How does Henry David Thoreau respond to people's interest in the news in the excerpt below from "Where I Lived and What I Lived For?
Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and
asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions
to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose, and then, to pay for it, they tell
what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. "Pray
tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe" and he reads it over
his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River,
never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and
has but the rudiment of an eye himself
He mocks the news and the people who obsess over it, implying that they are blind to
life and reality because of their news obsession
He is saddened by the people's interest in gossip and tragedy rather than "real" news
from around the world.
He doesn't believe that people are truly listening to the news and understand its
importance
He states that the news is leading to many deaths