"Simplicity! Simplicity! Simplicity!" Thoreau ponders the
state of man in his time who feels that the nation must have a government bulging with
bureaucracies--"petty states" as Germany had at the time--commerce, and all kinds of
"progress." Satirically, Thoreau asks,
If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails,
and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon
our lives to improve them, who will build
railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if
we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the
railroad; it rides upon
us.
Thoreau refers to many
men who died in the construction of railroads, men whose lives were lost in the name of
"progress"; men whose lives were, in fact, wasted in "such a hurry and waste of
life."
If a society were to keep itself in "simplicity,"
people could live more authentic lives and not be slaves to commerce or the development
of complications of life in the name of "progress." Men will not have to wake up in the
morning with obligations to others; instead, they can live their own lives in a manner
in which they do what is meaningful to them and those that love
them.
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