Thoreau the jerk

In that [simplified and inspirational] image, Thoreau is our national conscience: the voice in the American wilderness, urging us to be true to ourselves and to live in harmony with nature.

This vision cannot survive any serious reading of "Walden." The real Thoreau was, in the fullest sense of the word, self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control, adamant that he required nothing beyond himself to understand and thrive in the world. From that inward fixation flowed a social and political vision that is deeply unsettling.

Kathryn Schulz, "Pond Scum: Henry David Thoreau's Moral Myopia," New Yorker, Oct. 19, 2015, p. 40