Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Another point that Emerson presents in his essay is his critique of people's conformity to social norms and rules. For him, conformity marks the death of progress in human society because it hinders individuals to explore and discover their true 'selves,' and hone their skills and knowledge that they consider necessary for their personal development. He further explains why society condones non-conformity or the pursuit of one's self-interest: "For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure...The by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlour...but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs..." By stating this in "Self-reliance," Emerson assures his readers that the pursuit of individualism is anything but wrong; it furthers improvement of one's self and reflects society's lack of understanding of the value that a person puts to his/her individuality. These assertions correspond to Emerson's earlier arguments, rationalizing on the essence of individualism to both the individual and society.
The last point that he discusses is the primary argument he puts forth in "Self-reliance": the pursuit for individualism...
It is evident that this assertion is synonymous to the principle of socialism, where philosophers also argue about the importance of one's self-realization in order to prevent and eliminate the existence of oppression in society. Realization of one's true self is the only 'true, whole possession' that individuals can have, and if the individual fails to recognize his knowledge and skills and substitutes these to subsist to the knowledge and skills of others, progress in human society is curtailed and ultimately, fails. This occurrence is demonstrated as follows in the essay: "Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession." Self-realization, then, becomes the only possession that individuals can have and if considered collectively, it is only each individual's self-realization that makes human society progress towards intellectual development and material progress.
In sum, these three points asserted in "Self-reliance" by Emerson are consistent and correspond with each other, allowing him to make a strong explication in favor of individualism and its benefits to human society.
Yet through his explorations of order, Franklin admits that it is "extremely difficult to acquire" as a virtue (p. 88). Franklin further claims that of all the virtues, "my scheme of order gave me the most trouble; and I found that, tho' it might be practicable where a man's business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, that of a journeyman printer, for instance, it
Ralph Waldo Emerson was more of a pragmatic and realistic thinker than a philosopher in the true sense of the term. His views on life and existence and human thinking are therefore realist without being influenced by any religious dogma or creed. There are two underlying concepts in all his works- firstly the admiration and discussion of nature, its ways leading to the discussion of being. We can understand that
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
John McNutty notes, "the warmth of friendship was almost a novel sensation" (McNutty) to the poet and "Friendship demonstrates this fact. The poem explores a healthy respect for good friends and the friendship that they bring. While the world's uncertainty "comes and goes" (Emerson 3), true friends remain. A long-lost friend returns to set the poet's "careful heart free again" (9). The poem closes with an interesting notion. We read: Me
Ralph Waldo Emerson and presents a theoretical letter to Emerson himself. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Two of His Essays Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay on self-reliance, very blatantly states his belief that people should be nonconformists. Of course, he qualifies this with the statement that non-conformists are often beaten down by the world, since the world loves conformity. However, Emerson is a big proponent of being reliant on only one's
Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Specifically, it will explain Emerson's main idea in the essay. "Self-Reliance" is a celebration of man's creative thought and a quest for harmony in life and the world. Man should listen to his own mind to understand the minds of all humankind. Emerson wrote his essay to introduce people to his philosophy of transcendentalism. He believed man was a creative being, and he had to