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Importance of self-transcendence
First, Emerson begins by emphasizing the importance of self-transcendence. By making a sharp contrast between a painter’s thought which entranced through his soul more than some dogmatic books of sages like Moses, Plato, and Milton, Emerson endorses one’s personal original thoughts and convictions purer than those that impose upon one’s conscience to appreciate certain rays of light. He makes a sharp statement: “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.” In the third paragraph he writes: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string”. Individualism seems to occupy the first part of his essay. Emerson presents the individual an autonomous self who is capable of maintaining his own conscience against any external influence. In the thoughts of Emerson, self-reliance is the greatest virtue and being a nonconformist to societal institutional norms is the purest form of integrity. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind…. No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.” It is such a naturalistic transcendence that Emerson promotes for the individual.
Self-reliance and self-trust
A second part of Emerson’s argument challenges the individual to be self-reliant by trusting in one’s self-worth. At this point, he makes a moral argument when he admonishes the individual to be moral enough to foster harmony in the world that he lives in. Self-worth and self-trust is the most important to the individual if one needs transcendence. Until the individual has learned to put things under feet, the person has not learnt to master self. The material world must not control the individual. It must be the opposite. Emerson continues to make differences between tuition and intuition. For intuition, he calls it spontaneity or instinct, “that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions.” The spontaneity springs from the soul which has a pure connection with God. An individual’s transcendence takes place there. All transcendentalism must be an intuitive knowledge.
Self-reliance and society
The third part of Emerson’s argument is centers around self-reliance and the society. Society opposes the self-reliant. These two are antithesis. Society has institutionalized the arts, occupations, marriages, and religion. One must choose from the lists already provided. Emerson expresses his concern over such institutionalized structures as imposing on the individual, because “we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us.” The word society, in its distinctive form, is a barricade to individuals’ self-reliance. Self-reliance is defiant to society. It brings out revolution. Emerson noted: “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.”
Criticism of the essay
Emerson’s too much emphasis on the individual is conflicting with moral standards. “Trust thyself…” How does Emerson see the “self”? Is it so pure that anything that springs out of the self is pure? Or he cares little about the telos of a person’s naturalistic actions? Even though there are many realities in self-definition, an individual’s perception and intuition are influenced in part by the things around him. In many cases a person needs inspiration to have revelation. Such inspiration sparks the inner intuition to set the person on transcendence. For example Emerson calls self-reliance as revolution. It can only be a revolution because it is confronting some already institutionalized structures. Without these institutionalized structures, perhaps self-reliance will never be a revolution. The questions the inner spirit or the intuition raises are because of the things around the individual. Therefore, Emerson cannot overrule out rightly any external reliance for transcendence.
Emerson is a moralist and seems not to be sympathetic with society. He sees the society as prison-bound. He says: “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.” Unfortunately he didn’t define what this distinctive society is in details. He only described the immorality of the society without looking at its power to humanize individuals. Emerson does recognize the perversion of individuals whose rescue could be achieved only by the practice of “the habit of magnanimity and religion”. Though he does not see this as a great means of remedying individual’s perversion, one cannot lose sight of these institutions as remedial other than opposing individual’s transcendence.
Again the emphasis on the practice of morality in his writing is not congruent with his refutation of societal influence. When he makes reference to self-trust, he says: “Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him.” “Thou shall not steal” is perhaps one of the oldest societal rules. When Emersion challenges the self-reliant to refrain from stealing, he’s in fact, in part pointing one to societal norms. People need to stay within society to learn its moral fibers. Society therefore is not always intrinsically opposing self-transcendence. It can be a powerful means to assist persons’ transcendence.
Emerson’s self-reliance is of course one of his great works. To sum up his thought, transcendence must start with self. God is inside everyone and through the soul, one comes to realize all the treasures of his intuition. It is only through intuitive knowledge that one comes to get connected to everything else around him. One must be critical of self and hence drink from the pure cisterns of inner instincts. However, there are so many questions to ask on Emerson’s essay. One of them which is fundamental to human existentialism is the place of evil in an individual’s existence? Why two persons raised by same parents can end up having two opposite characters? What is the answer of self-reliance to evil? The question of evil in human existentiality poses a great challenge on Emerson’s essay.