×
            

               

                  

                     

                     

                  

                  

                     

                     

                     

                     

                  

               

            
         

      

   













   
   
   
   





   
   

      

         

            welcome covers
         

         

            
Your complimentary articles

            
You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

            
SUBSCRIBE NOW

            

            
If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.


To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.


If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

         

      


Utopia


Thoreau’s ‘Paradise To Be Regained’


James Moran considers the archetypal American antedeluvian’s criticism of someone else’s technological paradise.


Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-loved authors in American history, and its most famous chronicler
of the simple life. Some might argue that there are utopian elements in Thoreau’s account in Walden (1854)
of his two years and two months living in the woods on the shore of Walden Pond. Of course, he is not
describing an ideal society, but life as he enjoyed it on a daily basis. Nor does he argue that everyone
should live as he did; rather he states that elements of what he learned might apply to those who find
his insights agreeable. The utopian elements are found in his very idyllic account of his experience,
and his many arguments about the way people were living in his day: “The mass of men lead lives
of quiet desperation.


…