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Ralph Waldo Emerson's later "Self-Reliance" far more likely to be appealing to American college students today than his early "American Scholar"-ship
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Transcendentalist philosophy shifted and changed over the course of his life. Much as Emerson's idea that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds embraces the idea that contradiction is not something to be feared within the hearts and minds of human beings, nor that ideological consistency and doctrinal rigor is something to be aspired to, Emerson's ideas between "Self-Reliance" and "The American Scholar" show profound shifts in judgment, and what a human being and a thinker should aspire to be. There were, over the course of his life, many Emersons. However, the Emerson that is most likely to be amenable to the sensibilities of college students today is likely to be that of his later essay upon "Self-Reliance," rather than his earlier "The American Scholar," which only manifests the later essay's ideas in a half-formulated and a much more Christian-focused fashion.
Today's emphasis on postmodernism and the constant restructuring of one's identity over the course of one's educational existence makes the lack of consistency and the disdain for tradition expressed by Emerson in the earlier essay to be quite attractive to young college students. "Else,...
Emerson's overall philosophy, as expressed in this essay, is that rather than looking to past, European models of excellence and artistic expression, young Americans must create their own, new models that are not hemmed in by past ideals. To live is to constantly reinvent one's self and life.
Today's college students are similarly faced with having to break the pre-existing molds of artistic excellence, and modalities of the ways they are told to live, and the ways their parents taught them to live. The mere reaction to what was constructed as 'American' is no longer tenable, as it was during the generation of the 1960's. Generations of 'slackers' however, have also shown that mere aspirations to enjoyment of the moment is not necessarily sustaining. The dot.com bust has shown that economic prosperity is elusive. Now, individuals must create a new justification for life and a new way of constructing the self in an increasingly virtual world.
Instead of looking to the past, a new ideal of selfhood is required. Like Emerson, today's college students are facing an age of…
Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self-Reliance" (1841) The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 5th Edition. Vol. 1. Accessible on the web at http://www.emersoncentral.com/self-reliance.htm
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The American Scholar." (1837) The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 5th edition. Vol. 1. Accessible on the web at http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm
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