Diogenes+&+Thoreau



Thoreau, the writer of //Walden//, was very big on showing society how blatantly silly some of the ideals of people in modern day truly are. For example here are some from //Walden// :

“The old have no very important advice to give the young…I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors… One farmer says to e, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with”; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.”

Diogenes Diogenes was a Grecian philosopher in the BC times who also liked to show the idiocy of people in his time. For example one time when Plato gave Socrate’s definition of a man was a featherless biped. After hearing that Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it to Plato saying, “Behold! I have brought you a man”. Plato’s definition was then changed to “a featherless biped with flat broad nails”. Diogenes felt that men were scoundrels and he thought that abstract philosophy was stupid. He did not respect the authoritative figures of his time.