Emerson and the Self

“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”. Emerson begins by making a point that past figures thought of as revolutionary or genius has been men who speak not the thoughts of other men but their own minds. Despite what exists in the world, pressures/opinions/thoughts, it is the person an individual is that must be considered. Men are made to be themselves, as an eye was put where an eye should be, because that is whom you should be.

“Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events”. Society and the masses that inhabit it are judgmental of the opinions and actions of others. “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.” People give up their own ideas and liberty to join the culture that everyone else subscribes to. Self-reliance, the virtue Emerson is espousing, is at odds with the idea of conformity, “the virtue most requested”.

Your own mind is the most sacred thing a person can have, and you should trust your own mind to know what is right or wrong. Despite opposition, a person should stay true to what they believe in or think. People are very susceptible to society and positions and often give away their individual worth to gain respect in regard to the former. “My life is for itself and not for a spectacle…so it be genuine and equal, rather than it should be glittering and unsteady.” A person should be satisfied with their self and not the opinions or assurances of others and outside ideals. One should only be concerned with what they think, not others. People will always think their ways and views are more important than yours, but the only way to know yourself and your own opinions is to trust your own mind.

When people conform to outside ideals and practices they lose touch of their own self and “blurs the impression of your character.” Submitting to conformity is a “blind-man’s-bluff” because everyone is following not what they know or need but what they think they need; this is different from actuality because they are not following their own minds but the impressions others and society try to impose on the masses. When people, even preachers, conform to a community of opinion, they become “false in all particulars” because they have no firm grounding or starting basis for their own thought; instead they are living through the ideas and assumptions of an outside force.

What seems to scare people, Emerson says, is that even when we commit ourselves to our own ideas we are subject to a lack of consistency; that is to say we may think one thing one day and another thing the next. Since others judge us for our past actions, this lack in conformity holds the possibility of the disappointment of others (which we loathe). Emerson’s reply to this is to refuse its discouragement, for even if you contradict yourself it is YOU that you are contradicting. “With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.” Emerson encourages you to believe what you believe in today and if it changes tomorrow, then believe in that tomorrow as well. “To be great is to be misunderstood”.

Men are surrounded by a society that tries to impose its views and ideals and Emerson states, “no man can violate his nature”. This is to suppose (I think) that man should only be attune to his “honesty thought without prospect or retrospect” and even if there are a varying of ideas there will still be a symmetry to these thoughts because they stem from the true ideas of the mind. It is the “genuine action [that explains] itself and will explain your genuine action.” Conformity explains nothing, as it is not derived of the self and its ideals but the past and historical ideas of society and the external. It is not appearances but the force of character that is virtuous.

Do not respect and pay homage to conformity and consistency because it is a nature of pleasing others and not the self. This is where Emerson appears selfish, as he states, “Let us never bow and apologize more A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I would make it kind, I would make it true.” And while I do find this rather selfish and rude, it aligns with what Emerson is saying about pleasing the self through the ideas of the self and not the ideas or prestige of others.

It is also around this time in the article in which Emerson begins to rely heavily on a religious aspect; “there is a great Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works” and a man does not live in any other time but in his own time as the center of things in himself. We praise the history and virtue of a “few stout and earnest persons” (i.e. Jesus, Caesar) but fail to look within ourselves to realize greatness. A person should know his or her own worth and make their own opinions of things, rather than accept the commonplace view. It is when “private men shall act with original views, the luster will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen.”

To realize the ideas and mind of the self is to question from where this innateness comes….”on what universal reliance may be grounded?” The essence of genius, according to Emerson, is Spontaneity and Instinct and Intuition. When we realize truth and justice we are not personally creating these ideals or virtues but allowing the truth of them to become recognized within the self. A person’s perceptions are the perfect faith, and while you may come across error in perceptions man still knows that perceptions are real to him and “not to be disputed”.

Emerson relates the soul to the “divine spirit” and that God speaks not to one thing but to everything and when a mind is in accord with the divine wisdom the misconceptions and impressions of the past fade away and realize the present, the reality. Nowadays (as in when this was written) men align themselves to a school of thought or reason and claim it as their own; this Emerson sees as foolish because they are not thinking on their own but basing their ideas on “some saint or sage,” of the past. The past is merely the opinions and thoughts of others; postponing the future to reflect on the past “cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.”

Similar to the sponge model of teaching Dr. Musgrave spoke about are Emerson’s thoughts that we are merely absorbing the teachings of the past, the lectures of masters, replicating the talents of those we admire. To live this way is to fail to lie truly; “when a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.”

It is life in you that does not rely on the actions of others but only acknowledges the internal goodness of the self. Because your soul recognizes Truth and Right, knowing the soul knows yourself. People discourage this knowledge because it fails to discern between poor and rich, rouge and saintly. “Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is”.

Emerson relies on the acknowledgement of the “ever-blessed ONE” and self-existence is the design of the Supreme Cause. Reality is in accordance with the virtue it contains, and what is right is that which helps itself. When man relies this divine fact he is at home with cause, for God is within.

However, “we are a mob”; that is society is a mass that praises jointly at the foot of one rather than going out alone. The solitude that the mob fails to seek and appreciate is the one that elevates a person. While there may appear to be a “conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles” only the self-realization will allow an escape. Do not be party to the folly of others just because everyone allows it to occur but escape it with self-actualization. Speak the truth, resist temptations. Do not live to meet the expectations of others but the truth of self.

“I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you love me for what I am, we shall be happier.” This is another selfish sounding statement from Emerson, but he is saying that if a person should love one who realizes the self, who loves the self and the innate virtue, they will both be able to trust “that what is deep is holy”. Do not hurt those who do not agree with you but hope they may some day live in truth as well. In following the truth one will be safe at last. You should not sacrifice liberty and sensibility, because there is a time when everyone should realize reason and realize that others who value truth are on the right and good path.

Do not allow the desire to please others to undermine your self and internal truth. “And it truly demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster”. This attitude allows a person to accomplish a task easily that others face as a much more difficult endeavor. Society has become, Emerson says, afraid of truth and “timorous, desponding whimpers,” and people fail to satisfy their own wants with out of proportion ambition because they do not realize what they really need. People beg to gain what they think society values and shun the strength needed to attain what is right.

It is not the success of one field that gives a man a good life but the study and exploration of various things to which he can form his own opinion that make him worth more than “city dolls”. When one attains self-trust there comes with is a multitude of new understanding, a dawn of knowledge that has previously been denied and sheds light on the superficiality of society as a mass.

Emerson now gives a list of four things that all men in all offices, education, religion, association, etc. should pursue. (1) Prayer is not a tool to beg for things or to ask for exception or gain; prayer is “the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view”. It is the praising of the good works of God and the rejoicing of a jubilant soul. Regrets are a type of false prayer as well; Emerson states that you only regret things if you can fix them, otherwise it is not worth the waste of time to dwell on the past events. “The secret of fortune is joy in our own hands,” and the person who can self-help is a man who is welcomed by the gods.

People recite what they have been told by their religions instead of realizing that religion is in oneself and in one’s soul. While at first when learning religious doctrine or scientific advancement, a person is excited as their intelligence grows but (I think?) Emerson is saying this is bad insofar as they are merely taking the views and ideas of others and accepting it as their own.

(2) A soul does not need to travel to exotic places to learn, for “the soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home,” and if he travels he does so while still at home, for his soul is aware and at peace. The problem of travels lies in those who commit such action to take in what society projects the importance of a location to be and look to traveling and locals to gain knowledge. If you travel to escape you will eventually awake to the fact that you have escaped nothing but brought your troubles with you.

(3) Emerson then begins on the troubles of “modern” education; “intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness.” Students are imitators, but will find they only imitating a traveling of the mind (imagination). People base their desires and wants and goals on the Past and Distant; the things we have been taught or shown to desire. Art, however, allows a flourishing of the original mind only insofar as it does not rely on past models of art to guide or dictate its course.
Do not imitate others to learn, for the only master one should desire knowledge from is the Maker. Each person is unique; the great man is one who actualizes this uniqueness. What makes great men great is that they are unique and do not accept or follow the ideas of others but look to their personal truth and ideas to create something new. Obey what the heart says and guides to find the noble regions of life.

(4) Society never advances because man focuses on the improvement of society and bases their success on this. While things change “For everything that is given, something is taken.” We recognize great men but fail to realize their class is not in those who follow their ideas but those who recognize their originality and strive to realize the originality within them. Being your own man and the founder of a sect is to be great (founder of a sect in reference to new ideas that are innate). You should not value others for what they have but what each is; a “cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, of new respect for his nature.” Anything one owns, regardless of its mean of acquisition “does not belong to him, has not root in him, and merely lies there, because no revolution and no robber takes it away.”

“It is only as man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail.” This man recognize true self-reliance because he has come to realize what truth is and what is means; it is not property, it is not perception, it is not material nor history nor opinion “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”