I just read Paul's post 4 below and I agree with what he is saying about fear. So what do we do? Consciousness is the first step--we become aware of our fear. Then we are faced with what can be a difficult choice: how to respond?
Here are my observations on the Thoreau piece. I found it difficult to separate what is valuable in it from what isn't. In parts he seems to be constructing a mythology out of other mythology. So what results? Well, more mythology. But why?
There is an Orwellian line on page 184. Thoreau says: "...the farmer displaces the Indian..." Farmers and Indians are not inert bodies that displace each other, like when you place some mass in a container of water and the water gets displaced. Thoreau must have known that the farmers and Indians came into conflict and then we know what happened, and so did he. So Thoreau is using language to mask the facts, just as Orwell said about the English language.
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