Thoreau's Democratic Withdrawal: Alienation, Participation, and Modernity (Studies in American Thought and Culture)

222 Pages·2010·0.97 MB·English

by  Shannon L. Mariotti

xiv E Preface
Robert Putnam, for example, worries about the health of a democracy
where citizens have relinquished political participation, retreating from public
life into a privatized existence in front of the television.5 While for Putnam,
Americans today are “bowling alone,” for Robert Dahl they have gone shop-
ping, abandoning a culture of citizenship in favor of a culture of consumerism.
To work against rising political inequality and a weakening of democracy, Dahl
calls for Americans to reject the prevalent “competitive consumerism” and de-
vote more time and energy to civic activities.6Robert Bellah and Michael San-
del make similar claims regarding the need for greater public-spiritedness and
community-mindedness. In Habits of the Heart,Bellah et al. chart the negative
side effects of the individual pursuit of happiness and call for greater commit-
ment to the community to ameliorate the rise of an autonomous yet alienated
individualism in modern American society.7Sandel’s “public philosophy” em-
phasizes the insufficiencies of the liberal focus on the atomistic, unencumbered
individual and calls for a return to the principles of republicanism, calling on
Americans to be more community-oriented and civic-minded in their decision-
making.8In all these formulations, despite their differences, democracy is de-
fined in terms of public participation and democratic vitality is associated with
coming together in shared social and political spaces.
Jürgen Habermas and later generations of deliberative democrats also em-
phasize engagement in the public sphere, consensus-building, and intersubjec-
tive deliberation. Employing a definition that has widespread support today,
Habermasinsists“ontheoriginalmeaningof democracyintermsof thein-
stitutionalization of a public use of reason jointly exercised by autonomous
citizens.”9Habermas sees intersubjective communication as the best response
to the “alienation phenomena” that stem from the “colonization of the life-
world,” to use his terminology.10Later generations of deliberative democratic
theorists pursue valuable variations on this theme, placing more emphasis on
ensuring presupposed substantive rights, on strengthening collective action, or
shifting and de-centering the location of the public sphere.
But the tendency to define democracy in terms of publicity and participa-
tion does not just characterize civic republican and deliberative democratic
theories, though it may be most directly advocated there. It is also represented
in more radical understandings of democracy. For Sheldon Wolin, for example,
democracy is not an institution, political system, or form of government: in-
stead, he characterizes it as “a mode of being.” He sees democracy as a rebel-
lious moment, as “a political moment, perhaps the political moment, when the
political is remembered and re-created.”11But what is the space for such a mo-
ment? Where does it occur, and with whom? For Wolin, “the political” is “an
Preface E xv
expression of the idea that a free society composed of diversities that can none-
theless enjoy moments of commonality when, through public deliberations,
collective power is used to promote or protect the well-being of the collectiv-
ity.”12The political is imagined as a shared, common space where we engage
with each other, even if the definition of democracy is de-institutionalized.13
If deliberative democratic theories oriented toward reconciliation and
building consensus make up one major strand of contemporary theorizing
about democracy, the opposing camp might be agonistic pluralism. In Greek
antiquity, the agonwas a public celebration of contests at games; it also denotes
a verbal dispute between two characters in a Greek play.14The image of the
agon as a public celebration of contest lives on in these theories: difference, con-
flict, and pluralism are seen as markers of democratic vitality.15For example,
Bonnie Honig is critical of the ways that republican, liberal, and communitar-
ian theories tend to “displace” politics: instead of confronting the inevitable re-
mainder that arises from every attempt to secure order and settlement, most
political theories define success in terms of eliminating “dissonance, resistance,
conflict, or struggle” and seek to expel, deny, or assimilate difference.16Those
who displace politics in these ways are charged with “closing down the agon”
while for Honig democratic politics is about opening up unstable, uncertain,
contentious spaces for the public, popular contestation of difference.17She de-
fines democratic vitality in terms of “the tumult of politics,” “activism,” “polit-
ical contest,” and “social democratic struggle.”18
Difference is an inevitable part of our own identities, as well as our relation-
ships with each other: it is both “intrasubjective and intersubjective,” as William
Connolly puts it.19But for Connolly, the two are linked: the politics of personal
identitymakesusrethinkourdemocraticpolitics.Wemustcultivateanethos
of critical responsiveness, because “affirming” the relational, constructed, and
collective character of identity, can “make a difference to the ethical quality
of political life,” understood in terms of our collective life together. Ultimately,
difference serves to revitalize, energize, and engender robust public contesta-
tions, opening “political spaces for agonistic relations of mutual respect” “be-
tween interlocking and contending constituencies.”20
These agonistic theories, in their emphasis on the political value of disso-
nance, destabilization, rupture, and a kind of uprooting homelessness, share
valuable common ground with Thoreau’s and Adorno’s critical practices. And
yet, even agonistic theories of democracy cannot fully capture the political
practices of withdrawal that both Thoreau and Adorno see as so valuable to a
democracy. Agonistic theories also tend to measure democratic politics in
terms of the vitality and robustness of our engagements with each other: the
xvi E Preface
kinds of interactions that define democratic politics are still likely to be collec-
tive, public, and participatory. The image of the agonas a public celebration of
contest is still evident in these theories in ways that render Thoreau’s and
Adorno’s practices of withdrawal less visible at best and pathological at worst.
Thus despite their many differences, all of the theories discussed in the pre-
ceding paragraphs—from civic republicans to agonistic theorists—place pa-
rameters around democratic politics in ways that tend to exclude Thoreau’s
and Adorno’s practices of withdrawal; consequently, the dominant frameworks
of contemporary democratic theory do not go very far in helping us recognize
and comprehend the unique politics of Thoreau and Adorno.21When we limit
our definition of democratic politics to public spaces where we engage in col-
lective action in common, we render any politics that occurs in spaces of with-
drawal by definitionundemocratic, unrecognizable, or even dangerous and path-
ological. When we reckon withdrawal only in terms of apolitical apathy, there
is also a danger that we may too readily become cheerleaders for anything that
seems to draw people together in a public space. Fearing apathy, we may tend
to become uncritical proponents of participation. We may fail to see how some
forms of political engagement do not serve genuinely democratic purposes,
failing also to appreciate how some forms of withdrawal may in fact be valu-
able to democratic politics. In addition, we will be likely to misunderstand at-
tempts to expand the parameters of the political beyond its usual participatory,
public, shared boundaries.
Dana Villa’s Socratic Citizenship shares this concern with the tendency to
equate participation and civic engagement with citizenship as such: further,
there are important sympathies (as well as significant differences) between the
dissident, subversive, critical mode of philosophical inquiry he calls “Socratic
citizenship” and the democratic politics of withdrawal that I find in Thoreau’s
and Adorno’swork(whichIdiscussfurtherinthenextchapter).22Butasbothof
ourstudiesshow,givenconventionalnotionsof politics,anypoliticalpractices
thathappeninspacesof withdrawalseemespeciallyfragile,pronetobeinglost,
forgotten,misunderstood,andmaligned.Thesepracticesmustberemembered
aspossibilities,aspotentials,overandoveragain.BobPeppermanTaylorsays
“Thoreauis,onthewhole,thepoliticalthinkerscholarsof Americanpolitical
thought love to ignore or hate.”23 We might say the same about practices of
withdrawal:theytendtobeignoredorhated,whichmightaccountinnosmall
partforhowThoreauandAdornohaveoftenbeenreceivedbystudentsof pol-
itics.Thisprojectseeksneithertochampionpoliticalapathynortocriticizeall
formsof publicengagement.Idonotwanttoidealizewithdrawal,butinstead
toshineaspotlightonthedemocraticpoliticsof withdrawal we see in the work
Preface E xvii
of Thoreau and Adorno and show how withdrawal need not necessarily be
equated with apolitical apathy. As long as we rely on an understanding of dem-
ocratic politics that privileges collective engagements in public spaces, we will
obscure the unique and valuable politics of withdrawal that exists in the work
of Thoreau and Adorno. To withdraw typically means to pull back, to retire,
recede, quit, and disengage. But Thoreau and Adorno withdraw from public
spaces, in fact, to engage in an alternative form of democratic politics. Nega-
tive dialectics, walking, and huckleberrying instantiate, perform, and enact the
critical negation that democracy depends upon and is defined by. And yet, for
both Thoreau and Adorno, the power of conventional ways of thinking is so
strong that they must withdraw from mainstream society to see the nonidenti-
cal and wild qualities of particular objects that hold the potential for broader
social critiques.
These practices are not just pathways to a new kind of politics. They are
not just tools to make eventual changes in conventional politics, though they
hopefully also have this effect. Their practices of critical negation are not pre-
requisites to get under our belts beforewe rejoin the polity to engage in conven-
tional politics. In their practices of withdrawal, Thoreau and Adorno are not
putting politics on hold until a future moment where it becomes possible to en-
gage in politics as it is more commonly understood. Negative dialectics, walk-
ing, or huckleberrying are immanent: they enact a democratic politics by their
very practice. Without citizens who possess the capacity for critique, a democ-
racy exists in name only. Without the capacity to think against conventions, to
break apart logics that seem smooth and harmonious at a distance, to see par-
ticularity instead of just identity, the individual is little more than a machine
made up of moving parts, a powerful image of modern alienation for both
Thoreau and Adorno.
If we wonder how this kind of coercive power can exist even in a democ-
racy, Alexis de Tocqueville reminds us that it exists especially in such govern-
ments. Tocqueville describes the “tyranny of the majority” as a peculiar danger
of democracies because their emphasis on equality and popular sovereignty
can lead to an unthinking and unquestioning allegiance to the power of the
majority, to popular opinion. Multiplicity and individuality are eclipsed by con-
formity with the majority. Tocqueville says “I know of no country where there
is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in
America.” In American democracy, “the majority has staked out a formidable
fence around thought.” Tyranny is not a euphemism, here. The tendency in
American democracy that Tocqueville describes acts violently, but not upon
the body: “Princes had, so to speak, turned violence into a physical thing but
xviii E Preface
our democratic republics have made it into something as intellectual as the
human will it intends to restrict. Under the absolute government of one man,
despotism, in order to attack the spirit, crudely struck the body and the spirit
escaped free of its blows, rising gloriously above it. But in democratic republics,
tyranny does not behave in that manner; it leaves the body alone and goes
straight to the spirit.”24
In a passage that sounds eerily as if Foucault might have written it, Tocque-
ville describes the internalization of the power of the majority. This tyranny
acts on our intellect and our spirit, shaping the ways we think and act. The ma-
jority is sovereign and all-powerful, like a king who cannot be opposed, but it
operates inside us. Fortunately, for Tocqueville, Americans possess a unique en-
thusiasm for assembling, for associating, for practicing politics in their daily
lives, all of which also keeps this tyranny in check. But for Thoreau and
Adorno, there is no such safeguard. The individual is too easily lost to the col-
lective in public political practices. This is a problem that Adorno identifies in
Nazism, but which also persists in democracies: he did not think he left the
roots of fascism behind when he moved to Los Angeles.
For these reasons, Thoreau and Adorno give us a valuable language for ar-
ticulating the political value of withdrawal itself.25They give us compelling rea-
sons to hesitate, to refrain from uncritically accepting the imperatives of con-
temporary democratic theory, cautioning us against automatically equating
participation and publicity with democratic politics as such.How can morepar-
ticipation and engagement help when the thinking individual is so easily lost to
the collective and conventional ways of thinking? If we define democracy only
in terms of intersubjective action in a public sphere, we cannot see the political
value of their practices. Given historical forces of alienation, Thoreau and
Adorno call for a more expanded notion of the political that extends beyond
engagement in a public space. Given modern conditions, we must cultivate re-
sistance to alienation via different methods: these thinkers show how withdraw-
ing and distancing oneself from intersubjective encounters and contestations in
the public, shared spaces usually associated with democratic politics can itself
be democratically valuable. In this way, Thoreau and Adorno help us recover a
previously denigrated space for democratic politics and help us reclaim a previ-
ously neglected mode of democratic practice.
Thoreau’s Democratic Withdrawal

Introduction
Reading Thoreau with Adorno
E
Pursuing Thoreau’s politics can be as frustrating and maddening as chasing
a loon—or a white whale; he was a grand apolitical, political-like man who
resists tidy summations.
Michael Myers
Thoreau as a political theorist is a remarkably apolitical writer.
Philip Abbott
Thoreau is, on the whole, the political thinker scholars of American politi-
cal thought love to ignore or hate.
Bob Pepperman Taylor
E
Thoreau and Democratic Politics
Historically,HenryDavidThoreauhasbeenaproblematicfigureforstudents
of politics.1 At best, he has been read as a marginal member of the political
theorycanonknownforthestingingcritiquesof Americanpoliticsweseein
hisessayoncivildisobedience.Atworst,Thoreauhasbeenmalignedasamis-
anthropic and excessively withdrawn hermit with nothing but scorn for con-
ventionalpolitics:afterall,hewrote“mythoughtsaremurdertothestateand
3
4 E Introduction
involuntarily go plotting against her.”2Furthermore, the book for which he is
most famous, Walden,has often been regarded as nature writing, with little to
contribute to political theory. In general, students of politics have found it diffi-
cult to reconcile this “hermit of Walden Pond” with our dominant understand-
ing of democratic politics as a public, participatory, collective endeavor: how
can Thoreau, who withdraws away from Main Street, into the woods and
huckleberry fields, be conceived of as a political thinker? This question cap-
tures the conflict between our predominant images of Thoreau (often melan-
choly and misanthropic, a passive dissenter, withdrawing into nature) and our
most powerful images of politics (a public, intersubjective realm of positive ac-
tion, based on engagement and participation).
Given this conflict, those who wish to redeem Thoreau as a political thinker
typically downplay his solitary withdrawals into nature and his pessimistic atti-
tude toward society. More emphasis is placed on his active engagement and
public participation in Concord life or his moments of fulfillment and creation.
Within this broad category, scholars differ greatly on how Thoreau’s politics are
manifested. But overall, those who wish to make a case for the political signifi-
cance of Thoreau’s work tend to emphasize his participatory, public, positive,
and creative sides; we are presented with images of Thoreau speaking at the ly-
ceums, giving advice, spectacularly performing his conscience, and creatively
engaging in self-culture.
For example, Mary Elkin Moller writes a corrective to what she perceives as
a misleading overemphasis on the image of Thoreau as “the hermit of Walden
Woods”; instead, she reads Thoreau as primarily a warm friend, neighbor, and
member of the human community whose misanthropic moments simply reveal
disappointed desires for more authentic relationships.3 For Bob Pepperman
Taylor, Thoreau is a bachelor uncle, giving political advice to future genera-
tions of Americans to help them better recognize the gulf between their ideals
and practices.4George Kateb calls Thoreau a “democratic individualist” who
can dissent and negate because he has been positively shaped by the ideals of
the American electoral system.5For Jack Turner, Thoreau’s politics is captured
in his performance of conscience, aesthetically, creatively, spectacularly, and
theatrically in public civic spaces (town halls, town squares, the free press) to
inspireethicalactioninothers.6JaneBennettfocusesonadifferentkindof pos-
itive, creative moment: charting Thoreau’s postmodern sensibility, she sees
Thoreauasanartist,asculptorengagedintechniquesof self-fashioningand
self-creationaimedtowardcultivatingaheteroversesensibilitythatbetteren-
ables us to resist the conformist world of “the They” and be open to “the
Wild.”7BrianWalkeralsoemphasizescreativeself-culture:forhim,Thoreauis