On Modern Improvements- Henry David Thoreau

Here’s Henry David Thoreau on modern improvements.

As with our colleges, so with a hundred “modern improvements”; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly.

He could be talking about twitter, blogging and the internet. I love the slightly haughty tone where he says “but Maine & Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate”.

I’d rather have periods of quiet where I don’t say anything important than post fifteen or twenty posts a day which are rubbish.

With rubbish in mind, you can check out my twitter feed for more regular updates.

www.twitter.com/benjaminbrum

Hello world!

Welcome to my newly relocated blog.

I used to be over here and I’m slowly going to republish old blog posts from there & populate here with new posts.

Look forward to making use of all the wonderful things I’ve heard about wordpress.

Justice

Also from a very very old Greenbelt blog post and has been a little reworked.

The question of justice is a perplexing one. We’re born. We die. We object to major injustices- poverty, slavery etc but every day we allow little injustices. We allow inequality of genders; we allow homophobia to breed and walk by the homeless. In some spheres the rules of the game of life are unfairly weighted in one group’s favour- some would argue that politics are to blame. When politics goes wrong it has the potential to produce more than just bad government- it can be a living nightmare. (We’ve seen that proved throughout the 20th and the start of the 21st centuries)

It makes me angry that there are all kinds of injustices around the world. It’s easy to take a stand on an injustice if there’s no risk involved; no sacrifice. It’s easy to give a pound to someone who’s homeless but keep a few quid so you can buy a bagel and a coffee on the way home. My anger becomes energy; it’s a force for change. There are things for which an uncompromising stand is worth. These injustices motivate us to do something, to take risks, knowing if we don’t, things will remain the same.