Technological Advancement In Henry David Thoreau's Life

For Thoreau, additional technological advancement distracted man from connecting with nature. Although his examples of the newspaper and railroads seem almost laughable now, these were serious concerns for his time. The newspaper was a source of mental clutter, argued Thoreau who claimed, “I never read any memorable accidents in the newspaper” (Walden, 2002). To Thoreau, once one had read about one particular circumstance of accident, whether it is a house fire or murder, that was enough. The newspapers were nothing more than a distracting source of millions of applications of these same principles. The “petty fears and petty pleasures” which are portrayed in the news “are but the shadow of reality” (Walden 2004).

More dangerously in Thoreau’s eyes, was that the gossip of the newspaper spread the ideas of the importance of advancement. The idea of the importance of commerce and the railroad is spread throughout society. He criticizes this by saying that “we are determined to be starved before we are hungry” (Walden, 2002). What he means is that over time, men have developed the idea that commerce and faster travel have become necessary to sustain ourselves. What is being

However, Merton was facing much more serious issues such as the introduction of pesticides (in particular dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, also known as DDT), the space race, and nuclear power. It was Merton’s opinion that humans should exercise what he coined as ecological consciousness (Hubbard, 74). That is that we should examine humanity’s direct relationship with nature, as well as other species’ existence, the extent of natural resources, and the impacts that our current actions will have on future generations. Merton does not want to limit progress, but instead wants to insure the safety of “the rest of the living” as we step forward into a new era (Hubbard,