The Adaptation of Transcendentalism
The Adaptation of Transcendentalism None of the transcendentalist thinkers were very popular during their lives. Their Ideas were all thought to be wild and barbaric when really they were Just ahead of their time. Today, those same ideas that were thought to be too free and wild are actually seen as fairly tame and mild. Writers such as Walt Whitman, Ralph Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were all misunderstood by society during their lives.
The typical lifestyle during the time of the early transcendentalists was very slow and the hlnklng was traditional; therefore, when Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson started sharing their Ideas that went against the traditional way of life, they were seen as unclvlllzed and outspoken. Now, we can look back on the history of America and see how the people who fought the popular way of thlnklng or questioned why things were the way they were have caused seminal movements and changes In the way of life. Now that we recognize change as a good thing, we encourage others to be different and question society.
We encourage people to stand up and fight popular hinking because those kinds of people are what have made America the way it is. But before they were seen as great minds, the early transcendentalists were considered wild and their ideas unthinkable. Ralph Emerson, for example, wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do" ("Self-Reliance" 47-49, Emerson). By this Emerson is saying that people who want to keep things the same Just because that's the way hey have always been are wrong and ridiculous.
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Without questioning your way of life, great minds cannot rise and be great. At the time that he wrote this people did not feel the same way. Society pushed to keep everything unchanged because that's the way it had always been done and it worked that way. Henry David Thoreau also wrote something along the same lines but about government. He wrote, "This American government- what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some Integrity ("Resistance to Civil Government" 25-27, Thoreau).
Thoreau, like Emerson, talks about how enforcing tradition is a ridiculous notion. Thoreau points out that even the young government is trying to make sure that through future generations the system would still be "unimpaired" and consistent. Again, the Ideas provided by the two were not popular with the majority of society at the time but became very popular with future leaders. All of the leaders In the past who have made a difference have given something new. As Whitman says In one of his many poems, "l hear America slnglng, the varied carols I hear ? , .
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else" ("l Hear America Singing" land 9, Whitman). Every leader who stood up against society, against the crowd, was singing their own song. Popular leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi sang the songs of true justice and equality. Their "songs" or ideas, though their own, were heavily influenced by those of the people who came before them. They used the ideas expressed in Thoreau's famous essay "Resistance Government". wnen Martln Lutner King Jr. pent tne nlgnt In Blrmlngnam Jall he wrote about what made laws Just and unjust and questioned if the laws made by the majority were truly fair. That notion was inspired by the line in Thoreau's essay, "After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are the most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest" (Thoreau 57-61).
By this e is saying that Just because things may be voted for by the majority, doesn't necessarily mean it's fair to everyone and when Martin Luther King Jr. saw this it stuck and he then wrote similar ideas expanding on the thought. Gandhi then did the same thing when talking about nonviolence. He used Thoreau's example of his one night in Jail to say that instead of fghting with our fists, use quiet actions to gain people on your side. These are Just two examples of the impact the transcendentalists made on history.
Once thought to be wild and outspoken, the early transcendentalists are now onsidered the start of what we are encouraged to do every day. They were different and spoke their minds Just as we are encouraged to do now. They were the start of a domino effect in America where one great leader got their ideas from a great leader before them, who somewhere down the line got their ideas from one of the early transcendentalists. Now considered mild and tame, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Emerson will forever go down in history as the men who lived on through the ideas of great leaders.
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