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In defense of those ~"poor ignorant slaving farmers": I'm descended from some poor dirt farmers who are revered and admired by their multi-generational familie
by lcall 10y ago
In defense of those ~"poor ignorant slaving farmers": I'm descended from some poor dirt farmers who are revered and admired by their multi-generational families, and were admired by their fellow townspeople (largely of a different culture and language), for the start they gave the children and the influence they had on everyone around them. Everyone knew they were honest, people liked the free seasonal watermelons, and enjoyed their humor (back in the days of poetry recitations etc). Though passed on for many years, they impact me and others to this day. Extended family reunions still talk about them (there's one in a couple of weeks, in fact, full of people I'm connected to but don't know them all). I think they chose their life more than Thoreau thought, and what kind of legacy they wanted to leave, and to whom. Many hundreds are grateful they did not live self-centeredly.
- lcall 10y agoOne example of many comes from the family in Mexico, about the 1940s: "13 hijos!? y todos vivos??" ("13 children?? and all living??" [one mother]) "Unos mas vivos que otros, pero todos comen." (A play on words, where I failed to add the right marks, but: "Some more lively [same word as living] than others, but they all eat.") And they all (but one who died in childhood) had happy families of their own, spread across North America. I'm a grandchild of that one.
- rak00n 10y agoThoreau didn't condemn being a farmer. He pointed out how it doesn't go along with his values. Like an empty room you can fill in with thousand different things, we all have the liberty of choosing different values to fill our lives with. Bear in mind Thoreau never got married or had sex, which probably is almost everyone's recipe for a happy fulfilled life.