THOREAU, WALKING (Art and Legal Ambiguity)

Art and Legal Ambiguity: "In one of Henry David Thoreau's last essays,'Walking,' he makes a plea for 'absolute freedom and wildness in our lives -- in contrast to the merely civil --because man is an inhabitant and part and parcel of Nature rather than a member of society.' The height of this freedom he suggests is Walking -- or, as he prefers to call it, sauntering -- off the beaten path. A true Walker, he feels, is willing to get lost in the woods and that society is made from two or more of these Walkers connecting and forming a network rather than by laws made through legislation or dictated by religion from above.

Things have changed. Not only is it increasingly more difficult to find the offramp from that beaten path but the means of connection have increased dramatically in ways that Thoreau wouldn't recognize. But his basic premise is still valuable. We create society (and culture) through confrontation with each other and joining either in combat or in collaboration. Just like the internet could be said to only exist when two computers connect we are a society only in relation to each other. You might say that Thoreau lived by himself in the cabin at Walden Pond in order to find the 'source code' for society."

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