... in pity and disgust, but not without some sympathy. Thoreau, by contrast, takes a completely different approach, challenging the reader not to conform but to rebel. "But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What ... work that person will have to do to earn that money back to get out of debt, which allows that person to have more time to do what he or she enjoys most. Thoreau also mocks those who spend their youth m...

• Word Count: 3576
• Approx Pages: 14
• Grade Level: High School

... was exemplified by Henry David Thoreau and his writings, particularly his work as a social philosopher in the 1840s and 1850s. Thoreau was a genuine social deviant, disenchanted by the growing industrial machine of commerce and its constructions. He believed that the typical American was not the individualist, but rather the conformist. He completely rejected this developing consumerist society, instead spending much of his lifetime outdoors in nature ... any time what I think right a corporation has no conscience" (Thoreau, qtd. in Parker and Krupat 1793). Thoreau also emphasizes the r...

• Word Count: 789
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate