I’m aware of Thoreau’s hypocrisy, but his philosophical ideas are valuable historically, and in some questions that still antagonize us today: how can we be a functioning democracy of individuals? Where on the continuum between the two poles of society’s concerns and individual concerns do we choose to live?
Btw, though it’s obviously not hypocrisy, I can’t believe this other fact doesn’t get more play: When he was younger he accidentally set a fire that burned down a good chunk of the woods in Concord. And then of course he never left town. Can’t imagine people let him forget that.
