The Transcendental Hero
The philosophy of transcendentalism emerged in the late 18th century and greatly stressed nature, equality, self-reliance, intuition, the power of an individual and social responsibility. The ideas presented in humanism and enlightenment and its thinkers impacted the world by a vast margin (Radest, 1996). During the humanism and enlightenment period, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson brought a lot of impact in the transcendental era of the writer. The ideas brought in place during that period brought a significant influence in the 18th century and continued to bring result in modern society. In the humanism period, there was discovering and learning about the nature of the world and the enlightenment period was highly flourished with historians, scholars, teachers, and artisans (Radest, 1996). As demonstrated in the “Declaration” and Franklin’s Autobiography, the enlightenment period showed that humans could show certain truths by approaching the government ethics, religion, science, and logic. The term enlightenment humanism was characterized by reason, autonomy, and progress. Even after the enlightenment period the humanism continued and encompassed some concepts about definition, nature, values, and capabilities of human beings which were interrelated. This paper gives the relationship between the humanism and enlightenment the 18th century and the Thoreau’s civil disobedience and the Emersion’s ideas of self-reliance.
In Emerson's "self-Reliance," the most important thing is social responsibility. The quote means that a man once in his/her life realizes that he/she has a destiny, purpose and a duty to the aims set as long he/she can tap to a spiritual nature. Emerson states that; “the strongest man in the world is he who stands alone” (Emerson, 2012), this statement from Emerson was referencing in the trust of intuition of someone and believing in individualism. He also denotes that the powerful and most famous personalities in the world are misunderstood due to their opinions, thoughts, and ideas. This kind of misunderstanding due to the choices is what makes them even more respected by others. The deepest point of ‘Self-Reliance" is that it is not right for a human being to conform to the society but set his mind to be independent.
Although transcendentalists believed that individual imaginations could be removed by the equipped world, Emerson stressed that it is good to have a good connection with nature to have peace of mind and to sustain an personal mentality. This idea brought by Emerson has a great relationship with the learning spirit called humanism (Radest, 1996). The major relationship between humanism and Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” is renewed confidence, Emerson advocates for individual strength and humanism calls for a renewed confidence whereby a person has an individual ability to make his/her own choices. Emerson’s "Self-Reliance" relates to the enlightenment period due to the fact he tried to bring reasoning to human beings which were brought by this intellectual movement called Enlightenment during the 18th century. Emerson brings into existence the issues of individual heroism where people personally use there reasoning and thoughts to solve their problems; humanism made people think that humans can solve various life problems (Radest, 1996). In the enlightenment period, people solved societal problems by taking approaches in a rational and orderly manner. Humanism and enlightenment were more based on liberal thinking, skepticism, and individualism, in relationship to thinking individually, Emerson asserted that “Be yourself; no base imitator of another” (Emerson, 2012).
Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” shares identical ideas to Emerson. The main idea here is a social responsibility; this idea is used to describe human to have a responsibility of bringing justice to everyone who is need of it. While serving his term in jail, Thoreau meets a man who had been charged for burning a barn. Thoreau takes the man to very hone simply because he trusted in his intuition. Thoreau goes ahead and writes that “The government is best which governs least” (Thoreau et al., 2009). This was written to mean that people should not be concerned with the matters of the society and should not conform to it but rather people should stay self-reliant and hold their values, morals, beliefs, and goals. People who are governed by the government are real source of its strength.
The relationship between Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" and the humanism and enlightenment periods of the 18th century is brought by the themes of reasoning, individualism, and skepticism. Reasoning in the enlightenment humanists denounced the existence of supernatural and occurrences of mere superstitions (Radest, 1996). As far as reasoning theme is concerned, Thoreau asked that, “can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience” (Thoreau et al, 2009). In saying this, Thoreau believed that his obligation to inner sense and conscience was solely morality. Thoreau also basis his arguments on one of the main themes of Enlightenment, Individualism, Thoreau wants to declare himself stronger than a state, he asserts that “I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my fashion. Let us see who is the strongest” (Thoreau et al, 2009). In relating Thoreau’s assertions with the themes of enlightenment and humanism, Thoreau wants people to believe in themselves more than the society and government, reason and do believe in their intuition to do things.
The relationship between humanism and enlightenment the 18th century and both “Self-Reliance” and “Civil Disobedience” is the fact they discourage conformity and encourage individualism, reasoning, and skepticism. The main argument is that human always want to learn from society and the majority, but they should learn how to stand their ground and believe in their reasoning and strength. Both Emerson, Thoreau and the enlightenment and humanism period mentions the problems of the government and how people should go about it. As Thoreau says, "To be strictly just, a government must have the sanction and consent of the governed," the government does best when it has the least governance. A government should control not control people's aspects in life but as Emerson and Thoreau believe a government should give people an opportunity to decide on major issues (Thoreau et al., 2009).
In conclusion, Transcendentalism was very influential and closely related to the themes driven by Humanism and enlightenment periods in the 18th century. Both Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" and Emerson's "Self-Reliance" stresses the ideas of intuition, responsibility, individualism, and reasoning. Their essays relate with humanism because humanism touches on the issues of individual renewed confidence and the ability of anyone to make their own decisions. On the other hand, the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century emphasized more on reason, individualism and skepticism. Lastly, the thinkers of humanism and enlightenment were liberal thinkers like both Emerson and Thoreau.
Work cited
Emerson, R. W. (2012). Self-reliance and other essays. Courier Corporation.
Radest H. B. (1996). Humanism with a Human Face: Intimacy and the Enlightenment.
Thoreau, H. D., Searls, D., & Stilgoe, J. R. (2009). The Journals of Henry David Thoreau, 1837- 1861. New York Review.