American Transcendentalism

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American Transcendentalism

• It was a high counsel that I once heard given
  to a young person, always do what you are afraid
  to do.
• - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Transcendentalism

• Emerson first expressed his philosophy in his
  essay Nature.
• Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in
  literature, religion, culture, and philosophy
  that emerged in New England in the early-to
  mid-19th century.
• Though the transcendental movement was relatively
  short, its influence on the American culture is
  vast

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The first transcendentalists

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Margaret Fuller
• Henry David Thoreau
• Bronson Alcott

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Core Beliefs

• Human senses are limited they convey knowledge
  of the physical world, but deeper truths can be
  grasped only through intuition (gut feeling).
• The observation of nature shows the truth about
  human beings.
• God, nature, and humanity are united in a shared
  universal soul, or Over-Soul.
• No political or religious institution is as
  powerful or important as the individual.

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1. Human senses are limited they convey
knowledge of the physical world, but deeper
truths can be grasped only through intuition (gut
feeling).

• Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me
  truth.
• 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.

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2. God, nature, and humanity are united in a
shared universal soul, or Over-Soul.

• Unlike Puritans, they saw humans and nature as
  possessing an innate goodness.
• In the faces of men and women, I see God
• -Walt Whitman
• Opposed strict ritualism and
• dogma of established religion.

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3. No political or religious institution is as
powerful or important as the individual.

• There is a time in every mans education when he
  arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance
  that imitation in suicide
• What I must do is
• all that concerns me,
• not what people think
• to be great is to be misunderstood

Self-Reliance--Emerson
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• How deep the ruts of tradition and conformity.

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• If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
  perhaps it is because he hears a different
  drummer. Let him step to the music he hears,
  however measured or far away.

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4. The observation of nature shows the truth
about human beings.Nature--Thoreau

• Thoreau began essential living
• Built a cabin on land owned to Emerson in
  Concord, Mass. near Walden Pond
• Lived alone there
• for two years studying
• nature and seeking
• truth within himself

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• I went into the woods because I wished to live
  deliberately, to front only the essential facts
  of life and see if I could not learn what it has
  to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover
  that I had not lived.

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Heaven is under our feet as well as over our
heads.
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Still we live meanly like ants.Our life is
frittered away by detail.Why should we live
with such hurry and waste of life?Simplicity,
simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs
be as two or three and not a hundred or a
thousand.
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Civil Disobedience--Thoreau

• Thoreaus essay urging passive, non-violent
  resistance to governmental policies to which an
  individual is morally opposed.
• Influenced individuals such a Ghandi, Dr. Martin
  Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez

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If injustice is of such a nature that it
requires you to be the agent of injustice to
another, then, I say, break the law. Let your
life be the friction to stop the machine.
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