Thoreau and the Sociological Imagination by Bingham Shawn Chandler;

Author:Bingham, Shawn Chandler;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1214102
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2013-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Deconstructing Dichotomies of Progress

As a student of science in the nineteenth century, Thoreau had been working on his own theories of evolution, even before his in-depth reading of Darwin’s Origin of Species.1 Despite his interest in the science behind biological evolution, though, Thoreau was not a social evolutionist. Unlike figures such as Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, Thoreau did not believe that cultures progressed through particular stages in a linear fashion. To Thoreau, social change was neither unilateral nor categorically positive. Instead, he argued that modern civilization had, in many ways, regressed. While many Americans saw the broader changes in their country—technological advancement, increased accumulation of goods, and the emergence of science—as evidence of social progress, Thoreau questioned these measures by exploring the illusions behind such advances. He believed that progress was defined narrowly by America, with too much emphasis on outward luxury and technology. These advances, he believed, often created obstacles to real social progress, and brought little to Americans in terms of human development and equality.

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