Friday, February 10, 2012

Emerson and the Freedom from the Known



     
“Each philosopher, each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most important theme I took away from Emerson’s essay “The American Scholar,” is the importance of discovering truth for ourselves, by ourselves, not by simply imitating those who came before us, but to stand on your own, as a light unto yourself.  That we must use the past, not as a crutch, but as inspiration and inspiration only.  For to imitate is regurgitate, and destroy all personal discovery and inquiry.  To come to a conclusion based on the past puts an end to your own curiosity and experimentation.  When one imitates, there is no searching, no inquiry that one must undergo because it is all done for you.  So, essentially this quote is about imitation versus authenticity.  Emerson rails against a certain kind of intellectual, the “bookworm” as we discussed in class, or, the person attached to literature as a kind of fetish.  The bookworm imitates what is read, idealizes it, but does not put it into practice.  The bookworm discovers nothing for themselves, they are stuck in the past, and nothing is new for them.  The “mind of the past” is another important theme of “The American Scholar.”  By this, Emerson is referring not only the wealth of literature, philosophy, and culture of the past, but the modern mind which is overshadowed and so crippled by these things.  No matter what we do, the great figures of the past, Shakespeare, Chaucer, among others, loom over the English writer, we must always live up to the standards of genius.  In order to do this, according to Emerson, we imitate genius, we emulate, we “Shakespearize,” but we ultimately have no genius for ourselves.  So the task of the true scholar is then, through a return to nature, a return to reality, to become free of the past and to seek to create for ourselves.  If the past has value, it is for inspiration, so that we may discover our own genius now.  This entire sentiment brings to mind a more modern day spiritual teacher name Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti once said, “We have all become good gramophone records.”  In other words, we all imitate, but few of us stand on our own.  So when Emerson says, “what one day I can do for myself, he is saying that in the end, you must discover the truth for yourself, only then should you accept it.               

1 comment:

  1. Excellent! Especially this: "That we must use the past, not as a crutch, but as inspiration and inspiration only." That is: every thing is only a "means" not an end. Nice connections.

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