RADICAL REVIVAL

"I would bet that fewer Americans have read WALDEN than have heard that Thoreau's mother did his laundry."
                                                                                          Jedediah Purdy
                                                                                          THE NATION, June 19/26, 2017

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

                                                                                          Henry David Thoreau
                                                                                          WALDEN


   Thoreau, hugely influential in those times known as "the sixties", is somewhat a dud nowadays...not enough of a corporate man.  Peaceful resistance?  Dropping out?  Hippie stuff.  Practical modern folks know there is but one game in town, and it is corporate.  Anybody who knows which side of the bread has the butter needs to know the company line, and that line could change tomorrow, so better pay attention.  No need for radical ideas like living simply, or going to jail in a righteous cause.  If you want to be a player, you've got to play the game.  Shame on Thoreau, for proposing a different way of living, and more shame for showing it could be done.  Well, his mommy washed his clothes, so back to the corporate ladder.

   Thoreau inspired Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. to wage their peaceful (and successful) revolutions.  But history shows those two were human, no better than you or me.  And are we going to change the world?  Of course not.  Why should Gandhi or Dr. King try?  The people in charge can be generous when they want to be, to those they believe can help and serve them.  Serve them well, and hope for the best.  Those who dissent, who drag their feet, are holding up progress, and need to abandon all hope.  The defiant are insane, and we dare not forget the fates of Gandhi and King:  both shot.  They learned their lessons.  They should have packed heat.

   Research holds that Dr. King, late in his life, began to entertain the prospect of violence as a possible solution to racial inequality.  We all entertain many differing thoughts throughout our lives.  But the fate of black militants ought to answer that question.  Early in this new millennium, the armed potential revolutionaries tend to be white and radically conservative in their outlook, in reality supporting and strengthening the corporate state.  Should they decide to oppose, they play into the rulers' hands.  The power structure is well-equipped to deal with violent revolt.  And historically, even where violent revolutionaries have come to power, the military organization and cruelty of war replace old dictatorships with new ones.  But the "here's to the new boss, same as the old boss," adage applies to peaceful revolts as well.  It is human nature for those who take power to want to keep it, to increase it, by any means necessary--unless the people continuously resist.

   In the corporate world (bedrock of modern society) thought comes from the top down, and every other thought, from whatever source, no matter how much sense it makes, is considered resistance, therefore not tolerated.  Thinkers do not earn themselves a stay in Orwell's Room 101, but while some corporate leaders may pretend to forgive, they never forget.  There are consequences.  Mankind,  creator of the corporation, derives benefits from this useful tool.  Its organized structure makes it capable of producing and distributing abundant goods and services, as long as it works for the people who allow it to exist.  For people to remain in charge of their world they must think freely and openly, which the established top down structure cannot tolerate.  While it is true that in a strictly legal sense thought is not crime, it is a discouraged activity.

   So powerful is the corporate state in 2017 that it can simply ignore and sweep aside "radical" thinking.  Corporate leaders did pay lip service after the upheaval of the sixties (when radical ideas and observations of Thoreau and others were openly explored by leaders within the establishment) to alternative ideas:  tolerance and open-mindedness; importance of individuals; community interdependence.  There is none of that today.  In pursuit of profit and power, the rulers now destroy the environment, bankrupt millions of people, wage endless war, and reap profits of ugly proportions (enough to buy governments wholesale) so that they are allowed to keep doing the same destructive things.  Everyone knows this is happening, yet seven billions are powerless to stop or even slow down the juggernaut.  In this way, corporations have actually become people:  super people who never die, who are impervious to bad weather, who need not eat or drink or breathe.  Yet, they can give large sums of money to individuals seeking elective office, individuals who, if elected, then owe favors to the people/corporation.  Corporations wind up controlling governments--which is the definition of fascism, at least according to Mussolini, who ought to know.  

   The doublethink required to elevate corporations to personhood is astounding.  Those who accomplish this trick need lifetimes steeped in corporate thought, which is riddled with doublethink, also defined by Orwell as "reality control."  Those who can do this trick well can reach the summits of wealth, influence, and power.  No wonder so many people strive to prove and improve their skills.  No wonder they revive someone like Thoreau, for no other reason than to bury him again.  The people in control like that...it leaves no room for dissent.  The possibility that people could consciously simplify their lives gets no credence in the corporate world.  People might just try it.