I understand your point. However, if someone who has smoked for 30 years and is dying of lung cancer advises you not to smoke do you dismiss them, call them a hypocrite, and then start smoking?
Maybe this is a separate the art from the artist argument.
Someone recently criticized me for liking an old 70s Cat Stevens song. They pointed out Cat Stevens’ comments about Salman Rushdie
I not going to stop liking songs or movies or books simply because 20 years or more after they were created the artist gets canceled for saying or doing something stupid.
I like Walden and its message and just find it odd that people get in a fevered frenzy to call others a hypocrite.
I think you have a reading comprehension problem. The smoking/cancer analogy was not a comparison. It was used to state that you should not dismiss good advice simply because you think someone is a hypocrite.
| exploiting and completely depending on others’ labour
Ralph Waldo Emerson was Thoreau’s friend and he allowed him to stay on his land. How exactly is that exploitation? When your friend does you a favor or lends you something that in your mind is exploitation?
My guess is that you have never read “Walden” or “Civil Disobedience” or “Life Without Principle”.