Thoreau belonged to an era when industrialization had reduced personal freedom. He believed that technological advancement had reduced man to a slave of tools and machinery. He believed that human life has been confined by rapid technological advancements. Thoreau also saw industrilization as a threat to nature.
"Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive."
Thoreau saw nature as a source of freedom.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
He believed that simplifying life by escaping society and embracing nature was a way for individuals to be closer to and understand God. He believed that nature provided an ideal model that a good society could be based on: just as nature treats all its creatures equally so should society.
"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail."
Thoreau’s negativity toward industrialization reflects his transcendentalist ideas. He advocates individualism, the connection between nature, God, and man, and the importance of simple living, which are some of the ideals that the transcendental era preached.
