Abstract
Recent scholarship on Thoreau’s thought has pushed in two opposing directions: some have maintained that Thoreau’s withdrawals from political engagement were actually intended to serve democratic ends, whereas others have argued that Thoreau’s political engagement was a lapse in his better judgment. In this essay, I contend that neither interpretation of Thoreau’s thought fully captures the roles that political engagement and disengagement played in his life as a dissident. Instead, via an examination of Thoreau’s “Walking” and his reform papers, I argue that Thoreau modeled a dialectical approach to dissent, where the “antithesis” of withdrawal served as a specific antidote to the personal toll of the “thesis” of political action. As I show, Thoreau’s attention to the potential costs of radical dissent makes his dialectical model especially relevant for those for whom the costs are highest, including contemporary women activists of color. For these women, normalizing a practice of continual disengagement from activism might benefit them in ways that collaborative solidarity cannot.
On April 23rd, 1851—17 days after the African-American Thomas Sims was tried in Boston under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, 11 days after he was sent back to Georgia under military guard, and 4 days after he was publicly whipped by his once-again master—Thoreau delivered the lecture “Walking” at the Concord Lyceum (1906, 5:205-49). During the weeks leading up to the lecture, Thoreau had uncharacteristically devoted a great degree of attention in his journal entries to these political developments. Decrying the “Carrying off [of] Sims” in lengthy passages, Thoreau compared state officials’ fidelity to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 to the “monstrous and anomalous cruelties” of Caligula and Nero (1906, 8:173). Ultimately, Thoreau wrote in his journals, the trial revealed that the “true sources of justice in any community” were the people who felt compelled to challenge the courts (178). Thoreau hoped that Concord, his town of residence, would be “a place where tyranny may ever be met with firmness and driven back with defeat to its ships” (1906, 173). 1
Given these militant entries, some of which were written just a few days before the lecture, it would be natural to assume that his “Walking” lecture would emphasize the duties citizens owed to a “higher law” of justice over the “sentence of the Judge” (Thoreau 1906, 8:181). After all, 3 years before this lecture, without so immediate a provocation, Thoreau had written “Resistance to Civil Government”—an unmistakably political speech, delivered at the same venue, in which he declared he could “not for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also” (Thoreau 1906, 4:360). Yet, by all appearances, “Walking” took the opposite tack. Where “Resistance to Civil Government” had condemned those who were “in opinion opposed to slavery and to the [Mexican-American] war, who yet in effect [did] nothing to put an end to them” (1906, 4:362), “Walking” insisted that “there [were] enough champions of civilization” (1906, 5:205). Why, at that particular juncture, did Thoreau decide to lecture on his walks of “ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles” in the woods to places where “politics are not” (1906, 5:212)?
For most of Thoreau’s contemporary readers, the immense scholarship on his thought has already provided a satisfactory answer to this question. In the past several decades, there has been a broad convergence on the view that the division between Thoreau’s “nature” and “political” writings is less stark than it at first appears (Mariotti 2010; Walker 2001). Via careful readings of Walden, his Journal, and other writings, a number of political theorists have argued that Thoreau’s reflections on the natural world articulate his concern for democracy and the public good just as much as his obviously political work does (Plotica 2016; Taylor 1996). For these scholars, the question about Thoreau’s decision to deliver “Walking” can be resolved by noting that “Walking” and other “nature” writings simply develop different, but ultimately compatible, aspects of his understanding of democratic citizenship.
More recently, however, this political reading of Thoreau has been challenged. In particular, in his 2016 study of Thoreau’s thought, Johnathan McKenzie argues that those who have construed Thoreau’s “nature” writings as politically oriented have distorted Thoreau’s central aims. In McKenzie’s view, Thoreau’s corpus articulates a “philosophy of privatism” which is concerned with self-cultivation for its own sake, rather than for the betterment of political society (McKenzie 2016). On this reading, Thoreau’s decision to deliver the speech “Walking” does not present a puzzle; the antipolitical direction of the speech is consistent with his philosophical priorities. By contrast, his impassioned diary entries on politics in the weeks before delivering the speech should be seen as deviations from his norm.
In my view, neither group of scholars’ treatments of Thoreau fully accounts for the complex set of commitments Thoreau conveys in his writings. On the one hand, as McKenzie maintains, scholars who focus on the political significance of his “nature” writings tend to minimize or explain away Thoreau’s evident antipathy toward the public activities which sustain democratic life. On the other hand, McKenzie’s exegesis has difficulty accounting for why—despite his strident critique—political affairs were a continual, if not continuous, preoccupation of his. In this paper, I argue that we can make sense of Thoreau’s dual commitment to the political and apolitical spheres of life if we read his writings as modeling a dialectical approach to dissent. That is, I make the case that Thoreau’s writings, when considered comprehensively, advocate both solitude and political engagement in alternation to address the burdens faced by dissidents—that is, those who act on their radical opposition to existing social and political practices. Specifically, I contend that Thoreau’s dialectical practice sought to mitigate the potential for “burnout” in the face of protracted struggles for justice and moderate the harmful personal consequences of political engagement. On this reading, Thoreau’s decision to deliver “Walking” after Sims’ trial was neither a manifestation of the porous borders between nature and politics nor an affirmation of a “philosophy of privatism.” Rather, the lecture was a means to elaborate a dialectical orientation toward the political and the apolitical for other dissidents like himself.
In making the case for a dialectical understanding of Thoreau’s thought, then, I offer a different reading of his nature and political writings than other Thoreau scholars—one which I argue better captures the roles that both political engagement and disengagement played in Thoreau’s life. At the same time, this reading of his work, with its emphasis on the burnout dissidents experience and the practices which mitigate it, also contributes to more contemporary debates about activism. Specifically, recent work by scholars including Joy James and Deva Woodly have focused on the costs of activism and the means by which struggles for social justice can be sustained over time (James 2021a, 2021b; Woodly 2019). Although most of this literature has justifiably centered on the burdens and survival strategies of minoritized groups, Thoreau’s emphasis on the individual experience of burnout offers a productive complement to this work. If, as Thoreau suggests, certain burdens of dissent cannot be counteracted in collaboration with others, then some contemporary activists might be better served by periodically engaging in a more radical withdrawal from their communities. I argue—with Thoreau, in my view—that when political disengagement is not seen as the only possible condition for a well-lived life, but rather one crucial and distinctive setting, it can play a beneficial role in the lives of those who do oppositional work today.
The Self and the Public in Contemporary Thoreau Scholarship
To make the case for a dialectical reading of Thoreau’s thought, it is first necessary to establish how the existing work on Thoreau has treated the connection between his nature and political writings. As noted above, the dominant trend among recent Thoreau scholars is to maintain that Thoreau’s self-orientation and his care for the common good are intrinsically connected. Against older work which emphasized Thoreau’s antipathy toward politics (Arendt 1972, 60; Bennett 2002; Ellis 1996, 141), these scholars have argued that the seemingly antipolitical stance of “Walking” and other nature writings belie a more fundamental concern with the democratic education of the public. As the reasons for this claim have varied, in what follows, I examine three representative cases in detail: Bob Pepperman Taylor’s America’s Bachelor Uncle, Shannon Mariotti’s Thoreau’s Democratic Withdrawal, and Jennet Kirkpatrick’s “Walking Away with Thoreau.”
Taylor’s America’s Bachelor Uncle, while not the first exploration of Thoreau’s writings by a political theorist, is one of the earliest staunchly political defenses of his thought. In contrast to prior work which had argued that Thoreau pitted the wellbeing of the individual against American society, Taylor makes the case that Thoreau’s attention to the public good was constant, rather than occasional. As he writes, Thoreau’s “primary concerns are the health of the democratic community we profess to value and the integrity of the citizenry upon which any decent democratic community must be built” (Taylor 1996, 8). To build his case, Taylor focuses on many of Thoreau’s supposedly apolitical writings, including his Journal and Walden. For Taylor, these writings reveal Thoreau’s unceasing preoccupation with America’s moral development and what would be required to bridge the gap between our political ideals and our political practice (1996, 13).
Following the precedent set by Taylor, many subsequent treatments of Thoreau’s thought developed the political registers of his “nature” writings. Brian Walker, for example, argues that Walden is an advice-giving book which explains how we might put our political ideals into practice in our daily lives (2001, 156). Similarly, Luke Plotica maintains that Thoreau’s nature writings articulate a concept of responsibility which stresses the role individuals play in shaping their political environment (2016, 472). The study which is most relevant to my reading of Thoreau, however, is Shannon Mariotti’s Thoreau’s Democratic Withdrawal.
Mariotti centers her examination on Thoreau’s “practices of withdrawal,” which she sees as playing a dialectical role in Thoreau’s thought. In this respect, her analysis, in my view, is a more precise and nuanced take on the relationship between Thoreau’s nature and political writings. However, Mariotti’s dialectical reading of Thoreau’s thought differs from mine in two respects—both of which link her work to other recent scholarship. First, for Mariotti, Thoreau’s practices of withdrawal were intended to address conditions facing everyone in contemporary society. Comparing Thoreau’s thought to Theodor Adorno’s “negative dialectics,” she argues that, like Adorno, Thoreau believed that globalizing markets, consumerism, mainstream politicking, and other aspects of the modern world generated a widespread sense of alienation (Mariotti 2010, 8-9). In Mariotti’s view, Thoreau shows how withdrawal is a means by which the American public can reclaim what has been lost through this alienation—specifically, their capacity to critique social conventions (2010, 86). Second, Mariotti argues that Thoreau’s “practices of withdrawal” are democratic. According to her, Thoreau recognized the fact that democratic government can only be sustained by people who have developed the kind of “critical self” that Thoreau cultivated in solitude (2010, xii). As Mariotti writes, “[Thoreau’s] withdrawals are not retreats from politics… He may go into nature to reject the alienating village and mainstream politics (‘what is called politics’), but he goes there with a mission, a crusade to carve out a new space for a new type of democratic politics” (121). Thus, like Taylor, Walker, Plotica, and others, Mariotti highlights the ways in which Thoreau’s nature writings were aimed to transform the public and strengthen American democracy.
Finally, Jennet Kirkpatrick’s “Walking Away with Thoreau” examines the same facet of Thoreau’s thought—withdrawal—from a different angle. According to Kirkpatrick, other interpretations of Thoreau, including Mariotti’s, hold that Thoreau’s withdrawal is politically oriented in a roundabout way: withdrawal fosters the necessary conditions for democracy, but it is not in itself a political act. For Kirkpatrick, this conclusion misses the symbolic and performative character of withdrawal. Drawing from Albert Hirschman’s work on “exit,” Kirkpatrick argues that Thoreau’s withdrawal is a “public disavowal of membership” which signals a rejection of the norms and practices of a political community (Kirkpatrick 2016, 448). This “communicative” or “expressive” reading of withdrawal also serves to reconcile the conventional bifurcation between Thoreau’s political and apolitical writings. Withdrawal, on her reading, is a mode of protest which, similar to other modes, aims to attract the public’s attention and press for political and social reform (2016, 456).
Each of these studies carefully analyze Thoreau’s writings to draw out aspects of his political thought that have been neglected by previous readers of his work. However, insofar as they argue that Thoreau prioritized democratic society in his nature writings, I find their claims less persuasive. First, as scholars like Jonathan McKenzie have noted, the vast majority of Thoreau’s nature writings—particularly his Journal, which is a day-to-day accounting of his preoccupations—neither allude to politics nor project the anguish that Taylor and others read as a sign of his attention to the democratic polity (McKenzie 2016, 6). 2 Instead, they focus on the cultivation and potential of the individual. Although self-development and the betterment of American society are not necessarily at odds with one another, 3 Thoreau’s concern with the well-being of individuals in his nature writings is not generally connected to, nor does it seem to presuppose, the general health of democratic society (McKenzie 2016, 135-162). Second, scholars like Kirkpatrick who emphasize the performative and symbolic nature of Thoreau’s withdrawal tend to understate the fact that much of Thoreau’s “resistant exit” went unnoticed by his neighbors and acquaintances. Thoreau began his most heralded act of dissent—his refusal to pay his poll tax, which eventually led him to be jailed in Concord—several years before without drawing attention to what he was doing (Thoreau 1906, 4:375). Although it is important to account for his subsequent announcements of his civil disobedience, most of his withdrawals and refusals were not communicative in themselves because they did not have a public audience. Finally, the concept of democracy seems to rest on a belief that the will of a collective—so long as it is truly democratically determined—is the appropriate guiding principle for the laws and practices of that society (Shapiro 2018). Thoreau’s discussion of higher law and individual conscience against majority rule, however, develops a critique not only of American institutions and the voting public in the mid-1800s, but of the concept of democracy as a whole (1906, 4:371, 402-3). In my view, then, the arguments in favor of reading Thoreau as a champion of democratic society are vulnerable to significant objections on the basis of his life and writings.
This position might seem to place my account in the camp of other readers of Thoreau who make the case for a self-oriented, anti-political Thoreau. The most recent proponent of this view, Jonathan McKenzie, argues—against the prevailing interpretation of the author—that Thoreau does not express deep concern for the wellbeing of the American public. To the contrary, he articulates a desire to overcome the political concerns that sometimes occupy his attention (McKenzie 2016, 146-7, 152). For McKenzie, Thoreau’s writings are part of a longer tradition of Socratic thought he calls “privatism,” which identifies political society as a threat to the “philosophical self”—the individual who seeks to self-actualize in accordance with their understanding of the truth. To support this claim, McKenzie undertakes a close reading of numerous passages in Thoreau’s corpus which are centered on self-fashioning. McKenzie concludes that, given the overwhelming evidence in favor of Thoreau’s self-orientation, the instances in which he involved himself in politics are anomalies: “Instead of trapping myself with the need to justify and defend Thoreau’s intermittent political engagement,” McKenzie writes, “I argue that Thoreau’s ‘reform papers’ constitute abrupt fits of externality that have to be checked by his desire for inward transformation” (2016, 14).
My argument below follows McKenzie’s in certain respects. In particular, I take seriously his central claim that we should read much of Thoreau’s nature writings as an effort to overcome his investment in politics. I also agree with McKenzie’s contention that Thoreau’s primary focus in these writings is the integrity and “ownness” of the individual. For McKenzie, however, these claims leave no room to treat Thoreau’s political engagement with the same scrutiny and regard as his “self-writings.” In my view, it is just as much of a mistake to minimize his participation in public affairs as it is to understate his explicit antipathy toward this participation. The question is how to account for both. In what follows, I argue that reading Thoreau’s life and writings through a dialectical frame offers a productive path forward.
Thoreau and Dialectics
First, a note on what I mean by a “dialectical frame.” The term dialectics is generally associated with a philosophical tradition developed in the early 19th century among German theorists from Fichte to Hegel to Marx. As Theodor Adorno explains, in this tradition, dialectics refer not only to a method of interpreting phenomena but also a structure which is believed to inhere in these phenomena themselves (Adorno 2017, 1). My usage of the term, however, is closer to what Karl Popper outlines in his 1940 article, “What is Dialectic.” There, Popper explains what he calls “the dialectical triad”: First, some idea or theory or movement is given, which may be called “thesis.” Such a thesis will often produce opposition, because probably it will be, like most things in the world, of limited value – it will have its weak spots. This opposing idea or movement is call “anti-thesis” because it is directed against the first, the thesis. The struggle between the thesis and the anti-thesis goes on until some solution develops which will, in a certain sense, go beyond both thesis and anti-thesis by recognizing the relative value of both. This solution, which is the third step, is called “synthesis” (Popper 1940, 404).
In his explanation of dialectics, Popper clarifies that, in his understanding, each step of the triad does not itself “produce” the next; it is only our “critical attitude” which does so (Popper 1940, 406). I follow this account in my reading of Thoreau. In my view, the dialectical relationship between Thoreau’s political engagement and his solitude is not produced by the nature of engagement or solitude itself, but rather his critical response to both conditions.
In my reading of Thoreau’s dialectic, however, the third “moment” of the dialectical triad Popper describes is not well-captured by the term “synthesis.” In Popper’s account, “synthesis” refers to a resolution—however provisional—of the limitations of both the thesis and the antithesis. However, in Thoreau’s life and writings, there is no resolution of his political activity and his withdrawal; these “moments” always remain in dynamic tension with one another. The only sense in which Thoreau might be taken to offer a “synthesis” is via a holistic reading of his life, which is comprised of both moments and points toward the insufficiency of either moment in isolation.
Using this understanding of dialectics, I argue that reading Thoreau’s life as a dialectical model for dissidents offers a different approach to his thought than that which has been recently advanced. Specifically, treating his political work and nature writings dialectically allows us to take his commitment to both poles seriously without conflating his aims in each. As I argue, the “thesis” of this dialectic—Thoreau’s political involvement—was an intentional manifestation of Thoreau’s convictions. His political lectures and writings, as well as his participation in the Underground Railroad, were consistent with his broader philosophy, which stressed the importance of upholding one’s beliefs in public as well as in private affairs. It is only in this context, I argue, that we can make sense of the “antithesis” of his dialectical model: withdrawal. As I seek to show, this withdrawal was not oriented toward the well-being of democratic society, as some others have argued, but rather toward the well-being of Thoreau himself. Thoreau’s account of his withdrawal in “Walking” and other writings was intended, at least in part, to illustrate how his radical disengagement from society allowed him to recover from the troubling psychic effects of his public-facing work. In addition, they served as a buffer from re-engaging in this work when the personal costs were too high. In other words, Thoreau’s withdrawal operated as a true counter or “anti-thesis” to his political engagement. However, it is only through examining both his public- and his self-oriented work that we can appreciate the place of withdrawal in his life as a dissident.
The Thesis: Political Engagement
Thoreau’s political engagement, as studies of his life and writings have shown (Gougeon 1995, 194-214; Harding 1993; Walls 2018), falls into two broader categories. The first is comprised of politically oriented writings published during his lifetime and public lectures that he delivered in Massachusetts and New York. These include “Herald of Freedom,” published in The Dial in 1844; “Wendell Phillips,” published in the Liberator in 1845; the lecture “The Relation of the Individual to the State” (1848), which was published as “Resistance to Civil Government” in 1849; the lecture “Slavery in Massachusetts” (1854), later published in several venues including The Liberator and The New York Tribune; and a series of three speeches on John Brown (2021), published in The Liberator and James Redpath’s Echoes of Harper’s Ferry in 1860. (Gougeon 1995, 199-208). These essays and lectures were both explicitly directed toward a public audience and dealt with the themes of social injustice, reform, and political action. 4 The second category of Thoreau’s political engagement encompasses his political action. This category includes his acts of refusal, including his unwillingness to pay the poll tax in protest of the Mexican-American War, which led to his arrest and a night spent in the Concord jail. It also includes his participation in the Underground Railroad, first under the direction of his mother, Cynthia Thoreau, who “ran their home as… a haven for fugitive slaves and abolitionists escaping to Canada” (Rosenblum 1996, vii), and later through his own efforts (Walls 2018, 215-6, 318-9).
Although scholars have long debated the centrality of these politically-oriented efforts to Thoreau’s thought, I nevertheless argue his political engagement serves as the “thesis” of his dialectical model of dissent for three reasons. 5 First, Thoreau’s orientation towards politics was a significant part of his self-understanding as a radical dissident. In his narrative of his night in the Concord jail in “Resistance to Civil Government,” for example, Thoreau repeatedly stresses that his unwillingness to abet state violence—cost what it may—is what distinguishes him from other citizens. After being released from prison, he writes that he realized that “the people among whom [he] lived… did not greatly purpose to do right; that they were a distinct race from [him] by their prejudices and superstitions… that, in their sacrifices to humanity, they ran no risks, not even to their property” (1906, 4:379). By contrast, Thoreau insists, he places his “whole influence” in opposition to the state (1906, 4:371). As Jane Bennett has argued, these statements are “exercises in the political art of self-formation” (Bennett 2002, 12). That is, they narrate the “self” that Thoreau understands himself to be: a “bad subject” (Thoreau 1906, 4:380). Thus, Thoreau’s perception of himself as a dissident is grounded in his militant orientation towards the state. 6
The second reason that I center Thoreau’s political engagement in my reading of his thought is that it is consistent with elements of his broader philosophy. In particular, Thoreau’s views on the relationship between thought and action, as well as his statements about an individual’s moral conscience, indicate that living out his convictions necessitates his involvement in politics. As Thoreau writes in his reform papers, “Action from principle—the perception and the performance of right—changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary… It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; aye, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine” (1906, 4:367). For Thoreau, what it means to “live deliberately” is to manifest one’s views in one’s deeds. To be sure, the commitment to act according to one’s conscience does not inherently oblige an individual to political action. What ultimately compels his involvement in politics is the fact that, as he declares in “Resistance to Civil Government,” he lives in a “corrupt state” (1906, 4:372). In this context, one cannot “do at any time what [one] think [s] is right” without disobeying the law and resisting the government (1906, 4:358). As Thoreau views corruption as endemic to majority rule (1906, 4:363), his writings imply that he will have to continually devote attention to the eradication of social injustice.
Finally, I treat Thoreau’s political engagement as the “thesis” of his dialectic of dissent because I see the contradictions in Thoreau’s life and writings as vital to understanding his thought. 7 This focus on Thoreau’s contradictions distinguishes me from those who regard his anti-political statements as straightforward reflections of his views. McKenzie, for example, argues that Thoreau’s “reform papers”—which have typically been seen as expressing Thoreau’s commitment to political resistance—should in fact be read as efforts to recuse himself from political involvement (2016, 146). McKenzie points to famous passage of “Resistance to Civil Government” to highlight Thoreau’s “political indifference”: “As for adopting the ways which the state has provided for remedying the evil,” Thoreau writes, “I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to” (1906, 4:368).
In my view, however, this passage—and others like it—are less clear-cut than McKenzie suggests. In the same lecture where Thoreau declares that he has “other affairs to attend to” than political reform, Thoreau also contends that those who wish to live honestly in a corrupt state cannot “have many affairs”: It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself, always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs (1906, 4:373).
The above passage communicates a very different message from those that McKenzie mobilizes. Thoreau argues that, in order to avoid acting unjustly, people must arrange their entire lives in such a way that they are not tempted to ignore political wrongdoing for the sake of their own advantage. “This is hard,” Thoreau concedes, but he argues living in this way is better than compromising one’s convictions (1906, 4:373).
In the face of this tension, we might, like McKenzie, decide to place more emphasis on the sentiment which Thoreau communicates more frequently—namely, a cultivated indifference to politics (McKenzie 2016, 152). Yet if we understand these statements as expressions of two different “moments” of his dialectic of dissent, it is possible to treat them with the same weight. In Thoreau’s dialectical model, the “thesis” of political engagement requires wholesale commitment: we must throw ourselves fully into efforts to eradicate injustice. The “anti-thesis” of withdrawal requires equal, but opposite devotion: we must “bestow the fewest possible thoughts” on politics (Thoreau 1906, 4:383). These moments cannot overlap; they demand incompatible mindsets and behaviors. Yet they are both possible if they are undertaken in alternation. Indeed, Thoreau modeled this dialectical approach to political engagement and withdrawal throughout the last decade and a half of his life.
Although the contradictions in Thoreau’s political writings, in my view, point toward a dialectical reading of his thought, these writings do not fully develop his model of dissent. To better understand the second “moment” of the dialectic and its relationship to political engagement, it is necessary to turn to Thoreau’s nature writings, and in particular, his lecture “Walking.”
The Antithesis: Withdrawal
In reconstructing Thoreau’s dialectical model of dissent, I have extrapolated an account of the first “moment” of political engagement from Thoreau’s life and reform papers because Thoreau does not reflect on his political engagement at much length. My reconstruction of the second “moment” of the dialectic, political disengagement, differs from first insofar as Thoreau describes his withdrawal in great detail. Throughout his nature writings, Thoreau elaborates on his practices of self-development outside of the public eye. 8 Yet in “Walking” in particular, I argue, Thoreau explains how his immersion in nature counteracts the effects of his political engagement. Thus, my account of the “anti-thesis” of Thoreau’s dialectic of dissent is built on a close reading of this lecture.
In suggesting that “Walking” offers a model of living which is specifically suited for radical dissidents like Thoreau, however, I diverge from the dominant readings of this text. Scholarship on “Walking” has maintained that Thoreau intended for this lecture to reach the general public, and the practice of walking he describes is equally pertinent to all of his audience members (Mariotti 2010, 126; Montgomery 1998, 28; Nègre 2016). I argue, however, that “Walking” has special relevance for dissidents, particularly dissidents who are as emotionally invested in resistance as Thoreau was.
I make this argument on several grounds. First, the timing of Thoreau’s composition and delivery of the lecture—that is, soon after he wrote impassioned journal entries on the “carrying off of [Thomas] Sims”—lends credence to the view that recent political events shaped the content of “Walking.” Although we cannot definitively know why Thoreau chose to deliver this speech at this juncture, his remarks in his Journal give some insight into Thoreau’s frame of mind at the time. Second, Thoreau makes several references to his political context, and specifically the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, throughout the lecture. For example, as he describes his practice of walking, he notes that he is particularly pleased that his walks take him far away from politics, “the most alarming” of all sectors of society (Thoreau 1906, 5:212). In addition, while describing the “wildness” of nature, Thoreau writes that “there is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey”; the free man is the person who “takes the liberty to live” and is therefore “superior to all the laws” (1906, 240). Finally, and most explicitly, in his description of a cock crowing in a barnyard, he writes that “where [the cock] lives, no fugitive slave laws are passed” (1906, 246). This mention of the Fugitive Slave Act is notable in part because it is unprompted; there is no necessary connection between his musings on animals and recent political events. Yet for Thoreau, the measure of the cock’s freedom is his separation from a world in which humans perpetrate injustice according to the law’s dictates. Thoreau makes clear with these references not only that he sees nature as a contrast to political society, but also that, as a dissident, Thoreau finds it difficult to disinvest from political affairs.
These statements support the view that “Walking” was constructed with political injustice in mind. Yet they do not go so far as to call out radical dissidents as his particular audience. Still, there are several indications that Thoreau expected his message to resonate only with those who were radicals like him. At the beginning of “Walking,” Thoreau suggests that few in his audience will sympathize with his message. He juxtaposes himself, a defender of nature, with his audience, who he asserts are all “champions of civilization” (1906, 205). He notes that he has only met only a few people who understand the “art of Walking” (1906, 205). Finally, he indicates that few people are prepared to practice this art: to do so, he claims, one must have settled one’s affairs, written one’s will, and be ready to leave one’s family behind forever (1906, 206). As Thoreau describes it, then, those who would follow his prescriptions in this lecture must be prepared to die. Importantly, this statement about the extreme commitment required for Thoreau’s practice of walking connects would-be walkers to the political dissidents from “Resistance to Civil Government” who, Thoreau writes, “cannot have many affairs” (1906, 4:373). Both “Walker Errants” and the people who serve the state with their consciences can aptly be described as radicals who are willing to stand in opposition to the rest of society. 9
On these grounds, I argue that “Walking” has an overlooked significance for a small minority of the population—radical dissidents whose dispositions make it difficult to ignore political injustice. Before discussing what Thoreau’s model of withdrawal can do for these dissidents, however, it is necessary to clarify why—in Thoreau’s view—they need to withdraw in the first place. Why does political engagement need an anti-thesis?
In short, Thoreau indicates that political engagement comes with certain costs, and those costs are especially steep for individuals who, like Thoreau, are prone to a deep preoccupation with political injustice. Thoreau reveals his psychic investment in politics throughout his writings—including with his political references in “Walking”—but his concern is perhaps best captured by his statements in the lecture “Slavery in Massachusetts.” There, he writes that, in passing the Fugitive Slave Act, “the State has fatally interfered with [his] lawful business” (1906, 4:406). At the end of the lecture, he asks in a similar vein, “Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? The remembrance of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her” (1906, 4:407). These passages have sometimes been interpreted as revealing Thoreau’s general indifference to political affairs—he only takes an interest in social injustice if it affects him personally (McKenzie 2016, 149). On my reading, however, they disclose the opposite. Thoreau views the Fugitive Slave Act as a personal attack, despite the fact that it need not affect him, as a white man in the North, at all. The fact that Thoreau cannot go on a walk without remembering his country illuminates just how much politics impacts him on a personal level—not how little.
The consequence of this psychic investment, for Thoreau, is a cycle of moral outrage followed by exhaustion and despair. Thoreau’s tendency toward righteous indignation and fury at injustice has been much remarked-upon by readers of these texts. It is manifest in his assertion that, “Massachusetts is to me morally covered with volcanic scoriae and cinders, such as Milton describes in the infernal regions. If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it” (1906, 4:405). It is likewise simmering at the surface in Thoreau’s condemnation of a neighbor who is unperturbed by injustice: “Fool! Does he not know that his seed-corn is worth less this year—that all beneficent harvests fail as you approach the empire of hell?” (1906, 4:406). Although for contemporary readers, this moral outrage may seem justified and even beneficial to the work of resisting injustice, Thoreau himself demurs. As he writes in Walden, “We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion” (Thoreau 1906, 2:85). Thoreau seems to suggest that righteous indignation is not in itself a productive sentiment; it does not inspire upright action based on one’s principles any more than the person who had soberly resolved to do what is right. Instead, it leads to a kind of mental fixation and poisons one’s political efforts.
Swiftly following this moral outrage is a second consequence of political engagement. For dissidents like Thoreau, the public’s lack of concern for justice and inaction—which initially provokes his ire—ultimately produces bitterness, desolation, and exhaustion. In 1848, Thoreau writes to his friend Harrison Blake, “In what concerns you much, do not think you have companions—know that you are alone in the world” (Thoreau 2013, 299). Although his counsel on this occasion is stoic, this sentiment is later repeated in his political writings to a much more despairing effect. He writes in “Resistance to Civil Government”: “If one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name, – if ten honest men only, – aye, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America” (1906, 4:370). As Thoreau realizes upon his release from the Concord jail, his resolve to act on principle makes him alien to other men and them to him. It is no wonder, then, that Thoreau continually struggles with despair regarding the American public. “Men are base,” Thoreau declares at the end of “Slavery in Massachusetts,” and the state is “covered with disgrace” (1906, 4:407). Thus, just as Thoreau’s reform papers manifest his commitment to political affairs, they also exhibit its costs. These costs highlight the need for a practice which counterbalances the destructive consequences of political engagement.
With this in mind, we can turn to the text of “Walking” to understand how the second “moment” of Thoreau’s dialectical model—withdrawal—serves the radical dissident. The lecture describes what the regular practice of walking away from civil society means to Thoreau and the effects this practice has on him. Thoreau’s account develops four ways in which this practice might be seen to benefit dissidents in particular.
The first, and perhaps most important, benefit of walking to a place where “politics is not” is that it enables repose. For Thoreau, this repose was more than merely a form of recreation—as he writes, it “has nothing akin to “taking exercise, as it is called” (1906, 5:209). Rather, it allows the individual to return to their “health and spirits” (1906, 207). Although walking begins as a physical process, its primary benefits are mental: walking gives individuals a break from the flow of “informing light”—that is, the steady onslaught of news and information that one receives while around other people (1906, 238). In addition, in nature, according to Thoreau, one can find “freedom from all plaintiveness” (1906, 246). Citing the British explorer Sir Richard Burton, he contends that, on walks, “your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded… there is a keen enjoyment in mere animal existence” (1906, 228). Even beyond improving one’s mood, walking elevates one’s thoughts, bringing “so much more of the earth and the heavens” into view (1906, 245). This catalog of the restorative effects of walking points to how withdrawal could serve as a counterbalance to the “agitation, perplexity, and turmoil of civilization,” which—as Thoreau observed—“oppresses and suffocates us” (1906, 228). Given the proximity of this lecture to the Thomas Sims trial, these words likely give us insight into Thoreau’s state of mind and the importance of withdrawal at this juncture.
A second change wrought by walking is the development of thicker skin. Thoreau first describes this change in physical terms, noting approvingly that “severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy of touch” (1906, 210). Yet these physical effects, in Thoreau’s account, are secondary to the mental hardiness encouraged by walking—what he calls “a certain roughness of character” and “thicker cuticle” over the more sensitive, impressionable parts of our natures (1906, 210). Thoreau contends that the envelopment of these impressionable parts with a literal “thicker skin” helps to cultivate self-respect (1906, 210). In sum, the physical training of those who lived “out of doors” changes their mental dispositions, preparing them to cope with difficulties which those who “lie abed by day and think” do not risk (1906, 210).
At the same time as the walker becomes more robust, they also cultivate a kind of mental independence. In his address, Thoreau first observes the effects that “wildness” has on domesticated animals, connecting their freedom to their disobedience (1906, 234). “I rejoice,” Thoreau writes, “that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men” (1906, 235). Like with horses, Thoreau suggests, wildness in human beings prevents them from caring too deeply about the opinions of others (1906, 237). Spending time in the woods, selecting one’s path by instinct, accustoms an individual to “live free,” “superior to all the laws” (1906, 240). Ultimately, Thoreau suggests that walking reminds the dissident that there is life beyond the social world they are embedded in.
Finally, and relatedly, Thoreau suggests that the act of physical withdrawal from society enables a salutary forgetting. Walks, in Thoreau’s account, take the “saunterer” both physically and mentally away from the city: “Of course it is of no use to direct our steps into the woods, if they do not carry us thither… In my afternoon walk I would fain forget … my obligations to society” (1906, 211). This forgetting allows the dissident to let the troubles, setbacks, and emotional distress involved in political action and critique go. As Thoreau writes, “where he [the rooster] lives no fugitive slave laws are passed” (1906, 246). Although living in an unjust State, he indicates, it is necessary to prevent oneself from becoming too absorbed in one’s struggles. This forgetting is also the means by which dissidents like Thoreau can resist the temptation to re-engage in politics before becoming more fully restored. In sum, then, Thoreau suggests that dissidents will not be able to cope well with the pressures facing them without making changes in their lifestyles and habits. Specifically, in “Walking,” Thoreau outlines a practice of withdrawal which provides a counterpoint to the adverse effects of political engagement. In this sense, it operates as the “anti-thesis” in his dialectical model of dissent. For the reasons outlined earlier, however, this anti-thesis is not the culmination of his dialectic. Thoreau returns from his walks; he leaves the woods in Walden “for as good a reason as [he] went there” (1906, 2:355). The dialectic of dissent is reflected in Thoreau’s adult life as a whole, in which he oscillates from political engagement to political disengagement and back again.
Dialectics and Contemporary Activism
I have made the case that I see Thoreau’s writings on withdrawal as targeted towards and specifically relevant to a particular kind of individual—the dissident who is prone to become fully invested in contesting injustice. In focusing on these writings, however, I stressed the benefits of a dialectical approach without acknowledging either Thoreau’s racial and gender privilege or the contingent circumstances of his historical context. Yet for some of Thoreau’s recent critics, this privilege, alongside the vast and complex socioeconomic transformations from the 1850s to the present, should caution us against applying Thoreau’s thought in our contemporary world (Gould 2017, 175-6). If it was difficult to withdraw from wider society during Thoreau’s time, radical disengagement is even harder to achieve now. Moreover, as others have pointed out, the individuals who can best approximate a Thoreauvian solitude tend to be those who are most advantaged along class, race, and gender lines. 10 Thus, one might reasonably conclude that Thoreau’s prescriptions would be inapt for contemporary dissidents, particularly those who are marginalized.
I argue, however, that it would be a mistake to overlook Thoreau’s dialectical approach as a model for dissidents today. In particular, I see his work as a useful contribution to debates about contemporary activists, especially those whose lived experiences are in many respects least like Thoreau’s: women activists of color. In fact, I argue that Thoreau’s prescriptions are even more relevant for them than they were for himself. Although Thoreau’s emotional makeup made him vulnerable to a cycle of moral outrage, psychic investment, and burnout, women activists of color are vulnerable to this cycle for many reasons beyond their personal constitutions. As scholars of color have stressed, the epidemic of state violence against men of color—particularly Black and Latino men—has pushed many female relatives of its victims into highly visible positions of activism (Woodly 2021, 85). In fighting for justice for their loved ones, these women have been become leaders and symbols of the broader movement, despite the steep costs of this role. Increasingly, feminist scholars of color have drawn attention to the necessity of mitigating these costs. In my view, Thoreau’s model of living, which was designed with the harms of activism in mind, can respond to these calls.
To clarify Thoreau’s relevance to this work, it is helpful to review the recent scholarship on the costs of activism for women of color. In their respective work on movements for racial justice, Deva Woodly and Joy James highlight the life of Erica Garner as an instructive example (Woodly 2019; James 2021a, 2021b, 2021c). She was the daughter of Eric Garner, who was strangled to death by a Staten Island police officer while being arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes (Woodly 2019, 219). After police killed Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO 3 weeks after Eric Garner’s death, Ms Garner organized and led twice-weekly protests to demand justice for her father. Ms Garner soon faced overwhelming media attention, 11 and over the next 2 years, the 24-year-old became one of the faces of the Movement for Black Lives. As Woodly notes, however, her activism ultimately took a toll on her physical health (2019, 219). On Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign trail, she noted, “I’m constantly reading articles and doing research on my dad’s case, but I’m not taking care of me” (Garner 2018, 50:24-30, quoted in James 2021b, 20). Months later, she reiterated her distress by comparing herself to Kalief Browder’s mother: “She [Venida Browder] had heart problems because she kept fighting for her son. Like, I’m struggling right now with stress and everything” (Garner 2017, 0:08-16, quoted in Woodly 2019, 219-20). Soon after making this statement, Ms Garner had a severe asthma attack that triggered a fatal heart attack. 12
For both Woodly and James, Erica Garner’s life and death embody the predicament facing women activists of color more broadly. In communities shaped by white supremacy, these women’s bonds to their loved ones and their care for their community often incite them to political action. In doing so, both the grounds of their activism and the consequences of it threaten their lives. James calls these women “Captive Maternals,” explaining that their attempts to “protect or bring dignity to the lives of their slain children and family and community members can lead to stroke, heart disease, hypertension, etcetera. Caretaking is the priority, even at the expense of one’s own self” (2021b, 19). Moreover, these women’s political struggles expose them to further loss and connect them to movements that often exploit their labor while marginalizing their voices (James 2021a, 29). Women activists of color are thus triply captive—captive to the sociopolitical structures which oppress them, captive to their love for their community and family members, and captive to the forms of activism that are available to them.
Despite the vast distance between the experiences of women activists of color and that of Thoreau, these scholars’ concerns about costs of activism correspond to many of the misgivings which were articulated in his writings. This link is evident in the reflections of Erica Garner’s friend Reggie Harris shortly after her death. He relates: Erica was not a born activist. She was a daddy’s girl and she loved hard. She was a mother, a sister, and a loyal friend. Activism was a tactic she saw as the best way to seek justice for her father, Eric Garner. In the end, after Erica put her entire life into this fight, not only for her herself but for everyone Black, she got no changes. The stresses of fighting for three years became too much for one person to bear. The fact that her death took place mere weeks after she took a year off, and a few months after having her child, is not lost (Harris 2018).
Several points of connection to Thoreau’s account of activism are of note here. First, Erica Garner was not an activist out of an abstract desire to improve the world, a natural talent for mobilizing people, or a comfort with living in the public eye. She was called into action by a specific, grave injustice which made it impossible for her to remain silent. Second, Harris notes that she became wholly emotionally and psychically invested in her fight for justice. Third, her struggles were largely met with public apathy and political inaction (Sutton 2015). Finally, she identified her activism as a threat to her health—so much so that she decided to take a year-long break from this role several weeks before her death.
As argued above, Thoreau’s dialectical approach to dissent is attentive to the costs of activism in ways which few other treatments are. For Thoreau, withdrawal from political struggle was a necessary and built-in part of his life, rather than something which was done as a last resort in response to severe stress. Moreover, his account of withdrawal highlights the importance of cultivating a strong mental barrier to resist the temptation to quickly re-engage in activism. For women activists of color, making withdrawal a regular practice and treating it seriously—as though caregiving and fighting for their communities were potentially life-threatening activities—could make a difference in their well-being and survival.
Scholars and activists might object that this approach is neither possible nor desirable for most women of color. James speaks to the former concern in her reflections on Erica Garner. She asks, “For the captive, is [caregiving] a necessity? Western democracy’s origins in genocide and enslavement engender consumption of the generative powers of the Captive Maternal, even to sketch a democratic ethos or concept for social justice” (James 2021b, 19). Without a total transformation of our society, James suggests, women of color are caregivers by necessity, and their labor and “generative powers” will inevitably be exploited, even as they work toward that total transformation. This would seem to leave little room for practices of disengagement. More concretely, the very bonds to family and community members that spur many women activists of color to protest against injustice also serve as sources of obligation and responsibility. Most of these women cannot “live within [themselves], and depend upon [themselves], always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs” (Thoreau 1906, 4:557); other people rely on their support.
In my view, however, framing the circumstances of women activists of color in this way is normatively fraught. This implication of this frame is that women of color are, and should see themselves as, personally responsible for the safety and well-being of other members of their communities, and that this responsibility is all-consuming. This assumption, in turn, exacerbates the feelings of guilt that caregivers often express when they prioritize themselves (Craddock 2019; Gorksi 2019). It also contributes to many women of color’s reluctance to step away from their activism until they reach the point of literal collapse (Brown 2021). Scholars and activists can help counter these feelings of guilt and reluctance by consistently affirming that the responsibility for a community’s well-being rests with everyone, and particularly with more privileged members of their society. Doing so might draw attention to vital work of redistributing these women’s obligations and labor, which would make Thoreau’s model of disengagement more accessible to them. Yet even absent this redistribution, I argue, it is constructive to normalize Thoreauvian withdrawal in the context of an activist’s life. When such withdrawal is seen as valuable and routine, rather than as regrettable or even a failure, the question shifts from whether it is feasible to how to make it work.
Even if Thoreau’s dialectical practice is a viable model for women of color, however, some might contend that it is not the most beneficial model. Specifically, scholars including Woodly have argued in favor of the view that women activists of color can receive the respite and restoration they need in community, rather than in withdrawal. As Woodly contends, movements including the Movement for Black Lives have themselves responded to the disproportionate burdens facing women activists of color by fostering “collaborative solidarity” and defending black joy (2019, 221). These efforts, she shows, are institutionalized by these movements in practices that activists call “healing justice” (2019, 221). In particular, Woodly highlights efforts of #BlackLivesMatter activists to shift the discourse around public health to acknowledge the physiological effects of generational trauma; to center the voices of the most marginalized and stigmatized in their communities; and to promote the “sensation of euphoria” that arises when activists “feel the potential power to affect change that they might wield, if they continue to act in concert – with and for each other” (2019, 230-1). Importantly, each of these healing practices require community. Thus, Woodly and others would likely find Thoreau’s dialectical practice of dissent to be both unnecessary and potentially damaging: unnecessary because the costs of activism can be mitigated in other ways, and potentially damaging because his practice separates the individual from others who serve as sources of affirmation and support.
In my view, however, there are important limitations to the ability of movements or communities to alleviate many of the burdens that women activists of color face. Even if these collectives practice the healing justice that Woodly outlines, the work of activism, regardless of its aim, is still work. Moreover, much of the work involved in the practices she delineates involves caregiving—including the emotional and organizational labor that James describes in her account of “Captive Maternals.” Communities can be sources of affirmation and support and, simultaneously, create new loads to bear, exacerbate traumas, and—often unintentionally—pressure people to give more of themselves than is healthy. In addition, divisions within movements can introduce more conflict into activists’ lives. Erica Garner’s experience with some women in the Movement for Black Lives illustrates this point. As her friend Kirsten West Savali recounts, when Ms Garner decided to support Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, she experienced a significant backlash from Black women who belonged to groups, including “Mothers of the Movement” and “Say Her Name,” that endorsed Hillary Clinton (Garner 2018, 57:10-58:17). My aim in raising these concerns is not to suggest that healing cannot be found in communal settings, but rather to highlight the potential value of a Thoreauvian model of dissent for contemporary activists. For women like Ms Garner, a more complete disjuncture from activism—even on a periodic basis—might have served her in ways that healing practices within the movement could not.
More broadly, while many of Thoreau’s views are incompatible with most contemporary activists’ positions on political struggle, his dialectical approach to dissent need not be. In fact, his focus on the embodied and affective experience of individuals is well-attuned to the current political landscape. As global crises from climate change to the coronavirus pandemic bring new and overlapping trauma and loss to people’s lives, those who fight for social transformation need examples of how to cope on a personal level. Moreover, Thoreau’s writings offer a countervailing view to the widespread belief that the way to mitigate the costs of activism is to do activism better. As his work suggests, this rejoinder neglects another possible recourse which may better support some activists’ health—that is, withdrawing from political engagement. Thus, Thoreau’s model of dissent can provide a path forward that is missing in the discourse on contemporary activism.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
