In Henry David ThoreauÆs Walden, we find that most people lack wisdom because they spend their lives following superficially pursuits based on materialism and custom, ôThe mass of men lead lives of quiet desperationö (Thoreau, 2002, I). Such individuals are never truly wise, according to Thoreau, because they never actually experience reality. Reality is discovered only by separating the self from artificial constructions like city, economy, and family. This is achieved by direct communion with nature where one finds an environment in which to discover the essential facts of life. Thoreau argues that in order to achieve this kind of highest wisdom, we must know ourselves. Civilized man and societies repress and suppress the very spontaneity and wildness that are an inherent part of nature and a fundamental basis of human nature. Thoreau sees civil liberties and other aspects of life wrought through democracy as far less important to the individual than spiritual freedom of self-knowledge. This is found in nature. The good for Thoreau becomes what is wild and free. The self without such an understanding is a self that is not experienced or wise: ôThe mass of men are still and always young in this respectö (Thoreau, 2002, XI).
Thoreau believed that most New EnglanderÆs could not attain true wisdom. He believed this because he thought they accepted things as they appeared and not as they actually were. They did so based on habit, custom, and due to a lack of critical thinking. The individual is able to achieve a higher wisdom by experiencing brute nature and forming a synthesis between it and human (i.e. their own) nature. The problem is that most individuals are preoccupied by artificial social constructs and materialistic pursuits that never enable them to achieve insight into the self and the higher knowledge that comes with it. As Thoreau (2002) notes, ôI
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