History of Ideas: Thoreau
Past Present Future
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The Democracy of Thoreau
Thorough says we are the tools of our tools. We're trapped by machinery that we've created to emancipate us because we haven't thought hard enough about how we could get it to stop if we're not happy with the way it's working. The idea that someone who is sitting on their arse or someone else cleans their house is working for that person working for the person who's cleaning their house is offensive, he says. Thoreau thought one of the great vices of all democratic life was complaining and nothing changes.
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