Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”

GNED 102

Dr. Fike

Helpful source for you to consult: 

• http://www.transcendentalists.com/self_reliance_analysis.htm

Major Concept:

• Transcendentalism (from Harmon and Holman's A Handbook to Literature):  "A reliance on the intuition and the conscience....  The group [of transcendentalists] seemed to agree that within the nature of human beings there was something that transcended human experience--an intuitive and personal revelation."  "Transcendentalists believed in living close to nature and taught the dignity of manual labor.  They strongly felt the need of intellectual companionships and emphasized spiritual living.  Every person's relation to God was to be established directly by the individual rather than through a ritualistic church.  They held that human beings were divine in their own right, an opinion opposed to the doctrines held by the Puritan Calvinists in New England.  Self-trust and self-reliance were to be practiced at all times, because to trust self was really to trust the voice of God speaking intuitively within us.  The transcendentalists believed in democracy and individualism."  "The transcendentalists were among the early advocates of the enfranchisement of women."  "Ultimately...transcendentalism was an epistemology--a way of knowing--and what tied together the frequently contradictory attitudes of the loosely formed group was the belief that human beings can intuitively transcend the limits of the senses and of logic and directly receive higher truths denied to more mundane methods of knowing."

1.  Write down your definition of "self-reliance."

2.  Share your definition in 5 small groups of 4-5 people apiece.  Then do the following three things:  (a) come up with a definition of "self-reliance" to share with the class; (b) do the following exercise; and (c) consider how what you just discovered about Emersonian self-reliance relates to Transcendentalism.

Directions:  Use à or ß to put each item in the correct column.

Self-reliance     Conformity leading to falsity     NOT self-reliance

Church doctrine

Independent thought

Trusting yourself

Traditions

Laws

Children’s behavior

“dead institutions”

Liberty

Nonconformity

Charities

Critical thinking

Educating “fools”

Money

Living from within

My own nature

What other people think

“a dead church”

“a dead Bible-society”

Relativism (what’s right for me is RIGHT)

Party affiliation; group think

What concerns ME

Punishment for nonconformity

Institutions (“the lengthened shadow of one man”)

Independence

Solitude, silence

Timid and apologetic attitude

Shame

The “authority of the soul”

New perception

Using the Bible as a crutch

Old rubbish

Direct communication with the divine

Communication with “the inner ocean”

“Friend, child, sickness, fear, want, charity”

Traveling

“I am the truth.”

Eternal law

Being civilized

Being an aborigine

Being myself

Doing what makes me happy—following my heart

Honoring noble people, not harming ignoble people

“what each has” (property)

“what each is” (identity)

Uniqueness

Responding uniquely to great thinkers of the past

3.  Large-group discussion:  Do you advocate Emersonian self-reliance or not?  Do you really think that your own “inner voice” is more important than thinking, for example, what the Christian church--or some other faith--tells you to believe?

4.  Connections to other reading assignments: 

• Plato:  "his shadow on the wall" (par. 10).  Plato and Emerson are both opposed to false appearances.  But Plato thinks that Truth is transcendent; Emerson thinks that truth is whatever one thinks it is:  "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" (par. 1). 

• Lakoff and Johnson would argue that believing your own truth is a prescription for discord with other people and nations.

• Mill:  Would Emerson approve of the liberty of thought and discussion?  Would he agree with Mill on the negative (restrictive) role of the church and of its dogmas?  Would Emerson agree with Mill on the following:  "Those who desire to suppress it [opinion]...have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging" (par. 3)?

5.  Do you see any contradictions or blind spots in Emerson’s essay?

• Great men and institutions:  Emerson lauds Moses, Plato, Jesus, and Milton; however, he is critical of institutions as “the lengthened shadow[s] of one man” (par. 11)  How can a particular brand of thinking be great when it is fresh but then negative when it becomes an institution?  Can't one be self-reliant in Emerson’s sense while still adhering to an intellectual tradition?

• Independence:  Is there a problem with living "wholly from within" (par. 6)?  Doesn't society perform an important civilizing function? 

• The shadow/sinfulness:  Again, is there a problem with living “wholly from within”—i.e., in communication with “the inner ocean”?  Jung says that this "inner ocean" is the collective unconscious, which contains a record of all human experience both positive AND negative.  See also Romans 7.18-20:  "For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me."  Doesn’t Emerson’s prescription for self-reliance rest on the assumption that what is within is wholly good?  How might Transcendentalism be fundamentally flawed?  What do YOU believe about your inner life?  Is it all “sugar and spice and everything nice,” or is there also darkness?

• History:  Emerson states that “history is an impertinence and an injury, if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming” (par. 12).  Later he says, “Society never advances” (par. 20). Well, maybe that is because it views history as impertinent and does not learn anything from it.  Might a society that pays attention to historical lessons be able to advance?  If not, why not?  Is it because of the human nature that he considers so positive?  Couldn't learning history's lessons help us avoid repeating past mistakes?

• Travel:  Emerson states, “Traveling is a fool’s paradise” (par. 17), but who we are is somewhat dependent on our place and time.  Traveling strips away cultural accretions and enables us to understand ourselves (our SELVES) more clearly and fully.  Why do you think that college students often study abroad?  Do you agree or disagree with Emerson's position on travel?

• Great men:  Emerson simply doesn’t understand literature.  He says, “Every great man is a unique” (par. 18), and he mentions Moses, Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare as examples.  But he does not acknowledge that all of these men, to one degree or another, relied on previous tradition even as they created something unique and new.  If even great men do not break wholly from tradition, is tradition really as negative as Emerson wants us to believe?

6.  Do you agree that the best way to cultivate the self is to be self-reliant in the Emersonian sense?  What can we learn about the self from previous writers, existing institutions, history, and travel? Why throw out all of this and say, "It's all about ME"?  If previous writers do not matter, why should we bother to read Emerson?  Isn't there something self-indicting about his position?

7.  Can you identify the fallacies in each of the following quotations?

• Par. 6:  "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
• Par. 10:  "With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."
• Par. 11:  "Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design;--and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients."
• Par. 11:  "...all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons."
• Par. 16:  "...I obey no law less than the eternal law."
• Par. 17:  "Traveling is a fool's paradise."
• Par. 19:  "All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.  Society never advances."