Examination Paper for Early and Romantic American
Literature Course
Topic:
American Cultural Reform in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
by
Simon Ntamwana, American Studies Program, Department
of Cultural Sciences, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Gadjah Mada University,
16/405648/PSA/ 8125
Contents
American Cultural Reform in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
Introduction
This
paper investigates American cultural reform in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”. It
further explores the issues of abolitionism and American cultural independence.
It is based on the thesis that “Self-Reliance” argues for the democratisation
of American culture through the liberation of individual souls and national
cultural identity. Before the analysis, the historical and authorial biographical
background information is provided. This is in a bid to locating the essay in
the context of American transcendentalism and its influence on the author.
Therefore the concepts of transcendentalism, Unitarianism, German idealism,
transcendentalist orientalism are delineated to shed light on the
characteristics of the transcendentalist movement and its influence by other
philosophies. This enables us to scrutinise the essay in order to account for
its deep meaning.
A. Background Information
1. Transcendentalist Movement
According
to Philip F. Gura (2007), American Transcendentalism is a movement which appeared
in the New England in 1830s. The movement sprang from occasional meetings of a
changing body of liberal thinkers grouped in what was referred to as
transcendental Club or club of the like-minded in Concord in Boston. The
transcendental club was interested in German philosophy and was associated with
unitarianism and orientalism. Thus the club members were considered liberal Christians
who rejected the harsh tenets of Calvinism. This group of thinkers and
activists broke with the British empire to embrace the German philosophical
idealism. In other words, in accord with the German revolutionary ideas of
Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the American transcendentalists
champion the inherent powers of the human mind and reject the empirical
philosophy propounded by John Locke. Transcendentalists were in majority Unitarian
ministers, such as Cyrus Bartol, Charles Timothy Brooks, Orestes Brownson,
William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Christopher Cranch, John Sullivan
Dwight, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Convers Francis, William Henry Furness, William B.
Greene, Frederick Henry Hedge, Sylvester Judd, Samuel Osgood, Theodore Parker,
George Ripley, Samuel Robins, Caleb Stetson, and Thomas T. Stone. Some of these
thinkers reformed their Unitarian churches while others left the church
altogether. Some women found the path to transcendentalism among others
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Margaret Fuller, Caroline Healey, Ellen Sturgis, and
Anna Ward. Later the group expounded with young aspiring writers, such as Henry
David Thoreau, Jones Very, Charles Stearn, and William Channing. The transcendentalist ideas were later
propounded by the second generation of transcendentalists including Samuel Johnson,
Samuel Longfellow, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, and Moncure Conway. Before the
1830s, the American transcendentalism focused on the primacy of
self-consciousness. From the 1830s, there
were intersections among the movement adherents and supporters, especially with
the advent of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. The reputation of
transcendental philosophy became glaring in 1842 with the publications of The
Dial a quarterly periodical about intellectual and social reformation ideas
that were edited by Margaret Fuller.
As
so far mentioned transcendentalism intended to change the world in the light of
Unitarian religion based upon orientalism and German idealist philosophy. Firstly,
as Tiffany K. Wayne in Encyclopedia of
Transcendentalism (2006:15) mentions, Unitarianism properly started in
America in 1805. At the beginning, it was a new theological orientation taught
at the University of Harvard. The Unitarianism generated later the American
Unitarian Association (AUA). This was a liberal religious Association founded
in May 1825. This new Unitarian foundation originated from the separation between
Unitarians and Congregationalists in America. The Puritan congregationalism was
a form of Puritanism which derived from the Great Awakening. It was inspired
mainly by Jonathan Edward’s insistence on original sin from which humanity is
saved by the only amazing grace of God. Thus the creation of AUA aimed at
solving the theological controversy conflicts within Unitarianism and
organising a new denomination of liberal Christians.Therefore AUA gave birth to
the emergence of transcendentalism. Speaking of Unitarian principles of
transcendentalism, Ellis holds that transcendentalism looks at the reality of
the spiritual or religious element in man, his inborn capacity to perceive the
truth and right so that moral and religious truth can be proved to him with the
same degree of certainty that attends all material demonstrations. Therefore, Transcendentalists
reject the notion of the Holy Trinity and the divine humanity of the saviour.
Secondly,concerning
the transcendentalist orientalism, Arthur Versluis in American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions (1993:139) contends
that transcendentalist orientalism was the foundation of the religious
universalism of the transcendentalist movement. This was in connection with the
Americans’ progress ideology and the principle that America was the light of
the world. This novelty in Transcendental religion was inspired by the Asian
religions. In fact, the transcendentalist interest in Orient religions was due
to the fact that the orthodox Calvinism was considering the Socinian, Arian, Pelagian,
and Arminian religious philosophies as heresies. The Calvinist rejection of
these Asian religious theories derives substantially from the fact that these religious
philosophies hold that Christ was not divine. Transcendentalism, therefore,
embraced this idea to emphasise that Christ was not necessary to salvation and
other religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and others were divine revelations. In
addition, these Asian religions deny predestination and advance that people
could improve themselves and work towards salvation. Therefore
transcendentalism was interested in Hinduism, Buddhism and other oriental religions
to support the argument that we must work out our salvation for ourselves (1993:5).
Finally,
for the transcendentalist idealism, Emerson (Willsky, 2015: 138) contends that
while materialists argue from the data of the senses and insist on facts,
history, forces of circumstances, and the human drives, the idealists insist
that senses are not final and focus on the power of thought and will, on
inspiration, miracle, and individual culture. This individualism favours social
transformation. In fact, they sustain that American political freedom did not
necessarily bring about the liberation of the mind and religious freedom. In
the furtherance of this idea Margaret Fuller holds that transcendentalism would
help men and women find meaning in their lives.
Emerson and other transcendentalists believe in universal divine
inspiration and religious pluralism.
The
practical social implication of Transcendentalism in America was the spiritual
equivalent of the democratic ideal that all men are created equal. This was a magnetizer
in a country where women were still considered as inferior and labour to men
and were Indians and Blacks were still marginalised. It was then an engine for
cultural liberation.
2. Biographical Information
According to The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol.1, Ralph Waldo
Emerson was an American transcendentalist poet, philosopher, and essayist in
the 19th century. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on the 25th of May
1803, in Boston, Massachusetts, of William and Ruth (Haskins) Emerson. His
father William Emerson, like other male ancestors in the family had been, was a
clergyman. In 1821, Waldo Emerson graduated from the Harvard School of Divinity
where he had studied at the Boston Latin
School, and the Harvard University. In 1826 Ralph Waldo Emerson was licensed as
a minister before his Unitarian church ordination in 1829.
Following his ordination in 1829,
Ralph Waldo Emerson married Ellen Tucker in the same year. But the event was
followed by a sorrow, for only after two years in 1831, his wife died of
tuberculosis. Grief grief-stricken by the death of his wife, Ralf Waldo Emerson
suffered faith crisis and consequently resigned from the clergy. To sublimate
the horror, Emerson committed himself to writing. Thus he travelled to Europe, where he met with literary
figures Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth in 1832.
In 1833, he returned home and began to lecture on topics of spiritual
experience and ethical living. Later in 1834, he moved to Concord and
Massachusetts. In 1835, he was driven back to matrimonial affairs and ipso
facto married Lydia Jackson. In the beginning of his preaching and writing
career, Ralph Waldo Emerson was preaching on the personal nature of
spirituality. He changed and allied with a circle of writers and thinkers who
lived in Concord, including Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, and Amos
Bronson Alcott. That is why his later work, “The Conduct of Life” (1860), favoured a more moderate balance between
individual nonconformity and broader societal concerns. In this essay, he
advocated for the abolition of slavery and continued to lecture across the
country throughout the 1860s.
Despite
his ageing, Ralph Waldo Emerson was known
as “the sage of Concord in the 1870s. This was due to the fact that he in spite
of his failing health, Ralph Waldo Emerson continued to write. Thus in 1870, he
published “Society and Solitude” in 1874 his poetry collection
titled Parnassus.
Finally, Ralph Waldo Emerson died on
the 27th of April 1882 in Concord. His ideas and beliefs greatly
influenced writers, among others Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Margaret
Fuller, and Amos Bronson Alcott. Emerson’s influence in the 19th-century
American literature, religion and thought remains crucial. The essay,
“Self-Reliance” was presented as part of a sermon in September 1830, a month
after his first marriage. It includes a series of lectures on the philosophy of
the history at Boston’s Masonic Temple. The essay was published in his
collection titled Essays: First Series.
Concerning the relevance of Self-Reliance to Emerson’s idealism, George Kateb
holds that “Self-Reliance” develops Emerson’s individualist philosophy and is, therefore, a synonym for individualism (200:1). It promotes the
transcendentalist movement and deals with individualism, personal
responsibility, and nonconformity.
B. Cultural Reform in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
1. Abolitionism in “Self-Reliance”
In
the name of self-reliance, Emerson debunks the philanthropic manoeuvres of the
capitalist Christian church and the American government that cheat minorities
through the vain philosophy of charitable acts. In fact, Emerson’s essay
appeared at time America had adopted the cultural assimilation policy
(1790-1920) and the American Colonisation Society (1816) upon which Christian
missions had to educate Indians and blacks in order to “civilise” them. Emerson
finds hypocrisy in these policies. He intimates,
If malice and vanity wear the coat of
philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause
of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I
not say to him, 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and
modest: have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition
with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love
afar is spite at home.' (958)
Here, Emerson
vehemently attacks the philanthropic companies that supply the colonies in the
Americas with provisions. Emerson knows the motives behind these charity institutions. Rather than love, their
aim is to expand their colonisation and
cultural imperialism. Emerson corroborates Gertrude Simmons (1921) who sees in
the schooling of Indians, the hand of brainwashing the Native Americans of
anything linked to their cultural identity in order to assimilate them to the then
Anglo-American culture. Likewise, Emerson does not see any good in the
charitable acts done by cruel capitalists and hypocrite Christians in Barbados.
In fact, Americans still keep Blacks in slavery on the American soil and
continue to oppress Indians through the acculturation missions. That is why the
Socratic gnothi
seauton or ‘know thyself’ principle
and the Roman maxim medice cura
te ipsum or ‘physician heal thyself’
are addressed to the American society and church. Emerson views in these relief societies, the
vanity of the American society. Rather than a donation,
America develops its egotism and white metaphysics of cultural
imperialism. For these Americans, what is
needful is not extending hands to people in need, rather the purification of
the individual soul of the giver. He
confirms,
There is a class of persons to whom by all
spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need
be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of
fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand;
alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; — though I confess with
shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by
and by I shall have the manhood to withhold. (959)
Emerson, therefore, argues for a change from old ecclesiastic and
social norms. The church and America as a Bible-based
society are dead because of their hypocrisy. They are preachers who do not do
their words. They are liars and deceivers who cheat
poor minorities of Indians and Blacks. This reveals the Unitarian universalism
on the philosophy of Emerson. Based upon the liberal religion of the
Unitarians, Emerson is preoccupied with
freedom and truth. This is what pushes him to reject the American government
which has not implemented the declaration of independence. Where the
constitution postulates that all men are born free and equal, Indians and
Blacks are still marginalised and
exploited by the white community. Emerson attacks slaveholders who reject the quakerian
proposal to abolish slavery. Instead of liberating Blacks white masters prefer
repatriation of slaves to other countries
which are also another way for America to
extend its imperialism overseas. Actually,
the Blacks repatriated to the Caribbean islands and Africa still depend on
America for development. Samantha Seeley in her article “Beyond
the American Colonization Society” (2016) views this policy of emigrating
blacks West Africa, Florida, Haiti, Canada, Texas, Mexico, and
the American West as racially biased. In fact, the white slaving community was
afraid that the free blacks would lead astray black slaves and incite them to
rebellion. In addition, they wanted to
remove them from American for they stay in America would be demanding in terms
of civil rights and financial assistance.
Thus they opted for repatriation in order
to control them from afar. The author proceeds,
In your metaphysics you have denied personality
to the Deity: yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart
and life, though they should clothe God with shape and colour. Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the
harlot, and flee (960).
In this quotation, what makes America oppressive
is its consistency to the past. It has based its culture on religion and
therefore has neglected individual rights. Consequently,
all vices have been supported by the
church. Therefore, Americans need to take off and remove from their traditional
beliefs. Unless they leave their religious theories, they cannot get rid of
their wickedness. Emerson’s ideas of individualism and self-reliance make him
indirectly the forerunner of the Harlem Renaissance. In fact, Huggins advances
that the American romanticism that gave birth to transcendentalism promoted
emotional austerity and rational intellect, and a sense of human volition of which
germinated democratic faith that was the pillar of the Harlem renaissance
movement (2007:85). Likewise, As Johannes Voelz (2010:115) postulates, through
“Self-Reliance”, Emerson is establishing and reinforcing an ideology of
American liberation. These ideas will later magnetise
black movement liberation orchestrated by activists such as Martin Luther King
Jr., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Stokely Carmichael,
and Malcolm X with the argument that cultural identity is the pivot of the
integral development of any human community. They militated for black
nationalism and revolution. These pioneers were inspired by the anticolonial
movements in the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The movement
turned to black racial pride, negritude and Africanism and separated from
Euro-American conventions, norms, and value standards. In the area of arts, the
movement brought about a renaissance of
black arts including poetry, fiction, and literary criticism (Vincent,
1988:332). The ontology of self-reliance stems from the old manse in Concord
where Emerson and transcendentalists retreat from the American corrupt society
that enslaves humans and marginalises
women. They seclude in a green world different from the chaotic and dark
American political field. Thus transcendentalist’s love of wilderness and freedom,
as Paul Outka puts it was always contextualised
by the horror of slavery-naturalized trauma (2008:43).
2. American Cultural Independence
Emerson’s
individualism has imports of American cultural independence. Written in 1841,
65 years after American declaration of Independence, Emerson considers that the
American nation and individual as well in spite of economic and political
independence, lack cultural independence. America and Americans were still
under the yoke of religious beliefs. The numerous Christian denominations of
America have not liberated the human soul from the yoke of social norms and the
hypocrisy of the of Christianity. In the area of art, Americans had not
evolved, they were still depending on the British culture. Emerson contends,
I read the other day some verses written by an
eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears
an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they
instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own
thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for
all men, — that is a genius. Speak your
latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due
time becomes the outmost, —— and our first thought is rendered back to us by
the trumpets of the Last Judgment. (956)
Emerson’s concept of individualism implies the
promotion of the self. The expression
from the innermost individual soul is pure and is linked with God, the source
of inspiration. This belief in the individual has not been promoted by the Judeo-Christian
American society which has relied on the
European culture. While many writers
from America have been writing following the British
norms, American artists must produce original works inspired by the Oversoul
and Nature. Inspired by the Emersonian self-reliance mythopoesis, Jean Paul
Pritchard writing on Emerson and American
cultural independence mention that the
American author must be obedient to the heavenly vision, and the critic must
share his vision (1956:53). Emerson
gives the example of Moses, Plato, and Milton whose works are original and void
of traditional influences and philosophies. He, however, admits that reference
to tradition is important because it inspires writers and artist to create
their original works. Works by others only have to “teach us to abide by our
spontaneous impression with good-humored
inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side” (956).
There
is no invention and hope in coping others because relying on others is suicide
and ignorance. But striving to produce original work is the betterment of the
individual soul and gives liberty.This is achieved trough trusting the self rather
than counting on conventions. This attitude makes writers genius of their time
and different from the childlike authors that history has produced who defied
the divine inspiration in them by relying on others. Emerson links convention
in culture to the Greek philosophy of chaos and dark. Like the theogony of
Hesiod that associates the coming into existence of the world with the
imposition order on preexisting chaos, Emerson contends that until the author creates
his original work, all other attempts are mere chaos. The convention is chaos
and darkness. This insinuates the absence of American consciousness for
cultural identity. Like the Greek cosmos discussed by Pythagoras, Archimedes,
and Greek cosmological myths that came into being with the appearance of Eros with
its fertilising power to enable heaven and earth come into creative embrace
following the spatial chaos and darkness, America has to create its cultural
identity by removing chaos and darkness perpetuated by European tradition.
Emerson intimates,
And we are now men, and must accept in the
highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a
protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides,
redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos
and the Dark (957).
Individualism and non-conformity
will not ruin America and Americans as
many may think, rather they make America attractive to the eyes of other
nations. Emerson alludes to the character of infants, babes, and brutes who are attractive and appealing to humans because
of their non-conformity to the world. Their self-reliance creates an impetus in the adults
around them to delight in them and therefore
move forward them to carry or embrace them. They find in them the display of
the natural and divine beauty. According to Emerson, a “divided and rebel mind”
(957) must characterise Americans in view
to promoting their culture. This
self-reliance cannot, however, go with cruel and ruthless capitalism. He
mentions,
These
are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as
we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in a conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society
is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing
of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the
eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion.
It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. (958)
Individualism or self-reliance rebukes merciless and ironical capitalism
that makes individuals dependent on the social institutions for survival and therefore
surrender their liberty and culture to the capitalists. For individual liberty
culture promotion, the individuals like boys have to speak out not with fear of
intimidation but with neutrality in order to yield necessary ideas that will produce effects on others and
make them feel enthusiasm to interest in
the speaker. This induces Emerson into the American exceptionalism ideology. To
excel and be a city upon the mountains, America must follow the example of
Pythagoras, Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton who were
misunderstood by the social conventions of their times, yet became famous of
their exceptional inventions. He contends,
Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you
have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.
If I can be firm enough to-day to do right
and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. (961)
This
quotation is a dart to Americans to rediscover the self and their ‘potential to
exceed all other nations’ (Straub, 2016: 67). “Self-Reliance” then sides with
other jeremiads of American exceptionalism to point out the capacity of each
individual American to partake the fight
against the ‘Chao and Dark’ in order to ensure ‘a revolution in all the offices
and relations of men’. In addition, as Radhakrishnan underlines, the notion of
self-reliance is coupled with the belief in the transcendence
that would enable the American artist to interpret the hieroglyphics of nature and stimulates him to brandish the American
self and protect the rest of the world from self-destruction
(Radhakrishnan, 2008: 239). To become grand and
to influence the world is only possible if America sticks to its own cultural
identity rather than confirming to others. Other nations would follow American
example as Christians follow Jesus Christ, as the Roman empire followed Julius
Caesar, as Monachism follows the Hermit Anthony, as Luther is worldwide known for the reformation, as Quakerism
follows Fox, and as Methodism is based on Wesley’s theological principles, etc.
With non-conformity coupled with virtue,
success and prosperity become possible. Emerson, here, introduces the notion of
American utilitarian liberalism upon which American culture distinguishes from
the British monarchy and its feudalist
economic system. He advances that “when private men shall act
with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings
to those of gentlemen” (962). This sides Emerson with the fathers of American
Foundation such as George Washington and John Adams
as he himself professes that nonconformity “throws thunder into Chatham's
voice, and dignity into Washington's port, and America into Adams's eye” (961).
Like Benjamin Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth” (364) that supports the argument
that it is possible in America to change one’s social class through industry
and hard work, Emerson argues for the possibility
for America to grow and rule over other
countries if it sticks to individual cultural identity. This points to intuition side of self-reliance which derives from God. It can
only be achieved through breaks with shared knowledge which make people hold to
the past and future.
Emerson
suggests the democratisation of American
culture. America has to cut off from the past British tradition and focus on
its present condition as an independent nation. Its identity must be separate
from the British civilisation. He
embraces Thomas Paine’s words that America should not reconcile with the Great
Britain because they are not compatible. This idea of the democratisation of American culture is also
highlighted in other writings of Emerson, especially “The Divinity School
Address” (1838) and the “American Scholar” (1837). In these writings, Emerson combines spirituality and
intellectualism. His aim, as Michelle Kohler opines are gesturing towards a national self-reliance capable of resisting
the European and other historical influences in order to facilitate the new
formation of distinctive culture (Kohler, 2014: 34).
The prophetic tone in
“Self-Reliance” makes the essay pertinent to the context of human rights and
cultural revolution of the nineteenth century. Actually, the French revolution
movement and its prophecy of liberty characterise
the transcendentalist writers. In this spirit, linking transcendentalism to
French revolution, Julia Straub (2016:67) feels that American Romanticism and
its transcendentalist iterations convey a revolutionary sensibility like the
one championed by the French Revolution (1789) in its struggle for liberty as
the gateway to a new age or the dawning
of a New Jerusalem in line with the Biblical Book of Revelation. Emerson deplores
the relation of America to history and past,
We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older,
of the men of talents and character they chance to see, — painfully
recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the
point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them,
and are willing to let the words go; for, at any time, they can use words as
good when occasion comes (964).
When Emerson wrote “Self-Reliance”,
Americans were still following the British canon in their writings. From the
early English immigrants to American independence through awakening movement, American literature, for
example, was drawing from its British mother of which it was just a branch. It
is likely this Emersonian propaganda that later pushed writers like Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Melville, Mark Twain, etc. to inaugurate the American novel with the
sentimental religion love topic (Fiedler, 1960:3) that was not common among
British artists. The elevation of America is not to follow written texts or friend
or neighbouring countries, rather sit on
its own and traces its own way. Emerson emphasises,
“Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home
with the cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books
and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact (966).
American identity as theorised by John Winthrop must be in accord
with God who elected Americans and gave them commission to lay the foundation to a city upon a hill and civil and
ecclesiastical community of which all the world has to pattern. Americans must not
be influenced by any text or law except their own-made laws. But the other
nations can follow them if it pleases them. He refers to this attitude as the
direct law of consciousness. It does not rely on the popular practice, society,
law, or doctrine of others rather trusts
itself and its own values.
In
this essay, Emerson embraces the liberal pluralism initiated by Benjamin
Franklin and later idealised by St
Jean de Crevecoeur. His declaration that the “great man is he who in the midst
of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (959)
implies that in the midst of American melting pot, individual cultural
identities should be respected, preserved and safeguarded. In other words, in
the American pluralism, the Indian cultural identity, the African-American
cultural identity, and other minority groups’ cultural identity must be
promoted. This points to the myth of American ideology of cultural pluralism as
defined by Chylinska (2009:115). The self-reliance, self-knowledge, or
self-expression aims at bettering coexistence between individuals and races.
Thus the appropriation of this cultural pluralism constitutes a banner to
American exceptionalism through a national identity construction. American
cultural pluralism was prophesied in the eighteenth century in Letters from an Old Farmer by St Jean de
Crevecoeur. Crevecoeur argues that America demarcates from Europe by the fact
that the plurality of its religions, races, cultural identities and, values
makes up a harmony which is unique in the world. In the spirit of Thomas
Paine’s Common Sense, Emerson
professes,
Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our
marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We
are parlour soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born
(967).
Emerson views the dependence on others as a lack of cultural maturity and
personal ethics. This point is the common denominator of “Self-Reliance”
and " “The American Scholar”, a speech delivered by Emerson on the 31st
of August 1837 at the First Parish in Cambridge. In both discourses, Emerson establishes
a new way for America to evaluate the sixty years of American independence
declaration in order to provide a philosophical framework for Americans to
build a new distinctly American cultural identity. He advises,
It is easy to see that a
greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations
of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes
of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views (968).
To
achieve this cultural consciousness and revolution, Emerson highlights four
main areas of social life in which self-reliant individuals are needed, namely
religion which fears creativity, a culture
which devalues individualism, arts which teach imitation,
and society which wrongly promotes progress. Firstly,
religion should not be a worship of any authority be it Hutton, Bentham, or
Fourier, but rather a vision to the fellowship
with the highest God such as Calvinism, Quakerism, and Swedenborgism view it.
Emerson warns,
[…] idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its
fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece
venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an
axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The soul is
no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties,
on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home
still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that
he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a
sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet. (969)
Secondly, for cultural values,
Americans should not copy the so-called civilisation
of Italy, England, Egypt, or Greece but they must rely on their own cultural
patterns. In addition, if it is necessary
to draw from other cultures, they must rework their already existing cultural models rather relying on others. Thirdly,
arts should not be imported from old civilisations
and cultural sites like the Doric or the Gothic model. They have to be autodidacts
and self-made persons like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Francis Bacon,
and Isaac Newton. Finally, Emerson
ensures that relying on their own
religious, artistic, and cultural models will fuel American identity and
advance American society.
Conclusion
Based upon transcendentalist
principles Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” is centred on individualism. Emerson
assumes that individualism for America and Americans requires them to valorize
the self, rather than relying on social, religious, and historical conventions.
The essay suggests criticism on the American political and economic
independence which, when Emerson published his essay in 1841, had failed to
improve the situation of the women, the Blacks, Indians, and other American
minorities. In addition, the essay insinuates
a blame of the American Judeo-Christian church that was involved in Indian
cultural assimilation and Black repatriation by denying their cultural
identities. Moreover, through the influence of Orientalism, “Self-Reliance”
discredits Thomas Paine who, in his American revolution propaganda viewed Islam
as the evil perpetrator of monarchy and its brutal practices. However, Emerson
debarks on the American dream and exceptionalism mythopoesis, for through
self-reliance American national success is possible. Furthermore, in promoting
individualism, American will export its cultural values, for as Emerson admits
America will become exemplar to other nations.
Works Cited
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