Deep Ecological Thoughts Contained In Thoreau's Walden

The world we live in has been around for an estimated hundreds of billions of years, and has supported even more different species. As long as humans have been around, so has the relationship between human beings and nature. For the majority of that time, this relationship has been a very good one. Not until the mid-20th century, however, has the civilization really started to become a larger and larger problem for the future environment. Worries of a lack of resources, of a decreasing number of species, of a booming human population, and of an overall place to live have been great concerns in the highly destructive civilization which we live when the world's population was doubling, then tripling; when Cold War nuclear annihilation threatened; when water and air pollution, toxic wastes, deforestation, species extinction, global warming, urban sprawl were becoming worldwide issues; and when"The Year of the Environment"or"The Decade of the Environment"was being regularly proclaimed by the media.For thousands of years, Western culture has become increasingly obsessed with the idea of dominance: with dominance of humans over nonhuman nature, masculine over the feminine, wealthy and powerful over the poor, with the dominance of the West over non-Western cultures.The dominance of humans over nonhuman nature is called anthropocentrism. The idea of"nature is created for the sake of humans"has been widely accepted in the west. With the deterioration of environment, some philosophical ideas turn up, among which, deep ecology is an important one. Anthropocentrism emphasizes the superiority of humans over other beings, while deep ecology calls for the equality among all the beings within the ecosphere. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is the 19th century American transcendentalist, writer and the pioneer of modern environmentalism. His name is almost synonymous with nature because he has devoted his entire life into observing and studying nature and written many literary works recording his ideas on man-nature relationship. The lesson he had taught himself, and which he tried to teach others, was summed up in the one word"simplicity". That meant simplify the outward circumstances of your life, simplify your needs, learn to delight in the simple pleasures which the world of nature affords. He loved nature from his bottom heart. And unlike most who advocate such attitudes, he put them into practice. He lived in Walden for more than two years to be with nature. Seeing people's merciless damages to Walden Pond, the animals and plants, he was painful and he bitterly denounced human's evil. He thought human being is just a tiny part of the whole ecosystem. Human being and nature should co-exist harmoniously. Only when we initiatively improve our relationship with the nature, stop the plunder and ravage to the nature, treat everything in the nature equally, love the earth heartedly, can we be forgiven by the nature, can we get along harmonically again with the nature. Another important point is that, besides the improvement of human and nature's relationship, only the realization of ecological justice, ecological responsibility and peaceful cooperation inside our human society can ensure the harmony of the whole ecosystem.