Post 5: Contemporary Example of Transcendentalism

Thesis: In the song "Little Game" by Benny, they discuss gender roles within society, how we are forced to be confined to these standards and this topic relates to transcendentalist ideals. 

“Play us like pawns and relentlessly confine

into living up to gender roles and having absent minds”

This is the first line of the song talks about how we are put into these boxes by society. Individualism is one of the transcendentalism that applies to this quote because it explains how we, as humans, are given these boxes to confine ourselves to. The transcendentalism idea tells us that we should not do us what society tells us to do because they should have that much control over us, which leads to my next quote. 

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right”(Thoreau 213)

This quote comes from David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience and in this he talks about how he did nothing wrong and got put in jail for it. Specifically this quote applies to the song because both talk/show how that we are curious creatures and that curiosity needs to be fulfilled.  This is a normal thing for humans and even though society wants us to think that it's normal. In reality, they secretly tell us that its not right to not conform to the boxes they give us and make us feel like we are doing something wrong, when all we are being is ourselves. 

“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 183)

This quote comes from Emerson's Self-Reliance and he also dives into the idea that society tells us to be ourselves yet they tell us that its wrong to think for ourselves. Emerson describes how he doesn't understand why this happens because we should be able to think for ourselves, that's why we were given a conscience.

"The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child"(Emerson 180)

In another work by Emerson so called Nature, he talks about how we need to get back to nature and realize its true beauty which applies to the theme of Optimism. He dives into this idea with this quote by explaining how we have become so used to seeing things that they have lost their beauty. Their is still hope through the lives and eyes of our children. This connects to my example because I think that this video is a warning that we keep putting children into their boxes and that crushes their individualism.

Post 4: "Civil Disobedience"

http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/12/10/climate-justice-activists-announce-global-break-free-campaign-civil-disobedience-set-2016

In the work Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, he discusses how people have a conscience for a reason and that is to use it. He encourages people to protest against something especially if they don't believe it is right. Within his text he says "Must the citizen ever for a moment, in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then?" (Thoreau 213). This idea also applies to situations today such as the proposed ban on protests. These protests are trying to convey the idea that fossil fuels are destroying the earth and they have events planned as far ahead as May 2016. These people are peacefully rebelling against the government for something that they believe in, which is what Thoreau encourages us to do in Civil Disobedience. Continuing the quote from above he says "I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward"(Thoreau 213). The government wants to ban these protests

because the world needs fossil fuels to run on and they don't want any protesters changing the ideas of the people that they have set in place. Even though these are peaceful marches they still want to
shut them down and one of their "excuses" is that the situation in Paris is bad enough and that we don't need more protests. Thoreau talks about the reason why he didn't want to pay the tax, which is much of the reason that the protests are still happening. He says "... the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself" (Thoreau 213). In this he describes his reason for not paying which is a solid reason. This idea carries over to the current situation described above because the

only solid reason that they are giving for wanting to shut down these otherwise peaceful protests is that the situation in Paris is bad because of the recent attack and it would be a lot for them to shut these people down. Now we understand that the situation in Paris is very bad and many lives were lost, but that has nothing to do with the current situation at hand which is about the fossil fuels and how we are destroying the earth harvesting them.

Post 3: Thoreau I

Thoreau was greatly influenced by Emerson and his work which led him to write many works, much like Emerson's. As they were much like Emerson's, Thoreau's writings displayed many of the common transcendentalist themes. Those themes are individualism, idealism, optimism and intuition.

Individualism: Thoreau is famous for the one year trip that he made into the woods and while he was there he wrote a text called Walden. In this piece of writing, he talks about being out all alone in the wilderness and how it freed his mind. He writes about seeing the world more clearly saying "... we live meanly...it is error upon error and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail"(Thoreau 204). This quote helps explain how pushing himself away form society has helped him see the wrongs with human life and hopefully try to fix them in his own life, maybe even the lives of others if possible.

Idealism: Thoreau also dives into the theme of idealism when he continues to describe how our lives are wasted away by the time we spend on details. He elaborates on this saying "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million..."(Thoreau 205). In this he is basically describing a perfect world where everyone no longer worries about the little things, but only the big things. One example of that might be to worry about your family and possibly your job, but not on the little things like a project at work. We should be focusing more on the big picture in life instead of seeing every little thing wrong with our lives and trying to fix it. 

Optimism: Within Civil Disobedience, he discusses many things that are wrong with the government of his time. Thoreau also brings in the theme of optimism when he tries to suggest solutions to these flaws he sees. One such solution would be when he questions "Con there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?"(Thoreau 213).

Within this quote he questions why the world can't be in such a way that we decide things by our consciences, not just majority. In this question he brings up optimism because I believe that within this question he is proposing a solution to the problem at hand, which ties into the theme of optimism.  

Intuition: At one point, Thoreau is in jail and he talks about why he is in there in the first place. He goes on to explain that the government doesn't use common sense to solve the problems they are facing. Before he is put in jail he talks about another time where he was almost put into jail. He goes on to say "I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster: for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription"(Thoreau 213). This represents intuition because in his gut he knew, without a doubt, that he did nothing wrong and did not see the point to pay the tax. In this I think he didn't have any fear of going to jail because his intuition told him that he really did nothing wrong. In the end he got out of jail, probably just like he predicted, and like most intuition, he was right in assuming that. 

Post 2: Emerson

 Emerson was one of the first and most famous transcendentalists. In many of his works, central transcendentalist ideas emerged. Such ideas include optimism, intuition, idealism and individualism.

Optimism: Optimism appears in Emerson's Nature when he writes "The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child"(Emerson 180). In this he is saying that children see the true beauty in everything. I think that he is subtly implying that to see the beauty in everything as a child does, one must unlearn everything that he knows. The only reason that we don't see the beauty in everything is that we become used to it that if fades into the background. To see it once more we must take the time to admire the beauty and stop to see the beautiful world around us.  

Intuition: A mother's intuition is a common phrase used today and it means a gut feeling and mother's usually have such feelings. This idea is explored in Emerson's Self-Reliance when he says "They teach is to abide by our spontaneous impression with good humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side"(Emerson 183). Although he doesn't come right out and say it, Emerson hints at intuition because he is describing how our first impression should be the one we follow which can be your intuition kicking in. A more simple way to put this is that you should trust your gut feeling about things, because a great majority of the time it is right. We, in society, are not taught to do this, which is what transcendentalists wanted to teach us. To trust ourselves because we are the only ones truly watching our backs.

Idealism: The ideal world, an ideal self, these are all things that we imagine and want for ourselves. Within Emerson’s work Nature he plays with this idea that there are ideals to everything in our lives because, as people say, there is always room for improvement. He inscribes this when he says “Within these plantation of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years”(Emerson 181). This quote describes a perfect world where no one would tire of seeing the stars shine at night and they could never even conceive that it would be possible. I think that Emerson says the people think this is because when you are admiring something so beautiful, you can’t possibly imagine how it could ever become less beautiful. But as time will tell, things become old and they fade into the background, no matter how beautiful they were at first sight.

Individualism: One example of individualism from Emerson's Self-Reliance is when he writes "We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents"(Emerson 184). In this he is describing the fact that the general population doesn’t say anything about their opinion or speak up because we are afraid. We are too afraid of what others think about us because acceptance is a very important part in being human. Everyone wants to be accepted for who they truly are but in fear that they will be pushed away, they fake being someone else. Before long the true them is gone and all they know is that person they were pretending to be. This is the reality that will come true and Emerson is trying warn us that it’s going to happen sooner rather than later if we don’t do something about it. 

Post 1: Transcendentalism

What is Transcendentalism?
Transcendentalism is a movement that changed many people's traditional ideas of previous thinkers. They started to propose ideas that reality is just a figment of our imagination and that we need to think beyond the learning of our past. Within the texts of the time the followers of this movement, including Emerson, and Thoreau, explore these ideas and how they think that they will be able to reach the ideals set in this movement. One of such ideals is that we must think above a bar which has been set by society and our past learning. To rise above this bar, as Emerson says in Nature, "To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me" ( Emerson 180). In this quote he describes how although it may seem that he is alone, he truly is not because people of his past have taught him how to do so many things.

To be truly alone, a man must not think of his past learning and rise above that to think in a new way that has not been thought of in the past. Henry David Thoreau approaches the idea of idealism in his Civil Disobedience, when he talks about how he was put into jail and he doesn't think that it is a bad thing. He says "I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village-inn-a wholly new and rare experience to me.(Thoreau 216). In this he is describing how he learned more about his town from a night in jail than living in the town for so many years. In another one of Thoreau's works Walden, he describes his experiences of his year in the woods and the reason he went there in the first place. He says "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,... when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" (Thoreau 204). This describes the transcendentalism idea of individualism because he separated himself from society to live and find himself without outside influence.