Thoreau reflected critically on the impacts of industrialization in his time, such as how the railroad changed lives and thinking patterns, and caused noise, wasted energy and pollution of nature. He also discussed how China could learn from his works during its modernization, including reinterpreting ancient Chinese classics to focus on concepts like having few desires and living simply and virtuously. Thoreau's works provide insights for addressing China's current environmental and consumption issues.

1. Henry David Thoreau
Sarah

2. Henry David Thoreau
Introduction
Reflection on industrial civilization
Thoreau and China

3. Introduction
• Henry David Thoreau, who was ignored and
dismissed by his contemporaries, now has
emerged as one of the greatest American literary
figures. Especially in the era full of environmental
crises, Thoreau’s works have attracted more
attention than before and have been regarded
as the classics of green works.

4. Introduction
• Based on the close reading of Thoreau’s major work
Walden, we find that although Thoreau lived in the
early days of the industrial civilization when the western
countries had a rapid economic development since the
first Industrial Revolution and people indulged in
material enjoyment which the new inventions and
techniques brought about, he had already sensitively
felt the impact of industrialization and had foreseen the
dilemma human beings would meet in the future.

5. Thoreau’s reflection on industrial civilization
“Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract
our attention from serious things.”
• Life alienation resulting from science and technology
• Science and technology had become commercialized
in the industrial society.
• In the course of conquering nature, not only was
nature destroyed, but also people’s innocent feelings to
nature had disappeared.

6. Thoreau’s reflection on industrial civilization
• Railroad
• 1. the noisy sound, the wasting of energy, and the
pollution of nature
• “The iron horse makes the hills echo with his snort like
thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire
and smoke from his nostrils.”
• “I will not have my eyes put out and my ears spoiled by
its smoke and steam and hissing…”

7. Thoreau’s reflection on industrial civilization
• 2. The railway changed people’s lives and thinking
pattern unconsciously.
• “train style”—“The startings and arrivals of the cars are
now the epochs in the village day. They go and come
with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can
be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them,
and thus one well-conducted institution regulates a whole
country….There is something electrifying in the
atmosphere of the former place.”

8. Thoreau’s reflection on industrial civilization
• In Thoreau’s eyes, those people who drove and took the
steamed-engine were much more emotionless and
mechanical than the machines themselves.
• “machinery person”
• “Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he
is a man, and he is only completely a man when he
plays.” Schiller

9. Henry David Thoreau
Enlightenment for China’s modernization
Arouse reinterpretation of ancient Chinese
classics

10. Henry David Thoreau
• “nature could be shaped to man’s purpose”
• Mao Zedong
• turn the treacherous Three Gorges into a navigable lake
• Deng Xiaoping
“Science and technology is the first power of production”

11. Henry David Thoreau
• The Dian Pond, Tai Lake, the West Lake, the Yellow
River, and the Yangzi River have all experienced different
types of ecological damage.
• In recent years, China has suffered many natural
disasters, such as the flood in southern China in1998, the
legendary sandstorms in 2002, the blizzards in southern
China and the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan in 2008.
• In addition, there have been some man-made disasters,
such as the 2005 Jilin Petrochemical Corporation
chemical plant explosion that spilled carcinogenic
pollutants into the Songhua River.

12. Henry David Thoreau
• “Consumption”
• Showing-off and enjoyment of luxuries are becoming
increasingly popular in China.
• All of this demonstrates what Thoreau noted in Walden—
that consumption is not due to real needs, but comes out
of a strong desire to have material property.

13. Henry David Thoreau
• The Dial
• The Analects of Confucius and the Doctrine of Mean
• “The ideas of Mean”, “benevolence”, “having few desires”,
“follow the nature”, “love people, love all nature” “self-
perfection”, “happy to lead a simple and virtuous life”
• “Zhi Zhong He” (致中和)
• “Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in
perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout
heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and
flourish.”

14. Henry David Thoreau
Q&A