Summary
Etzler's book is technological utopianism taken to amazing extremes. Etzler believed that the technology of his time was adequate, if astutely applied, to usher in a paradise on earth in which nobody would need to toil, all needs would be provided, and the earth would be transformed into palaces and gardens. He just needed about ten years and some start-up financing; the blueprints were already written up.
Thoreau's review includes several lengthy excerpts from Etzler's book that give a good feel for its contents and its bombast. To a large extent, Thoreau lets the book review itself through these demonstrative excerpts, only occasionally stopping to advance a minor technical quibble against a grandiose technological extrapolation or to experiment with going even further out on Etzler's limb.
Thoreau sees Etzler's mad utopian dreams as being something like the unstated and unconscious wishes of the more moderate and practical technological utopians of his time –the trajectory wished for (but never out loud) by the Industrial Revolutionaries and scientists and reformers: "Let us not succumb to nature. We will marshal the clouds and restrain tempests; we will bottle up pestilent exhalations; we will probe for earthquakes, grub them up, and give vent to the dangerous gas; we will disembowel the volcano, and extract its poison, take its seed out." And why stop there?
We will wash water, and warm fire, and cool ice, and underprop the earth. We will teach birds to fly, and fishes to swim, and ruminants to chew the cud. It is time we had looked into these things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson had recommended Etzler's book to Thoreau and suggested that he write the review. Emerson himself had been impressed enough by Etzler's technological prescience to worry about whether the vast energy and machinery of the future would make the working class obsolete and endangered.
As Thoreau sees it (once he gets the review behind him and starts letting his own philosophy take center stage) the problem is not that we have not applied sufficient energy and technology to put our great schemes into action, but that we have not energetically applied ourselves to improve our schemes. Etzler would have a person harness the wind, waves, sun, and moon who hasn't even developed self-control.
Thus is Paradise to be Regained, and that old and stern decree at length reversed. Man shall no more earn his living by the sweat of his brow. All labor shall be reduced to "a short turn of some crank," and "taking the finished article away." But there is a crank, –oh, how hard to be turned! Could there not be a crank upon a crank, –an infinitely small crank? –we would fain inquire. No, –alas! not. But there is a certain divine energy in every man, but sparingly employed as yet, which may be called the crank within, –the crank after all, –the prime mover in all machinery, –quite indispensable to all work. Would that we might get our hands on its handle!
Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a plant-based diet. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
A utopia typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the New World. However, it may also denote an intentional community. In common parlance, the word or its adjectival form may be used synonymously with "impossible", "far-fetched" or "deluded".
Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.
Walden Two is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, first published in 1948. In its time, it could have been considered science fiction, since science-based methods for altering people's behavior did not yet exist. Such methods are now known as applied behavior analysis.
Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. Though it was first published in 1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and rewriting Leaves of Grass, revising it multiple times until his death. There have been held to be either six or nine individual editions of Leaves of Grass, the count varying depending on how they are distinguished. This resulted in vastly different editions over four decades—the first edition being a small book of twelve poems, and the last, a compilation of over 400.
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the New England region of the United States. A core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. Transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in the everyday, rather than believing in a distant heaven. Transcendentalists saw physical and spiritual phenomena as part of dynamic processes rather than discrete entities.
Walden is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance.
Looking Backward: 2000–1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a journalist and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first published in 1888.
Nature is a book-length essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published by James Munroe and Company in 1836. In the essay Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, a belief system that espouses a non-traditional appreciation of nature. Transcendentalism suggests that the divine, or God, suffuses nature, and suggests that reality can be understood by studying nature. Emerson's visit to the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris inspired a set of lectures he later delivered in Boston which were then published.
"The Poet" is an essay by U.S. writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, written between 1841 and 1843 and published in his Essays: Second Series in 1844. It is not about "men of poetical talents, or of industry and skill in meter, but of the true poet." Emerson begins the essay with the premise that man is naturally incomplete, since he "is only half himself, the other half is his expression."
Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism.
Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.
Loren Eiseley was an American anthropologist, educator, philosopher, and natural science writer, who taught and published books from the 1950s through the 1970s. He received many honorary degrees and was a fellow of multiple professional societies. At his death, he was Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Old Manse is a historic manse in Concord, Massachusetts, United States, notable for its literary associations. It is open to the public as a nonprofit museum owned and operated by the Trustees of Reservations. The house is located on Monument Street, with the Concord River just behind it. The property neighbors the North Bridge, a part of Minute Man National Historical Park.
John Adolphus Etzler (1791–1846?) was a German engineer and inventor who immigrated to the United States in 1831 with a vision of creating a technological utopia. He was traveling with a group from Prussia, who included younger engineers John A. Roebling and his brother Carl.
Reform and the Reformers is an essay written by Henry David Thoreau. The essay was never published in his lifetime, and has been cobbled together from existing lecture notes that Thoreau himself picked over for his other writings, such as Walden and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.
Karl Marx wrote a number of notebooks on the history of technology which so far remain unpublished in English. Their whereabouts were for a long time unknown but in the past they were read and discussed by Marxist researchers.
The New Man is a utopian concept that involves the creation of a new ideal human being or citizen replacing un-ideal human beings or citizens. The meaning of a New Man has widely varied and various alternatives have been suggested by a variety of religions and political ideologies.
A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers is an anthology of works by Henry David Thoreau, edited by his sister Sophia Thoreau and his friends William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was published in 1866, after Thoreau’s death, by Ticknor and Fields, the Boston firm that had published Walden.
