Examples Of Transcendentalism In Walden

Change for the Modern World
Throughout Thoreau's “Walden”, he lays out many suggestions that some may take as significant or just senseless. Thoreau brings forth many concepts about things such as necessity, news, transcendentalism, and labor which would benefit modern society. Yet, his views on isolation and frugality are unattainable in a technology-driven society. Even though the ideas that could benefit society may not be totally agreeable, the main reasoning for them are valid. Those ideas of isolation and moderation are clearly not possible in a world where people crave to be social and live to obtain any and everything they want.
In the modern world, people posses more than what they can actually keep tract of physically and mentally. Everyone wants to live the “good life” where they can have no limits to the things they want. Whether it is clothes, cars, jewelry, or houses, the need to buy things that are affordable and are in style preoccupies the minds of many people. The argument for necessity goes against this way of modern living, but agrees with Thoreau's view on it. The argument is that people should have enough of each just in order to survive and live a comfortable life. Thoreau goes much further with this by not only reducing the number of things to posses, but by also reducing the quality to lower the price. An article about Thoreau agrees and says, “ Change in material conditions requires more than quaint platitudes and the quiet diffusion of sentiment” (McBride 35). However, for today's society quality would be important, but quantity would be something worth changing.
Thoreau's idea of necessity is agreeable because it allows for the reduction of materialism in a modern society which needs it. In Thoreau'...

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Thoreau developed many concepts throughout “Walden” that are worth reading about. In his time of living his ideas on things like necessity, labor, and isolation could have been easily practiced. To be able to leave society and find out who one may be in a time period that was not as well developed as today would be a good thing. In modern times, people do any and everything to get as far away from the ideas of Thoreau. People love to posses things they have always wanted, to fit it with society, to work as much as they can to earn a living, and to always be connected to the ideas and thoughts of other people. Modern society would benefit a great deal from some of the ideals of Thoreau. Some of these ideas are actually possible to carry out and would prove to be beneficial, but there are those that would be immediately denied by today's society.