Talk:Life Without Principle

Themes
An anonymous editor removed the entirety of the section summarizing the themes in the essay, and left the following comments in her/his page edits: I am suggesting that this HIGHLY interpretive section be deleted. First of all, these are not 'themes' so much as they are someone's reductive moralizing of Thoreau based on their own misreading and political views. Second, since when are we offering thematic interpretations on Wikipedia? P.S. -- I am the former editor of the Thoreau Society Bulletin, the quarterly publication of the Thoreau Society. I am a member of the Thoreau Society's editorial advisory committee. I am also a PhD candidate in English at UCLA and a research fellow at the American Antiquarian Society working on a dissertation about the Transcendentalists--so I think I have some authority here.

I am restoring that section, as I think an article about the essay ought to contain a summary of what the essay means to convey. I invite this editor to make improvements to that summary to correct the defects she or he has found there. Moorlock (talk) 01:26, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm several years late to the game here but, honestly, that section is awful. I would support its removal, especially now that someone has added more of a narrative attempt at summarizing the essay. --Midnightdreary (talk) 22:48, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Also late but I agree, it's a pretty terrible section. I'll remove it unless their is a consensus that disagrees. BogLogs (talk) 12:14, 24 November 2022 (UTC)