Thursday, September 8, 2011

Emerson- Self reliance

Emerson's writing titled "Self Reliance" is the best work we have read in class so far.  I would enjoy reading more of Emersons work.  Throughout Emersons writing he expresses his thoughts on individualism and its clear how he feels.  If you think about today's society, we kinda contradict ourselfs.  We say that being different is great and expressing yourself is a great thing but when someone actually does it we ridicule them until they conform to what we think of as normal.

Emerson starts his writing by defining genius as "believing your own thought".  He says that every educated man will realize eventually that being jelous of someone is just showing ignorance.  Be true to yourself because god made you that way for a reason.  One important line I want to point out is when Emerson says that you should seek silence to hear your thoughts because society, by nature, forces people to conform.  I think their is truth to that statement.  As I mentioned above, In todays society if someone is different they are teased or made fun of just for going against the norm.  Another section of Emersons writing I enjoyed reading was when he talked about self worth.  Up to this point Emerson has stated that individuals have a right and responsibility to think for themselves.  Don't be discouraged by what society thinks.  Emerson says that if you "trust thyself" you should consider yourself to be equal to the great men of history. 

1 comment:

  1. I agree with you! Emerson's work was pretty easy to read and I think he had a lot of good things to write about. His work really made me think about our current society and how we, just like Emerson's society, are desperate for other people's approval. We don't want to break the mold. I think he had a lot of great insight into people's character and what it really takes to be the person you were meant to be!

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