American literature and transcendentalism

Transcendentalism

The Perversion of the American Dream

The oracle of transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his acetic companion and one-time roommate Henry David Thoreau (that's correct, when Thoreau got tired of sleeping in the forest, he moved in with Emerson and his family for a few weeks) both had a lot to say about man, nature, the nature of man, and the communion between nature and man, which if properly exploited can lead to great personal gain.

Emerson and Thoreau were great thinkers, philosophers, and purveyors of the English language and their work, although long-winded and at times tortuous, helped to define and shape the American dream. However, in recent years, their instructive thoughts and musings on certain tenets of the American dream, i.e. self-reliance, self-reflection, and critical thinking, have been subverted by 21st century avarice and greed. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate how many of the ideals Emerson and Thoreau stood for and preached, ideals that form the philosophy of transcendentalism and inform the American dream, have been replaced by a desire for materialistic wealth.

It can be argued that Thoreau and Emerson both saw the best in man. They both believed that man had great potential. But that potential had to be unlocked or cultivated. A man had to either retreat to nature to observe the wonderment of life (Thoreau) or engage in intellectual pursuits or meta-cognitive exercises (Emerson) to transcend his humble beginnings and low station in the world.

Consider this passage by Thoreau, "But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper… The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten." (Economy).

In this passage, Thoreau correctly pointed out that men have tried their best to distract themselves from the harsh realities of life. Instead of seeking a higher consciousness or awareness, they've elected to pursue something to make their mortal existence more tolerable, more palatable, more sufferable, while simultaneously making that other, higher existence, less prominent, less alluring, and less memorable. On one hand, man has always been aware of his own mortality, and through artistic expression and commercial endeavors he has always tried to conquer it. However, those traditional efforts to transcend one's mortality have only served to help make him forget it, not confront and embrace it. In part, what Thoreau has argued is that in order for a man to reach a higher state of consciousness, he must confront his mortality. He must fight the urge to become the tool of his tools. Instead, he must face death. And by doing so, he learns to truly live.

In terms of the modern American dream, the idea that one should embrace death is a foreign idea. Society today is filled with people who believe that "Greed is good," that materialistic wealth is the way to true happiness, that becoming a tool of one's tools is at the heart of the American dream. In their pursuit of this new-age American dream, these people attempt to cheat death, or trivialize its inevitability, or pretend that it does not impact the way in which they view the world. By doing so, they are lying to themselves. And as a result, they will not attain a higher state of consciousness.

It was Thoreau who said, "Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor" (Walden). In other words, those who derive their self-worth from their wallets are often living a life of vanity. Those who are austere, and humble about life's terminality, are enlightened (in biblical terms, blessed are the poor).

While Thoreau's American dream is one that involves an honest appraisal of man's plight on this earth and the steely rejection that salvation comes through materialistic fortune, Emerson's American dream requires an individual to be self-reliant and forward thinking. He wrote, "The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates… They [schools, colleges] look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates (American Scholar)."

By Emerson's standards, one achieves the American dream when he/she becomes extricated from institutional thinking, when he/she sees the unvarnished truth, when he/she creates a new vision for the future. Conspicuously absent from his version of the American dream is any notion of monetary possession. That is because the "active soul" does not require financial success to be activated. Rather, it requires a belief in the self (Sealts). A conviction that one has the power to not only hope for change, but precipitate it -- to create real change.

In today's society, the Emersonian "active soul" has been transmogrified to mean someone who makes money, i.e. Donald Trump. Trump is considered a genius because his vision creates financial wealth for him and his stockholders. Some would argue that he is self-reliant and forward thinking, however, he does not see absolute truth. He does not utter absolute truth. He manipulates the truth to conform to his agenda.

Emerson described men like Trump, who foolishly pursue money and power. "Men such as they are, very naturally seek money or power; and power because it is as good as money, -- the "spoils," so called, "of office." And why not? For they aspire to the highest, and this, in their sleep-walking, they dream is highest. Wake them, and they shall quit the false good, and leap to the true, and leave governments to clerks and desks. This revolution is to be wrought by the gradual domestication of the idea of Culture. The main enterprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the upbuilding of a man… The human mind cannot be enshrined in a person, who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, unboundable empire (American Scholar)."