Individualism In Emerson And Thoreau Essay Research

Individualism In Emerson And Thoreau Essay, Research Paper

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are considered two of the most influential and inspiring transcendentalist writers of their time. Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was a lecturer, essayist, and poet, was born on May 25, 1803, and is generally considered the father of American transcendentalism , .a philosophy that rejects the idea that knowledge can be fully derived from experience and observation; rather, truth resides in the spiritual world.. Henry David Thoreau is his student, who was also a great essayist and critics.Both men extensively studied and embraced nature, and both men encouraged and practiced individualism and nonconformity.

In Ralph Waldo Emerson.s essay .Self Reliance. and Henry David Thoreau.s essay .Resistance to Civil Government (.Civil Disobedience.), both transcendentalist thinkers speak about being individual and what reforms and changes need to be made in society.

Ralph Waldo Emerson and his disciple, Henry David Thoreau, who were individualists, attacked the dominant religious, political, and cultural values of American society in order to make people aware that they are more important than everything, including government and society. According to Emerson, society is a barrier against the individuality of its members; and he continued:

Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity.

The solution, for Emerson, is self-reliance, meaning that man is only responsible for his own life and he shouldn.t be too enveloped in society, which is one of the main principles of Transcendentalism. The other principle is individualism, which was expressed in Thoreau.s .Civil Disobedience.:

I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

And in .Self Reliance. by Emerson: .To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius..

Thoreau was Emerson.s student, he stayed with him for a while and was affected by his ideas, especially concerning with individual and society. Emerson.s idea that in society the heart and power of man is drawn out and ignored, which makes people afraid of expressing their own ideas as well as being afraid of truth, led Thoreau to think that:

Everyone has an obligation to himself and himself, alone. Too many people in society conform to what the government says is right and moral, when the true meaning of right or moral comes from what each individual holds to be what is right. To become a true individual is to make every decision based upon your own personal belief of its morality, no matter what society says, and to act upon your belief accordingly.

The common idea in Emerson.s .Self reliance. and Thoreau.s .Civil Disobedience. is the fact that in order to be an individual one must be a non-conformist: .Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.. says Emerson and adds:

He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

Emerson.s insistence on being an individual and finding the truth within yourself is astonishing. He says: .”Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Thoreau followed the same way, as well; but he chose the government as a target and pointed it as a hinder on the way of being a man, as it makes people machines which are programmed to serve for the government: .The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.. Thoreau tended to attack the government as an entity that promoted conformity and that people used to alleviate their own moral obligations. Emerson tended to promote individualism in thought and action, and promote the idea that individualism allowed one to survive in a changing society.

Although Emerson and Thoreau were appreciated by many people -especially the transcendentalists such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, and Robert Frost, and famous political leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King,Jr-, there were several criticisms on their doctrine of individualism and non-conformity. It is very surprising to find a passage which claims that Emerson and Thoreau were not individualists on the internet site of individualists:

On the surface, Emerson and Thoreau appear to have been model individualists. But underneath the surface, the their philosophy was rooted in anti-individualist religious doctrines.

Also the statement goes on:

It is ironic that, in encouraging individuals to break away from social norms, Emerson and Thoreau also urged individuals to mindlessly obey the will of a supposed God. If Emerson had made the relationship between conformity and nonconformity in his philosophy explicit, he might have said, “Whoso would be a nonconfo

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