Walden e sua visão holista da natureza : uma obra precursora do pensamento ambiental contemporâneo

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to discuss Walden and his holistic approach to nature, underlining this historical and environmental reference and its importance as a precursor of the contemporary environmental thought. Walden tries to recreate the bond between man, science and nature, a goal yearned not only by Thoreau or his romantic contemporaries of the 19th century, but also by the Environmental Science, which tries to balance man interests with a protected and preserved environment. Sometimes this hard task may be understood as a purely technocratic environmental action, when man necessities are not taken account of, or as a purely anthropocentric action when the environment is not adequately considered. Thoreau reaches, to perfection, the balance between these extremes through his view of nature in Walden, which is based on the indivisibility of man and nature, through the breaking of the scientific , spiritual and social/anthropologic conventions (which means the breaking with the purely anthropocentric and rational view). In other words, Walden brings back the mythology, native traditions and primitive cultures, and mainly the individualist, centre of the thoreaunian discussions about nature, and the main subject of this work. The individualist is the one who breaks with the social and economic conventions and searches a new concept of work and consumption, he still represents what is most new in a truly holistic nature view, as nature and man are one .