Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Walden Journey #3
Thoreau continuously discusses the "Economy." Explain what Thoreau means by the following statement: "The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shrinking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful." (page 33) response minimally 16 sentences.
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In the quote, Thoreau is basically saying that the student is lazy. He is looking forward to retiring so he minimizes his work day by day. This student thinks that he could live off of pension for the rest of his life by doing whatever he wants. By saying this Thoreau is probably trying to tell the reader that hard work pays off eventually and how lazy people have become in his time. He is also saying that the youth need to learn how to work for themselves because their parents are not going to have their back forever. They have to grow up soon. This sounds a lot like students today. Many of them want to this and that but do not apply themselves to do what they HAVE to do. Thoreau explains to people that the youth is the next generation and if they are lazy then the society would be extremely messed up. For example if one student grew up to be a doctor, what if he became lazy during a surgery. This also puts the older generation in danger too. This is why they push us to be the best that we can be so we do not mess up in life and regret every moment of it. This statement shows how concerned Thoreau is about the next generation. Students tend to try to find the easy way out of everything. This method is not as helpful as it is easy. They cannot expect retirement without even doing plenty years of work. "...they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game.."
ReplyDeleteGreat response and connection to modern day.I like your comment which is kind of "Thoreauish" - has a hint of a rhetorical question, "For example if one student grew up to be a doctor, what if he became lazy during a surgery." I see that style coming alive.
DeleteThis quote could be numerous things. One way to interpret this is by discussing the different types of lifestyles, before and after retirement. Thoreau basically says that the best way to fully enjoy freedom is to live it. He tells us that most students do this by minimizing the amount of work he does that is least needed by man. Out of this you can get that during someone's life they do many things that are not necessary. Some things may include buying luxurious things, clothes, houses, etc; and taking everything that has happened to you too seriously, not having any fun at all. Because of this way of thinking, people take away the experience of actual freedom and retirement, and its worth.
ReplyDeleteRetirement is the point in someone's life when they are allowed to have open time to do the things they've wanted to do during their hardworking days, or the time in which they learn the way of life. If someone 'systematically' decreases the amount of work that they do in their early life, when they are older, they will have become bored with life, feeling that there is nothing left for them to do since they've already felt some form of 'freedom' while slowing down their work days. Had it been the other way around, the person would have spent a reasonable amount of days working. This will give them a greater appreciation of the things they have accomplished. That great appreciation will then have affected their view on how they will spend the free time that they have. After being a teacher, or nurse for thirty or more years of someone's life, they might want to be involved in a chess club, or something that can be valuable to them. Perhaps, after being a professional, celebrity hairstylist for forty-five years, a person may want to become an artist, painter, or a sketch artist. The important thing is that whomever it is, and whatever career they had through a lifetime, they must remember that the experience can in fact be the freedom that many people look for.
As you continue sharing your ideas, what language (diction) does Thoreau use identify the student "types"?
ReplyDeleteThe quote is saying that you can not expect things to be ready done for you when you did not put in that time and effort into receiving that free time.Th quote is also saying how these students want to increase the time of not having to work and decrease the time put into hard laboring.This shows how lazy people tend to get but yet still they want to be rewarded for something that time was never put into.The students should not study or play life merely while the community supports them at this expensive game,but rather they are to show depth and sincerity and live it from beginning to end.
ReplyDeleteI think he means you can't really enjoy relaxing if you don't ever wear yourself out.People are often lazy because the consequences to being lazy are not convincing enough for someone to change their behavior. Our society also has many systems in place that act as safety nets that enable this behavior to sustain itself. Some specific examples are:
ReplyDeleteCredit cards: They allow people to purchase things they can't afford. For many it bypasses the need to actually work to earn the things they want that otherwise would be out of their reach.
Welfare systems: Enables people to sustain their lifestyles to a relatively comfortable standard given that they have to do very little work to receive this assistance. The examples simply are just systems that are often exploited to enable people to be lazy and less accountable for their actions. If the alternative to not being lazy had harsher consequences people might be less lazy.
Many people use retirement as a time to do the things they never had time to do when they were working full time, many actually start totally new businesses, some travel and actually start a new life elsewhere.
I just think that their life is just so complicated that they don't really know what to do with it,so they retire just to see how simple life could be.
-Aphnie
The quote is saying how students in later generations are lazier because of the success of earlier ones. Even in today's society, many people want things, but don't do what it takes to get them. It's only natural that someone would want something, but only few people actually put the time and effort into getting it. Just because older generations like your parents succeed, doesn't mean you should take their success and use it as your own. Retirement as I see it is a way for people to relax and live a simple life after many years of work. However, if you don't help contribute to society, then how do you deserve to live a simple life? If you don't put in the effort and time into achieiving certain goals, then you'll never get anything accomplished. For example, everyone wants to grow up and ofcourse make six figures a year. The problem is that no one is willing to actually take time to go to school to go after these careers. And for those individuals who do actually go through schooling, most of them always try finding an easier route to finishing things. It's like if you're a mechanic buidling a car. You can't take a lazy approach towards it and leave out important steps to making it. With stuff like that, someone could end up hurt. Early in life, we have to go through things that require a lot of our time. I think what Thoreau is trying to say though is by doing this first, we as human beings will recieve our reward of simplicity through retirment. It's like going through a complicated lifestyle and then transitioning to a more simple, enjoyable one.-Shaun
ReplyDeleteI think he means to say that students are always worrying about what they are faced with rather than what's really behind it. In the book he says that they don't ever worry about the tutition their parents pay for them. That's his way of saying that they're being careless and lazy. If all students aren't thinking about all the work their parents are doing just for them to get an education, they'll just be ungrateful and won't succeed in the future. If the students don't apply themselves now then they won't get far in the near future and might not even get a job or have a good living. They need to think more about the outcome of all the work rather than the work they have to put in.
ReplyDeleteThoreau is stating that the "student" [it could also be a worker] often tries to oversimplify or reduce the amount of work they have to do. They do this in order to have more leisure time later. However, Thoreau argues that this makes the leisure time less enjoyable or less valuable. If the student depends on doing the bare minimum, throwing everything else aside, whatever spare time he or she has left will be spent idly. This creates a long cycle of unproductivity; the student is giving little back, even when he or she is actually doing work. Life cannot be spent simply scraping by for convenience. One has to make contributions to the community in order to reap a greater reward. This statement also seems a bit ironic, if not hypocritical, coming from Thoreau. He talks of the student practically cheating his way through life by oversimplifying whatever work needs be done, yet Thoreau himself is obsessed with simplicity. He gives little, if nothing, to society, being that he does not live in a society anymore. On one occasion, he was even arrested for not paying taxes which could benefit the town. While his works are a contribution to literature, that is all he has truly given. But his literature did not do much for his time; people in the 19th century stayed in their towns and lived complex lives. Thoreau not only failed in being an active citizen; he also failed to persuade others to join in his transcendentalist lifestyle. He is ironically a good example of the "student" he complained about in his statement.
ReplyDeleteWhat Thoreau means is that if a student were to resort to progressive ignorance to his abundance of daily duties such as school, chores as well as any other responsibilities, it wouldn't be very beneficial to them due to the fact that they wouldn't have worked very hard to get a reward. For example, if a student wants to go to college and can't afford the tuition that student would have to work hard to gain scholarships and grants in order to gain acceptance, on the other hand if someone who is wealthy wishes to go to college and they have the required resources (in this case financial stability) then they wouldn't have ant trouble getting accepted. The outcome of this scenario is that the person who worked so painstakingly hard to get where they are would bear much sweeter fruits (rewards) in comparison to someone who does no work at all who's fruit has grown as bitter as their actions.
ReplyDelete` "The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shrinking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful." (page 33)
ReplyDelete` What Thoreau meant was to say that things now-a-days are progressing in a slower pace and children (who are the future of the world) are taking things too lightly. Instead of trying things and putting your 100% effort into things, they put half. Some children don't even try because they believe that it won't make a difference for their future. Even though Thoreau is thinking it in his own point of view, he's not putting the point of view as a child. Many things that we do now (in the 2000s) have no relevance that is significantly effect our future. By getting jobs and maintaining our careers. True, children are turning into slackers but this just proves on how flexible adults should be. Even though my last statement still proves on Thoreau's point. But in the end, Thoreau's statement is basically saying that students/children shouldn't be lazy and put effort into things, because you can't allow yourself to do 50 percent of the work. People expect 100 percent effort on everything, if not, then it's not acceptable. Especially towards our generation when things are going down hill. People are expecting our generation to succeed so we won't be able to repeat the past.
"The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shrinking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful."
ReplyDeleteOkay, so Thoreau is basically saying here that the student who opts out and chooses to do as little as possible academically is harming himself. For example: a person who, when the teacher assigns him/her an essay, writes as few words as humanely possible. Or when a student does just enough to pass a class. or when a student only reads the minimum pages that is assigned by the teacher. The aforementioned things are bred of laziness. Instead of attempting do GREAT, the student decides to do just enough. This reminds me of our society today actually. now that i think about, it we actually do less than is required....anyway Thoreau obviously thinks that work and GOOD work will be beneficial to us in the future. The only person who ends up hurting is the student him/herself. Let me present to you a scenario. A student goes to school (lets call her Kara)and works really hard. she gets straight A's. Then you have another student (let's call him Jim) who also goes to school but works just enough to get straight B's. Both students apply to The University of Chicago. There are only two applications left and the the dean can only accept one more student. Coincidentally, the applications in the dean's hands are Kara's and Jim's. The dean looks at both of them. However, Kara's application is much more enticing because her transcript is all A's as opposed to Jim's B's. Kara gets accepted. On top of that, laziness is just a bad attribute period...not a good work ethic. How are you going to survive in the big scary world where everyone is so competitive and always trying to outdo each other? you're not going to be employed for long if your boss asks you to do something and you only apply yourself minimally, with the least amount of effort possible. So yeah, that's what Thoreau means.
Essentially, Thoreau argues that the outcomes of a working process is much more gratifying when the process is fully undergone rather than cheated or curtailed. Let's say for example, we have two students, Bob and Gina. Bob has a cheat sheet on a test and he studies that for the entire night. Gina on the other hand studies the study sheet the exam and she really puts an effort. When they get their test back, they have the same score but Gina feels much better about her score because she earned it. This example ties back to the quote above. When you endure a hard life, relaxation will be enhanced opposed to a lazy work who finds the easy way out. I still think Thoreau is a phony and this book symbolizes his life in a different way besides the one that he is currently perceived as.
ReplyDeleteSorry about that, this is the proper blog.
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