What does Thoreau think about the notion of improvement in antebellum in American society?

Thoreau 4.8 Document Review:1.Why did Thoreau believe that most people led lives of “quiet desperation”?

Washis experiment in simple living a response to that belief? They live quiet lives of desperation. Thoreau moved to the woods to live purposefully, to confront only the basic facts of life and see what they had to teach, and to see if he had really lived. Thoreau, in Walden, removes himself from society in order to survive on his own and become self-sufficient. He is on his own at Walden Pond, living and surviving on his own, but he never seems lonely. In reality, in his state of loneliness, he appears to be happy. The transcendental attempts of Thoreau to live a spiritually fulfilling life in nature influenced his attitude toward change. Thoreau was a transcendentalist, believing that truth only existed in the metaphysical realm and that the solution to people's problems was the free expression of emotions. Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist, proposed a simple way of life as the most rewarding of all. Thoreau discovers while living in and around a small cabin that when one is  

d. it gave farmers a way to organize for more political power