In Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau expresses that life was a costly matter and that one should live life “deliberately (Thoreau 59).” To live life deliberately is to live life with a purpose and not have materials run one’s life but have the one run his or her life without the materials that control society. In Alan Fox’s article “Guarding what is Essential: Critiques of Material Culture in Thoreau and Yang Zhu,” Fox compares Thoreau’s philosophy with Yang Zhu’s philosophy in the East which is comparably similar to that of Thoreau’s philosophy.
In Fox’s article he compares Thoreau’s “goodness” with that of Yang Zhu. Both believe that it is better to be good rather than act good. Their philosophies on goodness is such that people do not simply give to charity because it is what everyone else is doing but to do it because he or she feels that it is good. Thoreau states that “[p]hilanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated, and it is our selfishness which overrates it (quoted in Fox 368).” Thoreau’s statement expresses that people give to philanthropy because it is good and what is expected of society, but it is not good because everyone else is giving to it. People who give merely because others are doing it are not doing good but are doing because others believe it is good. It does not show that s/he, him/herself is good. (368-9)
The argument of Fox was such that Thoreau’s and Yang Zhu’s philosophies were the same in that the moral goodness of people was that one was to be good rather than act good because it is due to societal actions that one believes it is a good deed and their philosophies on how to life live were similar in which they only needed to live life with what was needed and to have purpose in their life.
Works Cited:
Fox, Alan. "Guarding what is Essential: Critiques of Material Culture in Thoreau and Yang Zhu." Philosophy East & West 58.3 (2008): 358-371. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 21 Nov. 2009.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden; or, Life in the Woods. New York: Dover, 1995.
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I believe in that way of living, and that all people should live in "goodness". I do not agree that Walden fallows his own words. He talks the talk but he can not walk the walk. though he says giving to charity is right, Walden is in fact a huge charity case himself. He is ultimately living off a land not solely his own.
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