Wakefulness: Thoreau, Whitman, and Emerson

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil” -Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self Reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a transcendentalist. Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that originated in the 19th century and was primarily influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalists’ main beliefs are: self-reliance is essential to one’s life, nature is divine, every person should have an optimistic outlook, and humanity needs to adhere to their personal morals and beliefs. In today’s world we still see a multitude of the beliefs of transcendentalism.

Self-reliance is the freedom of being independent. One only relies on oneself and doesn’t look for help or for anyone to save them. One is perfectly content with being solely reliant. Three people who believed greatly in self-reliance were Chris McCandless, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. They had many different beliefs and along with acting out in civil disobedience, acting in nonconformity, thinking nature was most important, and being a transcendentalist, they was also self reliant. McCandless, Emerson, and Thoreau were all people who believed strongly in self-reliance.

Thoreau followed the same way, as well; but he chose the government as a target and pointed it as a hinder on the way of being a man, as it makes people machines which are programmed to serve for the government: "The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies." Thoreau tended to attack the government as an entity that promoted conformity and that people used to alleviate their own moral obligations. Emerson tended to promote individualism in thought and action, and promote the idea that individualism allowed one to survive in a changing society. Men are being controlled by the government to do duties in which they need done. There is no uniqueness and individuality about these people which is because of the government stripping people of it. Even though our government is extremely capitalist, we are very socialist country for how we control our citizens. People are blind to the fact however, that these “citizen duties” aren’t a right but are a task designed for us, the “robots” of society, to do for the government. For example, jury duty and the military draft are government controlled. If you are chosen for these responsibilities, there is no choice for citizens, you have to do your national duty. I agree with Thoreau and his belief that the government controls many human beings and treats them like robots. The need for individuality is

A key difference between the philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau as articulated in “Self-Reliance” and “Civil Disobedience” is their vision of how individuals should shape society and government. Emerson believes that one should only follow his own conscience and intellect not the opinions of the crowd. Emerson argues that it is not only possible to successfully defy the common practices and beliefs of society, but that “to be great is to be misunderstood”

I believe that, essentially, life consists of a series of choices. A grouping of these choices in one direction or another makes us who we are, and ultimately we have control over our lives. What makes one person different from another is his own set of choices. When going through life’s motions, we develop certain worldviews and ideas and values to live by. We develop an opinion of what makes a person “great.” In the well-known essay “Self-Reliance”, Ralph Waldo Emerson provides a beautiful way of approaching these choices, and he reveals a very inspiring set of values centralized around going through life answering only to yourself. I love the way Emerson evaluates the society we live

Thoreau wished to live with only what was essential. He felt that how people in society were living was not how a man should truly live. At one point Thoreau described how most people go through the day as people who are sleeping.The text reads”The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive”(14).The people who are sleeping just go about their day not really living, but just getting by. In order to keep himself awake, Thoreau distanced himself from society and decided to “drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”(16) McCandless held a similar view. He wanted to get out of the simple suburban life he had been raised in and live on his own away from others. In a letter to Ronald Franz, one of the many people touched by McCandless’ company, the young man encourages the older man to drop everything and do the things he may never have thought of doing before. he continues in saying,”So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure

After spending a night in jail, after nonpayment of Massachusetts poll tax, Thoreau wrote his essay “Civil Disobedience”. He states that governments are mostly “inexpedient” (1577), or not practical. At best, Thoreau pushed the idea that the government isn’t useful because it is not our own. He writes “What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army” (1580). Americans listen to the rules established by the government, but it is not necessary, because the government is just the majority of people with whom are living off a different countries rules. The reason the government is even there, is because it gives the citizens some type of stable structure to live by. Thoreau feels that the government is unjust and the citizens of America should not follow rules. He feels like a reform is in need; “It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong” and “not to give it practically his support” (1582). Thoreau and Emerson both push for social reform of the individual. Emerson wants the individual to be reliant on themselves, and not fall into the conformity of the American society. Thoreau, also teaches the individual to think different then the governmental established rules. Both authors want the readers to trust themselves, before they trust the

“Dance to the beat of your own drummer:'; A piece of advice that I have been told my whole life, and have tried my hardest to follow. The words were taken from Thoreau’s quote, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.';

In This is Water by David Foster Wallace, he emphasizes the need for people to stay awake. While the term does not literally mean to dose off as life passes by, it does go along the lines of being able to be responsive to the discomforting, disheartening, or even the most joyous things in life. The act of staying awake has been so profound that popular literature mimics the struggle most have with “staying wake.” This type of writing can be categorized as creative nonfiction, and is the current predominant genre as a result. DFW states in This is Water, “ the mind being, an excellent servant but a terrible master” adds to the fact that our default setting has nothing to do with logical thinking but everything to do with impulse. This is seen

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail reflects transcendentalism in many ways. To begin, Ralph Waldo Emerson was arguably the most influential transcendentalist of his era. David Henry Thoreau looked up to Emerson, and took after him. Thoreau was not arrested as a result of transcendentalism, but was arrested instead because he was practicing civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is the act of refusing to obey a certain law or set government demands, in which members of a community, or there as, find unjust. Thoreau expresses the unjustness of the Mexican War to his cell mate Bailey, while in jail. Moreover, he believes that it is callous to take money from citizens and put it towards war in which one country was invading another in order to take

Imagine a world where there is no society. Imagine if there was no technology and everybody just lived in isolation. In Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance,” he illustrates his ideas on the tenet by using metaphors. Nonconformity means being mentally and physically separated from society, a quality which sometimes overlaps with the ideas behind self-reliance. In “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Thoreau uses personal experiences, description, and problem-and-solution. Emerson and Thoreau begin by using different techniques, Thoreau using problem-and-solution and description, while Emerson uses cause-and-effect, yet both use cause-and-effect to develop the idea that one should be independent of society in the end.

Thoreau said, "Government is best which governs not at all." For society to be able to survive without government, all members of society must be willing and able to do what is right. They must always do what is good for the community rather than for themselves and they mustn't be tempted by greed, lust, or hate. If all members of society cannot meet these requirements, then a government is needed to resolve problems that arise. Emerson's philosophy is based on the idea that people are inherently good, and will eventually make each decision based on their good nature. According to him, every person knows in their soul the difference between right and wrong, and wants to do right. However, if one member of society strays from his good nature and acts in a way that is detrimental to the community, all of society can no longer follow the advice of Emerson or Thoreau.

Aphorisms are used in books all around the world, but many people do not recognize them. An aphorism is a brief statement, usually one sentence long, that expresses a general principle or truth about life. The great authors Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson both focus on transcendentalism which is, a philosophy movement that developed in the late 1820s and early 1830s. The book Walden by Henry David Thoreau, and the essay “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, have many good aphorisms that reflect transcendentalists views. The provisions of Thoreau and Emerson’s writings provide substantial ideals for us as we navigate through life.

In the early mid-nineteenth century, a philosophical movement known as transcendentalism took root and flourished in America. It evolved into a predominantly literary expression which placed an emphasis on the corruptions of organized religion, political parties, and societal involvement; above all, the movement promoted the wonders of “nature” and its deep connection to the divine. The adherents through transcendentalism believed that knowledge could be arrived through intuition and contemplation of the internal spirit rather than by the means of the senses. As the two most prominent figures in the transcendentalist movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau whole-heartedly embrace the principles of nature

In “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson and “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau both authors voiced their opinions on society and what is expected from citizens. Emerson’s essays focuses on the need for individuals to dodge conventionality and false uniformity, and instead follow their own guts and thoughts focusing on one self more. Thoreau’s essay is more focused on patriotism, those who not fully support the rejection of government, but resistance to those laws that he deemed to be unjust or immoral.