Have you ever thought that who you are as a person is determined in part by the government you live under? Political philosophers have been considering such a possibility going all the way back to the early Greeks. Government shapes us either by engaging and empowering us through participation or by assuming all power unto itself and leaving us to go our separate ways alone and isolated.
Walden Pond, an icon of the environmental movement, was the retreat and experiment in simple living of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), but it is often used for self-promotion by those who neither understand, nor care about our planet. Thoreau believed man’s stewardship of the environment was necessary to the enrichment of his spirit, not his bank account; and, since he spent $28.11 to build his simple cabin by Walden Pond, his was a very different kind of economy.
