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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An American Philosopher,
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This review is from: Self-Reliance and Other Essays (Paperback)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is one of America's pre-eminent philosophers. Born into a long line of ministers and preachers, Emerson went to Harvard at the tender age of 14, where he studied to fulfill his destiny and become a minister. Emerson eventually dropped out of this line of work, embarking on a career as a public speaker and serving as the intellectual center of a group called the Transcendentalist Club. This Dover edition contains some of Emerson's best-known essays, specifically "Self-Reliance," as well as his address to the Harvard Divinity School.Emerson's philosophy, although sometimes painfully explicated upon in his own writings, is best summed up by the word "individualism." To Emerson, it is the individual that should be the fulcrum point in all aspects of life. Emerson then took this philosophy and applied it to a myriad of subjects. In "History," the first essay in this collection, Emerson attempts to weave his belief in individual expression into the study of historical events. Emerson argues that a reliance on dates, places, and figures is not nearly as important as reaching within oneself to discover the whole of history. This is important because every man contributes to history, and every man can see himself in any history from any part of the world. Emerson also argues that history, as we presently know it and study it, ignores important fundamentals such as metaphysics and nature. What Emerson seems to attempt with this essay is to create a sort of "unified field theory" of history, a history that encompasses every aspect of the human experience, and one in which everyone takes part. "Self-Reliance," Emerson's masterwork, attempts to explain how man should retain his individualism in the face of society. It is society that stifles the individual, and the trick is to be true to yourself and your conscience. Law should not be, and is not, above the individual. Again, conscience should rule the day. Every man must follow his conscience even if doing so endangers his role in society. This tension between the individual and society Emerson enumerates continues to reverberate to this day. In his address to the Harvard Divinity School, a real charmer that got Emerson banned from the school for years, he addresses individualism in the context of religion. Emerson, himself a trained minister who eventually resigned his pulpit, urges those about to embark on a career in the clergy to reach inside themselves when preaching. Don't rely on the same old tired formulas everyone else relies on, Emerson says, but see what the holy word means to you and then express what you find to your flock in your own way. It's easy to imagine what people who believe that religion is about rote memorization and rituals eons old thought about this speech. They hated it, and hated Emerson for delivering it to the young people in the audience. Several other essays round out the collection, all of them utilizing Emerson's keen sense of the power of the individual. That Emerson is still in print today while some of his contemporaries are not is proof enough of the power and influence of his thought. Whether you agree with his arguments or not (and there is much here to disagree with), there is no denying that he has been enormously influential to American thinkers of his time and those who have come after him.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An American Essential,
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This review is from: Self-Reliance and Other Essays (Paperback)
For a buck you can certainly toss this in with whatever else you're ordering this trip. RWE is one of the great articulators of the American mind. For better or worse, here's a distilled vision of what we think. RWE's positive and powerful view of human thought can be uplifting, though some may occasionally experience a desire to snort "Oh, puh-lease!" A great source of pithy quotes and sharp insights, RWE also provides considerable depth if you wade all the way into his works. Everyone should have some collection of Emerson on the shelf, and this collection hits all the high points (though it is not, it should be said, a good choice for those suffering from chronic eyestrain).
5.0 out of 5 stars
Emerson; the Transcendentalist............,
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This review is from: Self-Reliance and Other Essays (Paperback)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with Henry David Thoreau, were the leaders of the Transcendentalism movement throughout New England in the mid nineteenth century. Both railed against the 'holier-than-thou' Puritanicalism that engulfed their societies at that time. Their premise was that we are all God's creation and, being so, we all are a more than mere representatives of Him throughout our lives, that your inner self/conscious is God's relating His best purposes for you and that the sole purpose of our lives is to evolve into the God-like creatures we were meant to be. Hew did not see self-reliance as coming solely from internal ego-driven impulses but from the part of God that theoretically exists within all of us. While his writings, at times, are a bit redundant, at other times they ring of pure poetic prose. Anyone who attempts to degrade Emerson's writings or his mid-1800s progressive thoughts only shows his/her own literary ignorance and/or immaturity and have not thought through and absorbed his basic concepts.From these thoughts we have both the the mould from which the present day New Age Movement and certain types of charismatic Christianity are formed. They have actually stolen and copied his concepts and used them to their social and spiritual advantage. While I have a strong degree of agreement and compassion with Emerson, I tremble at the heights that some Fundamentalists have taken this concept. While they, too, expound of the 'fact' that God speaks to them, in essence what most of them do is expand upon their own inner prejudices and fears. One seldom hears them speak of self-reliance or personal evolution as viable goals to be attained. Instead what we hear is the drone of their own homophobia, continual interference in women's reproductive processes, blatant racism against people of other colors and that they have the only 'true faith' to the exclusion of all others. This is a group that has twisted Emerson's concepts to the demise of their followers and is the exact opposite of the message that he was attempting to convey.
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