Thoreau’s Cell Phone

Henry David Thoreau is often unfairly depicted as anti-technology. I think if he were suddenly transported into the present, he would be fascinated by the smartphone and would find interesting uses for it. Like many of us, he would also be a skeptical user.

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There were three of us on the two-mile hike to Keown Falls in LaFayette, Georgia, on a mild afternoon in early February, one of those days that makes you wonder if Spring will come early this year. The falls are little more than a few trickles of icy water that drop off a sixty-foot rock overhang. On the way back down to the parking lot, we were talking about the deleterious effects of smartphones on society, on our habits, and on the brains of our children.

And that's when one of us wondered aloud if Henry David Thoreau would have owned a smartphone.

If you look online for a quick answer to this question, the consensus leans heavily in the direction of "no." Climate activist Bill McKibben opines with confidence that Thoreau wants us to put down our cell phones. A professor challenges his students to give up their cell phones for a week for extra credit, convinced that Thoreau would approve. Still another writer is confident that a 21st-century Thoreau would abstain from using a smartphone, quoting him from Walden, “men have become the tools of their tools.” Most people simply assume that Thoreau was reflexively anti-technology and would therefore despise the smartphone.

I disagree.

The Thoreaus of Concord were a thoroughly middle-class family living in the Boston suburbs in the 1840s. If they lived today, there would be a Prius parked in the driveway with a faded "My Child Goes to Harvard" sticker in the rear window, and there would no doubt be a smartphone tucked into every pocket, because the Thoreaus were a close-knit family who would want to stay in contact with one another. What 21st-century Henry would do with his phone is the far more interesting question.

It is true that in the "Economy" chapter of Walden, Thoreau complains about the railroad line that skirted Walden Pond, proclaiming that “we do not ride the railroad; it rides upon us." But those who relish this quote as evidence of Thoreau's Luddism seldom speak of the paragraphs that follow in the “Sounds” chapter, which catalog the contents of train cars in sumptuous detail. Thoreau is impressed with the regularity of the train, and he expresses a grudging respect for the commerce that it prompts in his neighbors. He seems irritated by this "bolt" through the countryside, but also awed by it. The writing is beautiful and nuanced--some of the best paragraphs in Walden--and you can see his mind grappling with this new technology, trying to comprehend what it means. In his day-to-day life, Thoreau sometimes traveled by train, and in his work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, he sometimes literally escorted fugitive slaves on trains to the next station as they headed north towards Canada.

Thoreau was certainly skeptical of new technology, as am I--as we all should be. Of the telegraph, he worried that if Maine were connected to Texas, "it may be, [they] have nothing important to communicate." Writing on the occasion of a transatlantic telegraph cable being laid, he wrote, "perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.” Thoreau made no secret of his disdain for triviality. In "Life Without Principle," he wrote

Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not.

For Thoreau, the telegraph was only as good as the people who would use it, and he thought most people were shallow.

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Thoreau was no anti-technology extremist (I hesitate to use the word “Luddite” because they were not anti-technology extremists either). His family owned a small pencil-making factory, and working in it, Henry revolutionized the technology of pencil making by creating a process for mixing lead with clay so that the lead insert could be more easily shaped and inserted into the pencil's cavity.  He also worked as a part-time surveyor and mastered the use of a tripod, surveyor’s compass, and Gunter’s Chain. He certainly did not object to bookbinding technology, which was rapidly evolving throughout his lifetime. If these ordinary uses of mid-19th-century technology by Thoreau are any indication, we can safely surmise that 21st-century Thoreau would probably very likely own a computer like the rest of us, and possibly a cell phone, though I am certain that he would have misgivings about it. 

I am also certain he would turn off the notifications. The constant audible bombardment of triviality would rile him. In “Life Without Principle,” he wrote 

Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair--the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish--to permit idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to thought. 

Social media would very likely trample Thoreau's very active sense of the sacred in ordinary places and experiences. In his essay "Walking," he wrote

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who lose no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard within our horizon, it is belated.

I cannot imagine that the man who wrote these lines would livestream his hikes or post videos of them on Instagram.

On the other hand, the naturalist who studiously recorded his observations of nature in his 2 million-word journal might find uses for nature apps. I can picture Thoreau bending down to aim his camera phone at a patch of moss or wildflowers, waiting for the Seek app to identify the species so he can post his geolocated observations to the iNaturalist site. I can also picture him standing in the woods with his phone open, watching the Merlin app identify birdsong.

The polymath Thoreau would enjoy and appreciate Wikipedia; he might even contribute articles to it or edit existing ones. His entry on Asclepias obtusifolia (sand milkweed) would be sublime. He might even be irritated if someone tried to edit it.

A smartphone would have been helpful to his work on the Underground Railroad. I imagine him texting his compatriots at the next train stop to let them know that he had just put a fugitive slave on the train. Would he use WhatsApp to stay in touch with his friends in the abolitionist movement? 

These speculations are a shallow form of entertainment, however, easily derailed with even the smallest dose of logic. For instance, without the evil of slavery to shape his moral imagination, 21st-century Thoreau would likely have developed into someone unrecognisable to us. Maybe he would still be a principled moralist, perhaps a climate activist like Bill McKibben. Then again, maybe he would be your environmentally unconscious neighbor, the very successful day trader who drives a gas-guzzling Mercedes-Benz G63 SUV with the bumper sticker that says “I recycle my plastic into bullets.” 

Of course, these speculations are mostly ludicrous. Thoreau was a man of his time, and we ought not forget that. What would Thoreau do? That also makes a great bumper sticker, morally satisfying but not very useful. The 19th-century Thoreau who time-traveled to the present would likely be an even crankier crank, and the 21st-century Thoreau thrown suddenly into antebellum New England would likely be jonesing for some mindless entertainment after a few excruciating days lived at horsepower speed. Modern Thoreau's brain on digital technology would be like ours, struggling against the constant slicing and dicing of our attention into thousands of twenty-second clips. He might complain as he's reading less than he once did or fret that he is watching more television (but then again, it’s a Golden Age of television, so how can he not watch?). His physician might prescribe antidepressants or Ritalin. His therapist might fret about his antisocial tendencies and prescribe other, more potent antidepressants. He might choose to do a year-long media cleanse instead of building that cabin on Walden Pond. He would almost certainly walk less than the 19th-century Thoreau, who bragged of logging four hours of sauntering most days. 

That's 30,000 to 40,000 steps for those who keep track of such things on their watches.