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American Literature: Romanticism research assignment Student Research Submissions 2013 conference paper |
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Meryl Bazaman
Emerson’s Internal Revolution
Subtitle: Emerson’s Intuition as Rebellion against
Globalization and Pedagogical Facebook Possibilities
Lucy Pearce writes of Emerson: “This
desire to live out their philosophy, to use it for the betterment of society can
be seen as a peculiarly American twist on the ideas of the European Romantics”
(Pearce, 47). While Pearce uses the word “twist” to explain Emersonian
adaptation, I find the world “revolutionize” to be more applicable. In fact, one
way to read Emerson is as an author who declares “internal revolution” against
the globalization of his day. Emerson expresses this internal revolution by
asserting society possesses an unwillingness to move beyond the original order
and models established by the Old World and its Old Empire. In order to move
beyond this stagnation and to make progress happen, Emersonian theory directs
active members of society towards Intuition. Through intuition, Emerson suggests
one can have access to genius as well as its ability to encourage one to react
actively. Yet, is Emerson’s revolutionary Intuition relevant to Facebook, a
technology that he may or may not support? While both components of Emerson’s
Intuitive Revolution appear applicable through analysis of user-generated data,
motivation to act, and access samples of intuiting, there is the question of
does Facebook also encourage passivity? And if so, is the passivity demonstrated
on Facebook as detrimental as Emerson suggests? Time will reveal, but for now –
let us understand what Emerson means by society.
How does Emerson comprise society? In his essay
Self Reliance, Emerson defines
society as follows:
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 it
most requests is conformity. Self -reliance is its aversion. It [conformity]
loves not realities and creatures, but names and customers. (Emerson,
Self-Reliance, n.pag)
Therefore, while Emerson’s definition of society is meant to
encompass all men and women, their commonalities end after inclusion.
Immediately, Emerson divides his society. Two groups emerge: those that are
active and those that are passive. Yet, what does Emerson tell us about his
groups? Why is his distinction of the two significant? Apparently, according to
Emerson, passivity is associated with “conformity,” “the unreal,” and
“surrender” of the new country to the worn, old tyranny of Old World Empire.
Emerson’s passive group then represents the “…traditional institutions and forms
that must be overcome if progress is to be achieve” (Deneen, 11), while
Emerson’s active group, the “averse” or oppositional group represents the
aspiration for the real, the novel, progress, liberty, and its own distinctive
culture free from the “names,” and positioning of the colonizing Empire.
However, were the passive members of
Emerson’s society really corrosive? According to Lucy Pearce: “America, having
recently fought for its political independence from Europe, was by Emerson’s
time in a quandary over its own future and its relation to its past, a struggle
which Emerson referred to as ‘between the Party of the Past and the Party of the
Future’” (Pearce, 50). As a result, if we apply Emerson’s party terminology to
his societal dichotomy, those members constituting the “Party of the Past” can
be construed as compliant conformists loyal to the ways and wisdom of a recently
removed king, unwilling to move beyond tradition. Emerson clearly associates
these members with stagnation and a collective unwillingness to attempt the
progress necessary for a new nation to successfully develop. Furthermore Emerson
also associates this past based party with a segment of society that “shamed”
Emerson. Emerson defines this segment as on identifiable through their
willingness to “capitulate to badges and names, to large societies [The British,
my addition] and dead institutions [the globalized companies sponsored by the
British, my addition]” (Emerson,
Self-Reliance). Considered by Emerson as capitulating and dependent,
Emerson ostracized this segment. This portion of the “Party of the Past” was,
based on Emerson’s written works, a force that hindered the self-reliance
necessary for development and future advancements. Yet, while the “Party of the
Past” was corrosive in Emerson’s eyes; Emerson accompanies his shame with an
alternative – the oppositional “averse” solution of the active - the “Party of
the Future.”
So how could Emerson’s active constituency
emerge triumphant? In his essay “The Metempsychotic Mind: Emerson and
Consciousness,” John Michael Corrigan writes:
Emerson confronts his readers with a dilemma that curiously
reflects the formation of American individualism: either American citizens can
accept their own powerlessness in the chain of cause and effect or they can seek
to understand their place in history and attempt to adapt themselves into new
and fitter forms. To achieve the latter, however, an individual must be willing
to abandon the ostensible stability of ordinary life and recognize the
transformation of all living things. (Corrigan, 442)
Here Emerson calls upon the averse, the oppositional active
group of society to challenge the passive through progress, novelty, and
applying their ability to see beyond traditional institutions. While Emerson’s
society was in part a “conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its
members” (Emerson, Self-Reliance),
Emerson also believed through these oppositional active members, willing to
“adapt themselves into new and fitter forms,” could provide the salve that
treats societal conspiracy. By asking active members to “recognize the
transformation of all living things,” Emerson asks those active members to
revolt. Emerson calls for an intuitive revolution so that people (in society)
could liberate themselves from the surrender to the Old World and all regain
their collective personhood. Emerson calls for an intuitive revolution so that
all society could become aware of what was real – transformation, progress, and
change. Emerson calls for an intuitive revolution in order to change the mindset
that delays actions necessary for American society to advance.
Yet, before intuitive revolution can be
accomplished, Emerson’s definition of Intuition must be understood. What does
Emerson mean by Intuition? What phenomena is Intuition? According to Emerson,
Intuition exists within each individual as “primary wisdom” (Emerson,
Self Reliance). That is by
holding an intuitive revolution; active members of society must possess a
mindset, a source of wisdom that is willing to react. They must draw upon this
grander base of knowledge and react to it as opposed to passively responding. As
clarified by Williamson and Null, the authors explain Emerson, like other
Transcendentalists, “subscribed to the idea that, in addition to understanding
or capacity for empirical reasoning, man has a higher mental faculty, which
enables him to perceive spiritual truth intuitively” (Williamson and Null, 387).
That is in order to be able to act and react; Emerson believed this “primary
wisdom,” which interacted with empirical knowledge, could be used to transform
passive men to active men in society, to make members of the “Part of the Past”
devote adherents to the more progressive “Party of the Future.”
However, in order to shift allegiances towards those of
revolution, what immediate benefit does accessing Emerson’s Intuition provide?
Emerson asserted that one of the most immediate benefits of Intuition was that
it allowed each of its individual employers the possibility of access to “the
essence of genius, of virtue, and of life” (Emerson,
Self-Reliance). Acknowledging
how traditional structures and institutions were part of what fragmented human
reality, leading individuals to live lives that are “led separately to seemingly
different ends and attracted to seemingly distinct objects” (Deneen, 10), access
to the “primary wisdom” of Intuition and its possibilities for “comprehending
the universal whole” through the individualistic self offered the “greatest”,
most active men access to the “genius of their age, betraying their perception
that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their
hands, predominating in all their being” (Emerson,
Self-Reliance). That is while
tapping to Intuition gave one individualized access to Genius, it gave the
greatest men more of a solidified, holistic view of genius. Great men could,
according to Emerson, realize their potential of being great men by drawing from
the pool of Intuition, an all-inclusive knowledge source promising exclusivity
to those individuals capable of accessing it.
In addition, those that chose Emerson’s Intuitive revolution
would also have the option of actively reacting. As Keane puts it: “…for Emerson
and for the Transcendentalists in general illuminated their own intuitive,
spontaneous, instinctual ‘truths:’ mysterious in origin but imperishable
precisely because they were
derived from the internalized ‘spirit’ (aspect of Intuition, my addition)”
(Keane, 72). That is because those that choose to intuit did so actively; their
truths, which they had access to became solidified and things that could be
acted upon. The Emersonian man,
then, who chose to accept Intuition and react would only be adherent to his
“understanding alone” (Emerson, Nature).
The man could then use his access to Intuition to understand the world about
him. Clearly stated, “One of Emerson’s aims seems to be to encourage man, but
more particularly the American individual, to see himself as a subject in
relation to history, rather than merely a passive object (Pearce, 46). As an
individual using Intuition, a man becomes reactive and active; he reacts because
experience moves him. Emerson’s intuition then makes man a part of the world.
Man’s choices then must move events, must challenge, and must improve, for
according to Emerson they are “parts and particles” of revolutionizing Intuition
that can potentially gain access to the Intuitive whole.
Still, could Emersonian active Intuitive
whole men and women impact Facebook?
How could Emerson
employ this agent of “disruptive media” into his intuitive selfhood, educational
framework?
In short, how would
Emerson view Facebook? While further research is necessary to fully answer these
questions, I propose synthesizing Emerson’s perceptions of intuition with
academic journal findings on Facebook can provide further questions that assist
readers in reevaluating Facebook’s simultaneous threads of individuality and
globalization.
First, it is crucial to note that Emerson was quite
supportive of technology. Based on Lumpkin’s analysis of Emerson’s essay “The
Young American,” the following suggestions were made of Emerson:
Emerson was a great advocate of the exaltation of mankind.
This was accomplished, he reasoned, through human intellect. He felt that in the
divine order, intellect was primary and nature was secondary. Imagination was
the exercise of intellect by which humans are lifted up. The imagination was
employed in finding better ways to use nature and thus he praised the creativity
that he witnessed in daily life” (Lumpkin, 45).
As Emerson derives Imagination from Intuition, an Emersonian
analysis of technology could be that it provided an optimal way to use the
revolutionary function of Intuition in a way that made one active upon his or
her environment. Through the application of technology, Emerson believed those
that accessed genius by “finding better ways to use nature” allowed their genius
to “speak to them” most effectively (Emerson,
Over Soul).
Emerson then seemed to believe that by employing the cognitive functions
of the mind that all connected to Intuition; technology offered an actualization
of the thought process.
However, aside from a technological
preference, could Emerson’s Intuition and the qualities it inspires work within
what is known about Facebook? According to Rodriguez in her studies on social
media, Rodriguez defines Facebook as such: “The
ubiquitous term “social media” has become inherently connected to the popular
YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook websites.” Describing media as “social” implies
that it exists in a social space and/or users interact in some way with the
media.”(Rodriguez, n.pag). Consistent with Emersonian Intuition, Facebook
requires user interaction. That is as Emersonian Intuition has resulted in
activity and forced those under the yolk of Empire to be act outside of the
conformist sphere of behavior; Facebook forces users to be active, allows those
with access to genius opportunities to generate user content, and engage with
system that functions as a primary knowledge source would. However, how would
Emerson feel about individualization from a social space? How would he respond
to the direct classing of his nature with the nature of another?
Another aspect of Facebook Rodriguez
identifies while analyzing studies done by Alexander is its ability to be both
“open and restrictive.” While reviewing studies on how Facebook could impact the
classroom, Rodriguez found that Facebook presented “a complex, contradictory
openness and restriction, public engagement and cloistering” (n.pag). These
results are troubling for the application of Emersonian Intuition, which
maintains activity, wholeness, progress, and removal from older institutions as
its primary goals. While Emerson would adamantly support the openness and access
Facebook would provide, Emerson would perhaps be troubled by how programming,
which functions as his Intuitive mind, could be limiting and restrictive. In
fact, perhaps Emerson would see the resistance to respond as passivity? Would he
see this willful silence or removal from social media as those who conformed to
older methods or would his Intuitive model fathom this particular form of
acceptance (acceptance as rejection) as a different interpretation of genius?
Other social media researchers also found that not only does Facebook impact
quality of life but how one interacts with other members of society. In Woodley
and Meredith’s 2012 study on Facebook, the researchers found that while Facebook
was not advantageous to all students, it did seem to benefit those students who
felt isolated and shy (Woodley and Meredith, 93). That is students who would
have been perceived by Emerson as conformists due to their minimal response and
engagement with life or lack of original use of Intuition could be assisted by
Facebook? Would this adaption of otherwise conformist individuals trouble
Emerson? Would Emerson prefer active society members that moved Facebook forward
and used it to the best of their intuitive ability?
As Emerson separated the societal wheat from the chaff when a break from the
globalization of his day required men and women take action, Facebook too can
compel those to act; however, as experienced, it redefines passivity.
Furthermore, Facebook and Emerson make strong arguments for the use of Intuition
within Facebook. If applied to Facebook, Emersonian Intuition can assist in
ingenuity through access to genius and awareness of being reactive. Yet, how
much of Emerson is truly relevant to Facebook? While these studies only poise
more questions, how they work within Emersonian framework or can work within
Emersonian framework is a venture that deserves further exploration.
Works Cited
Corrigan, John Michael.
“The Metempsychotic Mind: Emerson and Consciousness.”
Journal of the History of Ideas
71.3(2010): 433-457. Web 5 April 2013
Deneen, Patrick J.
“Transcendentalism, Ancient and Modern: Brownson versus Emerson.”
Perspectives on Political Science
37.1(2008): 8-16. Web 5 April 2013
Emerson, Ralph Waldo,
Nature, 1836. RWE.org. Web 4
April 2013. (N)
Emerson, Ralph Waldo.
Self- Reliance. 1841. RWE.org.
Web 4 April 2013. (SR)
Emerson, Ralph Waldo.
The Over-Soul. 1841. RWE.org.
Web 4 April 2013 (OS)
Keane, Patrick J.
Emerson, Romanticism, and Intuitive
Reason. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 2005. Print.
Lumpkin, G.T. “The
Promise of Technology Versus the Pastoral Ideal: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Conflict
Over the Role of Mankind in Nature.”
International Journal of Humanities and Peace (2006):45-6. Web 5 April
2013
Pearce, Lucy.
“Re-visioning History: Countering Emerson’s Alleged Ahistoricity.”
European Journal of American Culture
26.1(2007): 41-56. Web 4 April 2013.
Rodriguez, Julia E.
“Social Media Use in Higher Education: Key Areas to Consider for Educators.”
Journal of Online Learning and
Teaching 7.4(2011):n.pag. Web 5 April 2013.
Williamson, Amy and
J.Wesley Null. “Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Educational Philosophy as a Foundation for
Cooperative Learning.” American
Educational History Journal
35.2 (2008): 381-91. Web. 4 April 2013
Woodley, Carolyn and Catherine Meredith. “Supporting Student Transition through
Social Media” American Journal of
Distance Education 26.2(2012): 86-95. Web April 5 2013.
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