreau is practicing voluntary poverty. While I agree with him that we should all embrace simplicity, I can’t help but think that Thoreau likely has a family he can call upon if he is ever in need. Thoreau mentions that people are often above being supported by the town, and would prefer to support themselves by dishonest means. What if someone doesn’t have a town (or in our case, a government that provides many social services) to lean upon when they are in need? When he talks of the blessings brought on by poverty, is it reasonable to take his assessment with some form of skepticism? In addition, do we think his views on poverty stand the test of time, or would our current world complicate these views?
As mentioned in class, Thoreau continuously stresses that if one is doing something that doesn’t bring them joy then they should stop. In the film, “No Impact Man,” the wife was having a lot of trouble with the project and didn’t enjoy most aspects of it. In terms of being a No Impact Man, I feel as if a lot of people wouldn’t enjoy doing the things that Colin and his family participated in. What would Thoreau think about a mass of people whom deciding against doing something for the greater good? At that point, is environmental health worth it if people are working too much to save it?
In the conclusion, Thoreau mentions the difficulty for people to go out and explore and experience new things on their own. On page 302, he mentions “it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of ones’s being alone” (Thoreau 302). One should live the life they want and enjoy it. If you live the life you enjoy the most in a way that brings you the least amount of stress, you will benefit the most. Throughout his own voluntary exploration at Walden Pond, Thoreau discovered that “if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours” (303). Life is too short to live an unhappy life. To what extend does Thoreau believe we should live blissfully and chase the life that we have always imagined? What message do you think he would want to give to us college students?
Thoreau continuously discusses basic necessities and the importance of self-reliance throughout Walden. Thoreau shares that he does not use tea, coffee, butter, milk, fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them… He goes on to describe John Field, the Irishman, “But as he began with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay for them, and when he had worked hard he had to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system, — and so it was as broad as it was long…for he was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated it as a gain in coming to America.” (194) Thoreau sees this cycle as a negative, that having to work to provide yourself with certain things is somewhat like slavery. That the only “true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.” (194) While I understand wanting to have self-reliance, is it really worth disregarding the simple luxuries of life? Why is it that this type of economy that John Field is participating so bad? Perhaps maybe the discontentedness is what Thoreau is trying to avoid.
During the film “No Impact Man” the community farmer makes a harsh criticism of Michelle Beavan explaining that her living a no impact life does not counteract the fact that she works for a company who produces lots of waste and supports capitalism. In the chapter Higher Laws Thoreau says “we cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has sadly neglected him” (200). Do you think that this idea could be related back to how people pollute unknowingly and therefore cannot be held accountable? Or do you think that their is no ethical capitalism, even if it is simply doing your job?
Thoreau and “Man” from No Impact Man are very similar in their efforts to show society that an alternative lifestyle is possible. Thoreau did this off the grid in a small Massachusetts cabin by himself, whereas Man pursued an alternative lifestyle in a New York City apartment, along with his wife and child.
I genuinely believe that Thoreau would respect Man’s efforts to highlight the opportunity for an alternative way of living. If you can live without electricity, refrigeration, technology and grocery stores in the Big Apple, I think that Man AND his family proved that you could purse and achieve alternatives anywhere.
We talked about it in class, but I do think it’s strange that Man titled the film about him and his family, No Impact Man. On his talk shows and public speaking events, he spoke alone and without his family, despite ALL of their commitments to alternative living. I think that highlight the efforts of the entire family would have inspired more families to change and not just individuals.
Do you think Man would’ve made a bigger impact on society if his family accompanied him on talks and tv appearances about alternative living? Also, what would you rename the film to better include and highlight the collective efforts of his family?
highlighting*
During this week’s readings and classes, I wondered a lot about what the meaning of ownership was, particularly to a house. Growing up in the same house my entire life, and now living in Boone with school, I wondered if I could consider that house, I spent my first 18 years in home anymore. This brought a number of questions to mind, but it made me think most about Thoreau’s perspective of what a house is. He sees it more as temporary, and this made me think in perspective of the house I grew up in, which is over 100 years old. There have been many other inhabitants of that dwelling, and eventually other people will inhabit it. This shows that ownership is truly temporary with nearly all things. Watching no impact man, reducing consumption was a large part of completing Beavan’s goal. Watching him and his wife have to cut out so many material things in their lives, that they “owned”. Once these material things were gone from their life, they were faced with challenges that come with being removed from something you “own”. My question is how might you deal with having to give up things you “own” in order to live a simpler life?
Thoreau is all about living a simple life and living minimalisticly. In the film “No Impact Man” he attempted to do just that in New York City by producing no trash, saving for compost, purchasing no goods except for food grown within a 250-mile radius, using no carbon-based transportation, and using no paper products, including toilet paper. Although him and Thoreau may have disagreed on some things I am torn on Thoraeus opinion of the experiment. I want to say that Thoreau would say he kind of did it half-ass by making the effort to live minimalistic and reducing his global impact but he failed to get out and connect with nature in the same ways that Thoraeu had. On the other hand, times have changed and doing what Thoraeu did at Walden pond would be near impossible in New York City. However, living in New York City definitely had its perks in this experiment in regards to not using carbon-based transportation. In the city everything is so close together that riding your bike everywhere seems practical but imagine if someone in rural North Carolina had attempted this experiment? In rural areas everything is so far apart that the idea of not having a car or something of the sorts seems like it would place a huge hinder on the experiment. Although, living in a rural area would defineltey have its perks in the experiment in regards to connecting more with the outdoors and the possibility of growing your own food. My question is, how different would this experiment be is someone in a rural area had attempted it? Would it be harder or easier? And would Thoreau be indifferent of the experiment conducted in a rural setting rather than the city or would he favor one more than the other?
One of the biggest things that Thoreau has emphasized in economy is that you only need four things in order to have a truly happy and sustainable life. These things are food, shelter, water, and fuel. In the film No Impact Man, he does his absolute best to achieve a similar lifestyle in modern times. Despite him giving up just about everything in his life including electricity, gas-powered items, shipped food, and many other things his lifestyle still had many differences from Thoreau’s. The main difference I noticed and something I believe we talked about in class was the sense of individuality that Thoreau preaches whereas Colin in No Impact Man lives with a family. Individuality seems to be a very big part of Thoreau’s ideal lifestyle even going as far as to say “I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” (128). While I do think this is open to some interpretation I think that this proves his ideal vision of life is in solitude. Colin, in No Impact Man, had a wife and a baby daughter which to me seems to completely go against this vision Thoreau had. Now I don’t necessarily agree with this part of Thoreau’s vision however I do think it has some merit in terms of sustainability. As much as I want to have children and hopefully will, I do realize that having a child is one of the worst possible things you can do to the environment. Despite all of this I still think that Colin regardless of all his flaws and issues is a very strong person for being able to do what he did. However, this makes me question if Thoreau would genuinely approve of his lifestyle or if he thinks he can do more? It also makes me curious if it is possible in our society to do any more than Colin did to live fully sustainably?
In Thoreau’s “Walden,” Thoreau speaks often of enjoying his time spent alone. In the chapter “Solitude,” Thoreau states, “In the midst of a gentle rain […] I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and uncountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant […]” (124). He continues to emphasize his comfort in being alone by saying, “some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rainstorms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon […] when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves” (125). While Thoreau spent most of his time alone, except for the occasional visitors he met along the way, he questioned the idea of solitude, stating, “I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another (126). Thoreau’s reaction to others questioning his solitude seems somewhat far-fetched to me, as I do understand the point he is trying to make, but I feel as if he sometimes thinks too philosophically for his own good. While I agree that every man and woman is living under the same sky and on the same ground, how is that enough to be considered not solitary living?
Thoreau believes that solitude, in a sense, is the best way to unravel your thoughts, but I question his implications of sustainable development. One of the main aspects of sustainable development is collectivism and community-based ideals, which Thoreau seems to unintentionally debate. While one can learn a good deal from individual thoughts and actions, these thoughts can only go so far if they are not discussed with others. I believe that time spent alone is important and good for the mind, but at some point, there needs to be a shift in directing thoughts and ideas towards others. How can others learn or support an idea if it is never to be brought to their attention? Why does Thoreau prefer to be alone so often when thinking, when he could learn so much from other people, especially those who are from the area he has inhabited? What is the importance of collectivism from Thoreau’s point of view, if any?
Our discussion in class yesterday resonated with me a lot, especially when thinking of what to base my discussion question on. We discussed many quotes from Thoreau’s book, but one stuck with me in particular; “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind,” (14). In No Impact Man, Colin’s wife, Michelle, spoke briefly about her impending health issues as a result of her lifestyle. I feel it’s fair to assume that entails a poor diet and little exercise, something Americans as a whole (with the exception of some, of course) easily fall victim to. It may be bold to claim that things like fast food are “luxuries” given the horrible nutritional consequences that coincide with it, but it is. So is TV, video games, books, or literally anything else we have a huge volume of access to in our society. That being said, Thoreau was entirely right. This lifestyle, as ~luxurious~ as it may be, was a hinderance on Michelle’s health and well-being. They even followed up on this later in the film, that Michelle’s nutritional health got significantly better upon only consuming the local in-season vegetables from the farmer’s market. She went from being en-route to what I believe(?) was early onset diabetes, and was able to make a drastic lifestyle change for both herself and her child. This led me to think what the hardest thing for me to give up would be, the most difficult lifestyle change. I grew up as the youngest of 6 kids, with 3 older brothers. A lot of my things were theirs, or hand-me-downs. That being said I played a LOT of video games growing up, and to this day it’s one of my favorite pass-times, a form of escapism and anxiety relief. I truly do not know who I’d be if I didn’t have those experiences, as they led me to meet a lot of people. I feel like that would be the hardest change for me to make, though it would save a lot of energy for genuinely productive pass-times.
My question is for my fellow classmates, I guess:
What would be the hardest thing for you to give up, or the hardest habit you’d have to break? What do you think you’d replace that time with?
Thoreau finishes “The Bean-Field” in describing the interconnectedness of humans and nature as it pertains to farming, particularly describing that “These beans have results which are not harvested by me.” (Thoreau, 157) He explains that, because the beans can prove useful to the woodchucks and the weeds can prove useful to the birds, his harvest cannot really fail. He continues on to assert that, “The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.” (Thoreau, 157) In the previous chapter, he makes clear that he believes a husbandman should not view the soil as property, but rather should regard he act as a “sacred art” as it once was viewed, suggested by “ancient poetry and mythology.” (156) However, I cannot help but think that a farmer can still retain a spiritual tie to the land, while still hoping that they will be able to reap the toils of their labor through their harvest. For Thoreau, the bean field is a part of his experiment in self reliance, but for the farmers that he is advising not to be anxious, this is their livelihoods, their means of existence, subsistence and survival. Sophie raised an important question regarding the possible privilege associated with voluntary poverty, and I think that is applicable in reading this section from the bean field as well. Do you think that Thoreau’s opinions on how a farmer should and should not live might be not fully informed, given his limited scope of experience in the matter? Do you think that growing food for a profit rather that self sustenance removes the possibility of having a reciprocal relationship with the land which can nourish both the farmer and the land? Consider a local, small scale farmer who sells their food at local markets in order to have the money needed to survive, they might respect the land and ensure the soils fertility, refrain from using harmful pesticides or insecticides, and participate in a slew of other sustainable farming practices.. If this farmer has worries about having a good harvest, would this exempt them from being a “true husbandman” as Thoreau suggests?
There are many times in Walden that Thoreau talks about poverty and what he calls ‘voluntary’ poverty. This makes me question his thoughts on poverty and what he thinks poverty truly means. In this quote from the Bakers Farm section, he states, “With his horizon all his own, yet he a poor man, born to be poor life, his Adam’s grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting feet, get talaria to their heels.” (pg. 197) My interpretation of this quote is that according to Thoreau these people will always be poor just because of their choices. If this was the case, there wouldn’t be many people in poverty if they could make certain choices as Thoreau could. It’s hard to break away from poverty once one is in it, especially in our capitalistic society. In a way, Thoreau’s ability to break free from society is a privilege that many people can’t achieve by themselves. When it comes to Thoreau’s take on ‘voluntary’ poverty, he truly wasn’t living in poverty. He was able to decide where he wanted to live, what he wanted to grow and eat, etc. He even had the choice to decide to go back into society. These are choices that many people in poverty do not get to make. Is Thoreau’s idea of poverty a series of choices you can make to prevent being in it? Can everyone in poverty choose to follow this ‘voluntary’ poverty?
In chapter 15 “Winter Animals” Thoreau talks about a hare that often visited his cabin “to nibble the potato parings” (Thoreau, Walden, 715) that he had previously thrown out. Thoreau explains at first glance the creature was “trembling with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor wee thing, lean and bony, with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws..Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy, almost dropsical.” (Thoreau, Walden, 716) When he takes a step towards it shifted into a swift, stealthy wild animal again. While reading this chapter I was challenged to understand the significance behind his writing. I know that throughout Walden, Thoreau tends to observe things for deeper than they appear but compared to the rest of the book, I am having trouble correlating what this chapter about winter animals is trying to portray and how it relates to the main message of living a simple, minimalist life? Does this have to do with Thoreau’s connection with nature?
In the chapter higher laws, Thoreau speaks about how hunting is a necessary part of a boys education. He writes “We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected” (212). Thoreau then goes on to say how once he is introduced to the forest he can then decide the type of man he wants to be, wether that be a hunter or to put the gun down, writing “is he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind” (213). This made me wonder if Thoreau saw hunters as bad people, because he uses the words “better life” when talking about not hunting. Why does Thoreau feel like you need to try hunting out to figure out the type of man you are going to be? What if you have no desire to even pick up a gun does that automatically make you a man with a better life?
“It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pondside; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! (303)”
I found this quote to be both interesting and impactful. As I read Thoreau’s conclusion I picked up on several moments where he seemingly aims his writing at the reader in a way that calls for inspection of ones self. I found his imagery in this passage painted a picture in my mind of the paths in which we might take throughout our lives. Perhaps some of the paths we choose are chosen simply because they are well worn and seem to be headed in the right direction. Thoreau speaks to taking an introspective approach to how we live our lives, reminding us that sometimes our choices are based more on conformity than one might think. That being said, in what ways would our society and our world differ if we each studied our choices more rather than falling victim to following the most worn paths? Would the world be better off ecologically speaking if we all made choices that were more individualized, or would the earth suffer at the hands of introspective thought and action?
In the chapter Baker Farm, Thoreau said something that I think Collin from No Impact Man would relate very much to. He writes, “for he was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country where you are at the liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.”
I’ve always been very conflicted on how I feel about Thoreau (and now collin), I described them both as ‘arrogant loners.’ They both have a tendency to act like they are better than other people because of the ways they choose to live their lives. People in other countries live like they did (without electricity, without the ability to buy whatever they want, having very little environmental impact, etc) every day, yet the only mainstream stories we hear about trying to drastically reduce environmental impact are from white American men (this makes me think about how the documentary was called “No Impact Man,” even though Michelle and their daughter were also apart of it).
Do you think a story of someone living without these luxuries in other countries would have been as impactful as Thoreaus or Collins? Why do you think they decided to make an Americanized version of this living instead of moving to another country and experiencing this life authentically? How would someone who has come to the United States after experiencing life like that feel about either of their stories? Would they find them arrogant, as I do, or would they agree that “the only true America is that country where you are at the liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these [luxuries]?”
The Documentary “No-Impact Man” follows Colin Beavan and his three-person household as they attempt to live for a year without making a negative impact on the earth. This experiment, illustrated in depth by this documentary, forced Colin and the audience to re-evaluate the way they live and the impact their daily activities have on our climate. This concept of gaining self-awareness (and arguably social awareness) within Colin’s story is parallel to themes Thoreau demonstrates in his writings. Existing within a climate crisis is uncomfortable and even when we are not consciously considering the state of our environment, the anxiety lingers in the back. That being said, this is not a new occurrence. Thoreau writes to the people that are unconnected and passively unfulfilled in their lives. These are the overworked laborers who appear to be stuck in a system of materialism and unnecessary wants. Thoreau offers the question “How can he remember well his ignorance–which his growth requires–who has so often to use his knowledge?” (Thoreau, Walden, 6).
This growth that Thoreau speaks of develops from a place of self-reliance and simplicity.
Colin and Thoreau’s experiments, however, are fueled by the community of people and the natural world that surrounds them. Individual development is important in the process of developing new insights and ways of living, however, it should not be a replacement for the collective efforts.
What is the role of self-awareness and individual growth and how do those ideas relate to the larger natural and man-made systems we exist in?
This week we read more of Walden and watched the documentary, “No Impact Man”. If Thoreau lived today, would he take a collective action/community response to combating anthropogenic climate change, or would he be like Collin and take a lone wolf (no impact man) approach?
Towards the end of “The Bean Field,” Thoreau offers some very unique insight on peoples’ relationship to the land, especially in the context of farming or self-sufficiency. He explains how agriculture was “once a sacred art,” but has transitioned far away from such through the collective pursuit of profit through the land (156). Thoreau states, “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 us deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber,” (156). He continues this discussion, quickly concluding the chapter saying “These beans have results which are not harvested by me… How, then, can our harvest fail?” (157). I believe his thoughts on agriculture and relations to the land directly tie to his discussions of wealth. If we are concerned with personal wealth gain through robbing the land in search of profit, we not only hurt the land, but we hurt ourselves. Concerning ourselves with increasing the wealth of nature over time results in more noble, spiritual, and purposeful wealth gain. “It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer’s barns,” says Thoreau (157). Does Thoreau truly believe the alternative gains of life from relations with the land in the interim are worth more than surviving through production and cultivation of the land? Rather, I do believe a balance exists, and that this is an overgeneralization, or something of the like, that is too far-fetched. He continues this thought process in the following chapter, talking of unequal possessions and where robbery occurs between each other, rather than from the land. “I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown,” (163). Without the pursuit of profit, could thievery and robbery of nature similarly be unknown? What examples (if any) come to mind regarding robbery (in a less material, more theoretical sense; robbery of the mind, of the land) in everyday society today? What is missing? How can we fulfill these robberies in ways that promote and enforce alternative relations, and alternative “wealth” gains collectively, and not just full-fill them in the short-term for yourself specifically in the Global North? Where do you think no-impact man and his family fall in this discussion?
Both Thoreau and Colin Beavans from ‘No Impact Man’ made it clear they were searching for what they individually deemed ‘the good life’. Beavans questioned if it was “possible to have a good life without wasting so much” and Thoreau sought to determine if the ‘good life’ was separate from society and the status-quo. What surprised me was that both men knew off the bat they would not be able to succumb to this lifestyle permanently, and each saw it as their own personal experiments, for what I could presume to be for personal gain. Does this mean neither men truly believed the ‘good life’ could be achieved permanently in today’s society? Did the negative reactions from outsiders have any affect on their long term goals with their projects? If so, do you think that if they had more gradually moved into these lifestyles (rather than Mrs.Beavans announcing she was cutting everything cold turkey or Thoreau up and building himself a cabin in the woods in the blink of an eye) that perhaps they would have been perceived in a more understanding matter from their peers? I am curious to know if they would have, respectfully, had more “followers” or supporters on their journeys if they hadn’t been so “outlandish” right off the bat (in other words, breaking the status-quo/societal standards).
In reading Walden so far, Thoreau reiterates the point that you should live your life without wanting or having the unnecessary luxuries. He claims that excess goods require more labor and hinder the individual with worries. In “Baker Farm” Thoreau runs into a family who has immigrated to America from Ireland. Thoreau lectures the family on how the only true America that you should live in does not require you to participate in the bargaining of excess goods (105). These excess goods excited the family and Thoreau continued to lecture the father on how to best use his land. This interaction made me think of the family in “No Impact Man.” The wife did not understand at first the reason for giving up all of her favorite luxuries and the husband kept pushing for more things to be gotten rid of. It was a constant battle between the two with what was being given up for the sake of the project. Both of these times make me think what needs to be given up in order to see life purely? What motives should be behind such drastic life changes? If someone encourages you to change your life would you be able to?
I want to discuss Colin Beavans decision through Thoreau’s eyes because while I don’t think he would disagree with what Beavans did, I don’t think he would agree with some of the things he did. Thoreau valued farming and becoming one with nature that way. I think that then looking at “No Impact Man”, he would be, not frustrated, but maybe disappointed that people in New York City couldn’t farm. Mainly because when he farmed, it was for himself and to see how people couldn’t do that would be saddening to him. I wonder how he would react to the news that the waitlist for community garden plots are years long? As for the Beavans eating vegetarian and local, I think that Thoreau would be thrilled that someone else tried eating less animal products. But I wonder if he would agree with the reasons why they went vegetarian, knowing that they’ve never had to hunt in their lives? Would Thoreau agree with their decisions or would he look at their decisions and realize how the problems he was concerned with in his time have now grown exponentially?
While reading Thoreau’s text and watching No Impact Man, I began to think of the conversations between Henry and Colin and what they would agree and disagree on. I also asked myself if their perspectives would change if they were able to meet.
Thoreau lived his life the way he wanted to and only did the things that made him happy. His simplistic way of life satisfied his wants and needs. Thoreau lived in a small house and made little to no negative impact on the environment. Through this, we can assume that Thoreau lived a happy life. Similarly, Colin Beavan and his family changed their lifestyle to have little to no impact on the environment. They reduced his energy usage, started buying seasonal produce, stepped away from technology, biked or walked everywhere, and started using eco-friendly products. The film clearly showed that this lifestyle change was not simple and easy. These gradual changes were set up in phases that helped them slowly transition to a simpler life. Do you think this simple life made them happy in the ways that it made Thoreau happy?
Colin’s wife had a difficult time agreeing with these changes in their family. She wanted to get coffee most days and was shocked at the fact that Colin was washing their clothes in the bathtub with borax. Did this simple way of life make her happy? It seemed as though it did not make her happy and that it actually her less happy than before. She had to put away all of her cosmetics and changed her consumption when it came to clothing. Does having a simpler life with fewer things in pursuit of helping the environment make everyone happy? How would Thoreau answer this question?
In both Walden and No Impact Man, the pursuit of voluntary poverty and minimalism is at the center of their experiments. I’m curious as to whether the ability to choose to live with less and to choose poverty is a demonstration of privilege, and that choosing to live this way is much different than having to live this way.
If both of these men eventually went back to their old way of life, with their old luxuries and conveniences, does their claim that living with less is the best way to live life really hold any value? Those who are unable to choose that life and instead are forced, like those living in poverty today, I imagine are unlikely to romanticize their experiences and see them in the same philosophical lens that Colin and Thoreau did. Does their ability to escape their current circumstances at any given point (Thoreau going to the store, Colin turning electricity back on) detract from the message and intentions of their experiment?
I find it hard to listen to the advice they give when neither of them made the decision to live in that way indefinitely, seeing their experiment as more of a sign of ability and privilege rather than sacrifice or nobility.
Throughout some of the later chapters, the animals that have began to surround Thoreau at his cabin. He goes into extreme detail when talking about the sounds they are making and even the patterns to which they are making these sounds. How is this significant to the idea of wanting to be one with nature and trying to immerse yourself in it? Also, he goes into tremendous detail about the train he sees passing by where he lives, he describes what he smells from each of the train cars. Why does he go into such great detail just from seeing a train transporting goods, is it just because he is in awe from seeing the locomotive, or is it something deeper than this?
In the film, “No Impact Man” and the book, “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau, both narrators feel obliged to document their seemingly-freeing experience from the material world during their attempt to coexist with the natural world. The basic justification Colin Beaven has for doing the interviews and writing his books is to inspire others, and the purpose of ‘Walden’ seems to do somewhat the same. Although, Thoreau claims to have written the book to answer questions from the public, and to record his findings. The way he writes while very interesting, does have a huge intentional influence through the way he philosophizes. He makes many claims about how a man can only truly be free or how a man can be fulfilled thus Walden feels almost like a manifesto or a bible in some dimensions. Our in class discussion of “No Impact Man” got a lot of criticism from my peers on how Beaven’s year of “no impact” felt performative. Even in 2021, “van life” and “tiny homes” are trendy and often times recorded to share a unique and envious lifestyle often times recorded to post on youtube and television shows. It seems like often times when people embark a journey of a natural lifestyle they have this deep yearning to make it public contrary to the fact that the lifestyle is supposed to symbolize one that is more self-reliant, private, and intimate. My question is why for Thoreau specifically and people who also record these new seemingly better lifestyle must be so performative about it, I feel like it has something to do with vanity almost.
This week we watched “No Impact Man” and the film followed a man and his family on their journey to reduce all sources of waste in their life, similar to Thoreau’s experience at Walden. The Beaven’s received a lot of hate from the general public during their year-long experiment. Michelle was so surprised how people could give so much hate to something they weren’t involved in. She ended up having lunch with someone who wrote a critical blog about them and explained how a lot of people find anger at even the question of changing their routine and lifestyle. In Thoreau’s “Economy” he states, “man has invented, not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it, at first a luxury, arose the present necessity to sit by it.” This quote points out how people have blurred the lines between luxury and necessity and I think “No Impact Man” portrays the harsh resistance people have against losing those luxuries.
Why else could the Beaven’s have been receiving hate for their experiment? Do you think Thoreau experienced similar criticism from society as a reaction to his experiment?
In Thorau’s “Bean Field” chapter, he discusses his planting of beans and a little of the history of the field he was working on. He mentions that “early in the morning I worked barefooted…” What do you think the importance of this was to Thoreau? Was it another way for him to feel more connected to nature, more grounded and ‘one’ with the soil and earth around him?
In Thoreau’s piece Life Without Principle he states, “The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job”, but to perform well a certain work, and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel like they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love of it.” What I took from this quote was basically the saying “do what you love and you will never have to work a day in your life”. But, how was one supposed to figure something like that out during the pre and post industrial age when jobs were not being made for the love of the work but for the necessity for a human body? How can we change our mindsets today about work and what work will not feel like work to us? Do we have opportunities to get out of this mold of “working for money” or will it always be the easy way out?
On page 147 in the chapter “The Bean Field”, Thoreau discusses how indigenous peoples planted corn and beans and how white men came and destroyed their agricultural ways. This is obviously referring to the three sisters’ technique of planting corn, beans, and squash as they are nitrogen fixing crops that help with soil health. During this time, these sorts of realizations were not prominent by other typical white individuals. How could we infer that Thoreau would react if he saw a major like SD working in the modern world studying traditional growing techniques and trying to implement health back into agriculture after watching industrial monoculture take over our agricultural practices??
No Impact Man was an interesting documentary about a man trying to limit his impact for one year. I thought the movie was a little dramatized in certain parts and I noticed then he was very obsessed with this from the start. Colin Beaven is an intense person and that made for a compelling one hour in 30 minutes. I do think he could have designed the documentary in a different way but that’s neither here nor there. I believe that Colin got a lot of push back in the beginning from people who did not want to face facts that today they were contributing to a problem that nobody likes to talk about. Connecting this to the reading we did this week starts with Thoreau’s idea of voluntary poverty in which the Beavon family somehow got into even if it was rather brief in the grand scheme of things. I thought the effort of the family was interesting and tied back towards this thought process in some ways. I also wanted to look at another part of the reading we did this week. In the chapter Higher Laws Thoreau said that “we cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has sadly neglected him” (200). This quote talks about how young children should be pitied because they do not know what they do to pollute the earth. This quote is important because children should be educated, but adults should be held accountable. I think the possibility that people are angry and defensive about their polluting ways is very noticeable in this documentary.
Do you think these people will ever take accountability or do you think that there is no responsibility with these people?
In the documentary, No Impact Man, a family of three (the Beavens’) attempts to live without leaving a carbon footprint for an entire year. At the end of the day, that is all one can do to limit their impact on climate change, so I believe they were doing something with both good intentions and positive outcomes. At certain points in the movie, the husband and the wife found themselves struggling to break certain addictions or attachments to certain things. Toward the end of the documentary, Colin Beavens says something along the lines of: we were not trying to challenge ourselves to live miserably for a year without all these luxuries, we were experimenting to see how we could still enjoy life and find joys in doing the simple and more sustainable things. This same idea is very prevalent in Thoreau’s book Walden. In the chapter, Solitude, Thoreau discusses his life living alone in the woods. He describes his feelings of contentment with his solitude and does not seem to let loneliness cause him negative emotions. He includes stories of times when he has had visitors come by his house while he is not home and they would leave little trinkets or notes or something made from the nature around. The way he describes these things tells the reader that even though he is living a simpler life without the ease of luxuries and technologies, he is still able to enjoy his life and appreciate joy wherever found.
Would you rather be rich and stressed out or poor and content? Poor and rich are very subjective terms, but I’m referring to capital. A better way to ask this question would be: what are the true reasons the Thoreau and Colin Beaven are able to live with content while rejecting the materialistic aspects of society? How has society itself caused a detachment from reality or a false reality for some people?
Throughout No Impact Man, I experienced a variety of emotions and thoughts as I watched Colin Beavan set out on his experiment to live with no environmental impacts for a year, forcing his family to complete this with him. While a lot of people found his experiment to be a positive, good-intentioned one, I overall really disliked the film because of Beavan’s performative nature. Though seemingly well intentioned, I continued to notice lots of small hypocritical actions throughout the film, such as getting upset with his wife when she complained about quitting coffee cold turkey, despite having a caffeine addiction, though he was allowed to use electricity to write on his blog throughout that year. I also wonder how much electricity was used in the production of the film, from charging cameras, to all of the technology used in the editing process, and then the amount of people that used electricity in their own homes to watch the documentary after it was created. Beavan’s actions felt performative because he stated that his only goal was to inspire others, but now has written articles in the Atlantic and the New York Times, has a documentary made about him, and has published a book about his experience, showing that he likely had other intentions from this experiment as well. I also struggle with the idea of individual consumers being responsible for climate change. Should individuals be expected to make major life changes in order to stop climate change— despite many people not being in privileged positions to do so— while only 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions, and were not held accountable in that film?
Colin Beavan and Michelle Conlin from the documentary film No Impact Man made drastic changes to their New York City household by taking on the challenge of making “no impact” for one year, which includes not using toilet paper, removing their TV from their house, shopping completely local, giving up consumerist shopping completely, and not using cars. Their drastic shift into total sustainability brought uneasiness from Conlin, who was less enthused about giving up her simple life pleasures such as lattes, reality TV, and recreational shopping, and was not a fan of the loads of negative media attention they as a family received. The film captured the couple’s disagreements on what lengths they should go as a family with Beavan usually having the final say.
Thoreau in his book Walden also describes the sacrifices he made in his two year stint of living in the woods, while also defending some of his actions by stating, “If we live in the nineteenth century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the nineteenth century offers? Why should our life be in any respect Provincial?” Reading, pg. 114
Would Thoreau agree with Beavan’s opinion that all actions with any form of environmental or economic impact is inherently bad and should be replaced with something more sustainable? Would Thoreau go to the lengths that the Beavans did if he lived in the same time period as them, or would he consider the No Impact movement as something “provincial” given the societal context of the early 2000s?
This reading, as well as the film, brought to mind the question of what gives someone moral authority to write about topics such as these? Specifically, what qualifications would Thoreau consider valid in advocates for a given social cause? Would he consider total immersion in the experience to be essential, as he does in Walden and in the film No Impact Man? He mentions throughout Walden that he does it for himself, not necessarily to encourage others to do so. In the chapter Solidarity, Thoreau writes: “With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature…I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern me much more,” (p.216). He talks a lot about experiences and exhibitions as means of involving oneself with nature, so I wonder if this is what he considers as part of the criteria for those with the moral authority to write people and encourage advocacy for a certain cause, in this case, living sustainably and close with nature.
In Thoreau’s ‘Solitude’ we find him exploring how the forms of production we engage with effect the character of society, specifically the potential for individuals to achieve some form of self-actualization. The forms of production characteristic of the pre-industrial revolution required a more intimate, personal relationship to the products of labor, be it the toil of a farmer or the carving of a carpenter. With the industrial revolution came the separation of craftsman and craft, making production an instrumental process devoid of artistry and fulfillment. Thoreau is essentially asking us “can we reasonably believe that individuals can find fulfillment in a society where their lives are dependent on a form of labor which provides neither meaning nor fulfillment?” Thoreau would argue that this cannot be reasonably argued, and that his reasoning for embarking on the journey that became ‘Walden’ was in part a desire to find fulfillment and meaning where otherwise he could not. The acclaimed director Ingmar Bergman wrote that “Here, in my solitude, I have the feeling that I contain too much humanity.” What this illustrates is exactly the position advocated by Thoreau regarding his time at Walden, and furthermore the motivation for said position. In finding a form of solitude, Thoreau sought the time and conditions to find greater self-understanding, importantly through the “labor of the hands” (148), or the production of his survival by his own means.
Under what conditions might individuals and whole socio-economic classes regain this intimate relationship to their labor?
Often, Thoreau is criticized because people feel like his analysis fails to consider the position of people who have to labor in order to earn money to sustain their survival, let alone consumption and disillusion by luxury, or material goods. However, one passage, made me reconsider this conception, where Thoreau writes: “Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine.” This is an analysis repeated by many economists and economic theorists. The alienation of man from his labor is a concept which is known to have profound impacts on the workers and their relationships to the work, as well as the world in which they perform and reside in. Where Thoreau describes the laborer as, “… through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.” This may sound like it is looking down upon a laborer, asking why they cannot rid themselves of the facade in which they are actively participating. However, I think what Thoreau is trying to say in this passage is that the laborer is very ignorant to the possibilities, these finer fruits of life, and unable to achieve them because the framework they are able to conceive, due to the circumstances they have been provided, is one where their lives have to center around labor, and they are unable to take this time to be more than a machine who produces labor. Further, I do think Thoreau shows an example of ways that one can divorce themselves from this process without indebting themselves, that is, of course, if they have no dependents, no prior obligations, etc.
I want to raise the question, for whom can Thoreau’s lessons from his experiment best apply, and why? Does this analysis of his importance only exist on an axis of affordability, or can these lessons be impactful across classes?