unlike david remnick

people are still hitting me with that new yorker thoreau pond scum thing by kathryn schulz. actually i wasn't going to say a damn thing. but here's what i do want to say: finally, someone noticed! no henry david thoreau was not a socialist. no he was not a collectivist. no he was not a 'liberal' or a 'progressive': those empty categories had not yet been invented. his politics were actually precisely the opposite of david remnick's; for hdt was not a raving statist nor a slightly-camouflaged authoritarian elitist mediocrity. also, unlike david remnick, he had his own politics and wasn't just chanting slogans in unison with his demographic. i want the new yorker, and everyone else, to realize that henry david thoreau would have utterly despised the politics, the prose, the culture, and probably the layout of the new yorker. oh yes, he was sort of a prickly eccentric asshole at times, though also quite beloved. anyway, i actually think kathryn schulz has a pretty accurate view of henry david thoreau. what really must gall in that context: what he said was true, and he wrote it beautifully. kathryn schulz has problems along both these lines overall, but does get hdt pretty right.