How Henry David Thoreau Looks at Our Lives Today -
This short film takes a revealing look into our own lives. Short excerpts from Walden are juxtaposed with amazing visions of modern society -- the vivid dreams and hollow fixtures of television-driven culture, Edward Bernays' manipulated consumer world, built on advertising, propaganda, constant entertainment, cheap credit, perpetual debt and escapist illusions -- all predicted by Henry David Thoreau in the mid-1800s, experimenting with life in the woods.
"Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?" Thoreau asks.
The American Dream is exposed as a Ponzi scheme based upon public facades and false images of success. As Thoreau rightly points out, men have become the tools of their tools, and have forgotten their higher purpose. Concentrated urban life, driven by technology, has replaced natural scenery; houses, cars, decorations, ornaments and possessions entrap their owners and reduce them to mere cogs in the system. Modern slavery continues in foreign factories shipping baubles to global destinations, where the latest fashions and distractions please busy 9-to-5 worker bees unaware of any larger purpose, without any sense of destiny.
"The false society of men —
— for earthly greatness
All heavenly comforts rarefies to air."
Melissa Melton reads key passages from the Thoreau's Walden, in the first chapter on Economy.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc_ReTBxOR8