DWill wrote:

Thomas Hood wrote: Stevenson's reactions are, I believe, typical.... The hippie movement caused a great deal of suffering, and Thoreau is an easy target for revenge.

We're never going to get anywhere with this argument because of the difficulty of quantifying this "hatred." What one British critic says, at any rate, doesn't lend much support to "most hated man in America." The phrase also seems to assume a present tense for this hatred. But where do we see that?

I see it in persons and books. Perhaps I should be meeting your persons and reading your books. Hatred of Thoreau is what I have experienced. Lawrence's (uncorrected ) view is much kinder than what I have often encountered. In some colleges Thoreau is covered in Abnormal Psychology. Don't you remember the era of dropouts, communes, and campus takeovers? This isn't ancient history, and the animosity continues. One English instructor I knew was threaten with a "contributing to the deliquency of a minor" charge for teaching American Transcendentalism.

Robert Lewis Stevenson isn't just "one British critic." As people go, he was among the best and the brightess. I give him credit for saying what others felt but didn't have the guts to say.

Tom

Seems Thoreau had a different way of thinking than others . . . and why not? If that's how he really felt, he had as much right as anyone else to put his thoughts into words.

Suppose we all felt exactly the same way? What in the hell would we read?

Ha ha!

Thomas Hood wrote:

WildCityWoman wrote: Was the hippie movement all that bad? Once they got onto meditating with the Krishna's, they got off the drugs.

Carly, much of the hippie movement was destructive. They were "anti," remember. The lifestyle was impossible. As in any children's crusade, there were hundreds of thousands of casualities. You mention "Krishna." Perhaps you are unaware of the horrors of the Krishna Consciousness movement:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/krish ... hna21.html

The hippie and non-hippie conflict is as old as humanity.

Hippie:

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE

Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber-studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
-- Marlowe

Square:

[The nymph's reply to the shepherd]


If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,

WildCityWoman wrote:But Tom . . . how do you personally know that Krishna people are that bad? Because somebody wrote that they were?

My eldest daughter studied spirituality and meditation with the Krishna's for a long time - I visited the ashram, spent a few days there and truly enjoyed my stay.

Nobody pressured me for money, or ordered me out on the street to beg - I didn't notice that everybody was sleeping with each others spouses . . . none of the things that I'd 'heard' or 'read' about them showed themselves to me.

Maybe it's different with other groups . . . dunno'.

Yes, I know because some years ago there was an article about them on the 60 Minutes TV program. Google "ISKCON child abuse" if you'd like to know the details. Maybe things were a little more civilized in Canada, but I doubt it. When groups have too much power over members, sexual and financial abuse always occur.

I hope you will not reopen old wounds by questioning your daughter about this. If you would like more information:

http://www.surrealist.org/betrayalofthe ... views.html
Betrayal of the Spirit: My Life behind the Headlines of the Hare Krishna Movement
by Nori J. Muster, University of Illinois Press, 1997

Tom

Thomas Hood wrote:

WildCityWoman wrote:But Tom . . . how do you personally know that Krishna people are that bad? Because somebody wrote that they were?

My eldest daughter studied spirituality and meditation with the Krishna's for a long time - I visited the ashram, spent a few days there and truly enjoyed my stay.

Nobody pressured me for money, or ordered me out on the street to beg - I didn't notice that everybody was sleeping with each others spouses . . . none of the things that I'd 'heard' or 'read' about them showed themselves to me.

Maybe it's different with other groups . . . dunno'.

Yes, I know because some years ago there was an article about them on the 60 Minutes TV program. Google "ISKCON child abuse" if you'd like to know the details. Maybe things were a little more civilized in Canada, but I doubt it. When groups have too much power over members, sexual and financial abuse always occur.

I hope you will not reopen old wounds by questioning your daughter about this. If you would like more information:

http://www.surrealist.org/betrayalofthe ... views.html
Betrayal of the Spirit: My Life behind the Headlines of the Hare Krishna Movement
by Nori J. Muster, University of Illinois Press, 1997

Tom

My daughter was in her early 30's when she joined up with HK . . . she loves it . . . she has no wounds from Krishna . . .

She's moved off it now . . . but still, when she gets a chance, she takes her kids up to the 'farm'.

She's had her problems as a single mother, same as any other woman has -but she was never hurt by way of the Krishna movement. I always saw her at her best when she was with them, in fact.

Things are not always as they appear, Thomas.

WildCityWoman wrote:Things are not always as they appear, Thomas.

I agree, Carley. Sometimes they are better, and sometimes they are worse. May we find the wisdom to know the difference 

Tom

Thomas Hood wrote:

WildCityWoman wrote:Things are not always as they appear, Thomas.

I agree, Carley. Sometimes they are better, and sometimes they are worse. May we find the wisdom to know the difference 

Tom

Sounds good to me, Dude . . .

Hari Bol!