EMERSON’S SELF-RELIANCE

EMERSON’S SELF-RELIANCE

INTRODUCTION

    Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. He started his career as a Pastor but soon resigned the job, because his conscience did not permit him to associate himself with religious rituals. His first book Nature was published in 1836. It brings out Emerson’s fundamental concepts of transcendentalism. His The American Scholar and The Divine School Address made him famous all over the country. He published his first series of Essays in 1841. Self-Reliance, The Over Soul, Spiritual Laws and other essays form part of this series. In his preface to the essay Self-Reliance, Emerson quotes a few lines of poetry from Beaumont and Fletcher

DO NOT SEEK OUTSIDE YOURSELF

Imitation is Suicide

     Emerson begins the essay with his reaction to the verses of the painter Allston. The painter has written the verses from the depth of his heart. It appeals to the soul of the hearer. Emerson points out that, the sentiment is more important than thought and that what is true for one man must be true for all. One’s deepest conviction becomes the Universal sense. Great men like Moses, Plato and Milton gave importance only to the ideas that flashed within their own minds. They brushed aside books and traditions. According to Emerson imitation is a kind of suicide. Like farming, every man must cultivate his mind for his nourishment. He need not care for others’ minds.

Trust Thyself

     Emerson says that every person is blessed with divine power. But very few try to bring out this divine power with seriousness. To realize the power we must accept the place provide to us by the divine hand and must bring out the best in us with boldness. Great men always trust themselves and conquer chaos and the dark. Emerson compares the independent critic to an audience in the pit during Shakespeare’s days, because the audience in the pit was independent and free in their criticism of the plays. Emerson points out that at present society is like a joint-stock company with the share-holders surrendering their liberty. Emerson opposes such a lifestyle and upholds self-reliance.

A man should be a non-conformist

     To exist as a ‘man’, a man should be a non-conformist. Emerson asserts that self-reliance necessarily involves disagreement with the society and its customs and traditions. He questions the establishment of numerous Relief Societies for the poor, who sometimes, happen to be drunkards. He asks whether the so-called poor people are really poor. Emerson would speak out the rude truth always. A warm abolitionist once came to him with news of the latest development in Barbadoes. Emerson did not like showing sympathy to people living in far-off places. So he advised the man to go and love the people in his home and the wood-chopper in the neighbourhood. Emerson wants to speak the rude truth.  Emerson wants to be simple, sincere, sound and sweet life. He does not like to adopt virtues for exhibition. Virtues should not be practiced as symbols of one’s courageous or charitable disposition. According Emerson, what is favourable to a man’s constitution is right and what is unfavourable to it is wrong. However, he says that this rule is difficult to follow in actual and in intellectual life. But this rule is sufficient to distinguish between greatness and meanness.

Conformity

     Conforming to dead practices weakens a man. Attachment to any sect in the Church or association with any political party blinds a man of his own innate nature and power and makes him false in all particulars. It makes a man lose his entity and binds him with the chains of identity. He becomes a prisoner to a particular speech. Emerson compares conforming to dead values to the game of blind-man’s-buff. All the professionals are following a dead routine. We smile and pretend to be interested in conversation that does not interest us at all. Neither our sourness nor sweetness is real. It is a mask put on and off according to the dictates of newspapers. These cultivated classes are timid. They are not capable of strong feelings. Their  rage is feminine.

 If he becomes a non-conformist the society punishes him therefore, a non-conformist must know how to conduct himself in society. He can overlook the rage of the cultivated classes. But he should exhibit the habit of magnanimity and religion to defuse the anger of the ignorant multitude.