Henry Thoreau’s Idea of Simplicity: Toward a More Creative and Natural Life

Abstract

American transcendentalism is a strain of idealism informed by a mind-over-matter outlook. Its practitioners put their faith in their own moral sense, and emphasized a life of virtue. Thus they endeavored to live on a higher plane of moral or spiritual perfection. This transcendentalist impulse Henry Thoreau translated into a regime of simplifying his share of material and social needs. Though disparaged by some critics as an individualistic bid for self-culture with little civic virtue, it was a sobering attempt to reconcile the ever distracting forces of society to his ideal of the good life. His principle goes beyond its use as a private ethic to address the universal need to forge more sustainable and wholesome relations with our environment. This insightful vision has given Thoreauvian simplicity an ever new lease on life. (Korea University)