Emerson Conformity

As a member of the Transcendentalist school of thought, Ralph Waldo Emerson believed in the inherent good of humanity and that society and societal institutions could only serve to corrupt that inherent good (Independence Hall Association). In one of Emerson’s most iconic essays, Self Reliance, Emerson further took that idea and espoused that the only way for a man to live was through non-conformity and remaining true only to ones nature- for good or ill. Beginning work on the essay as early as 1832, published for the first time in 1841, then revised and published again in 1847, Self Reliance was a work continuously updated based on the current cultural climate. The essay was written and influenced during the early mobilization of the Industrial
Revolution. This Revolution was known as the great change in American society; a change that brought about a culture drowned in urbanization and conformity to a singular state of mind. Within the essay proper, Emerson touches upon the evils of society on a large scale, the nobility of nonconformity, and the truth to be found in serving one’s self first and foremost. These ideals are, somewhat expectedly, in direct contrast to the expectations of a time when most Americans flocked away from more ‘self-made’ work to urban communities and lost themselves within factory labor. Self Reliance was a powerful rallying cry driven against larger society, conformity, and denying oneself, all unintended side effects of the Industrial Revolution.

Emerson’s world was one that was rapidly growing and urbanizing which, to him, was a great loss. Within the timeframe Emerson wrote Self Reliance, new technologies were forever altering the way Americans lived and worked and came in dizzyingly close succession. Inventions such as the cotton gin, sewing machine, and steam engine put production in the factory, rather than in the home. To keep up with the times Americans moved into the city, where there was more prosperity than in the country. These cities in turn grew into huge centers of commerce and culture. Between the years of 1832 and 1847, in which Self Reliance was being written and rewritten, America’s agrarian population had fallen from 91% to 85% (ElderWeb). This trend would only continue throughout the rest of the century and even beyond. Within more urban communities, a larger society emerged. People were closer to each other, capable of closer and increased communication- as well as additional peer pressure. To live in these communities Emerson believed, was to become but a drop of water in a wave, to become part of a whole “For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure” (Emerson 273). There was a loss of identity in this, a loss of self. It was not as though Emerson thought very highly of closeness to society in the first place, to Emerson, who in Self Reliance could only speak of society in the negative, that it was “…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” this urbanization was a troubling trend indeed (Emerson 271). Emerson believed that the greatest hope for the future would be to rebel against the ‘contentment’ of the times. Much of Self Reliance relates to the idea that as a people, Americans should work against the silencing of their inner voice – a silence Emerson believed was brought about by societal expectations. These expectations of society of which Emerson spoke of would only grow with urbanization, a side effect of the Industrial Revolution.
If one thing is abundantly clear from reading his essay, it is that Emerson believed that conformity was a waste of human potential.
“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist…Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” (Emerson 271). Emerson was a passionate person, feverously preaching the potential of the everyday person if they were to simply look within themselves and chase their inner desires, a revolutionary opinion of his time (Woodlief). For truly at the time there was a homogenizing of the American people, they were losing themselves slowly to the mechanical age of the Industrial Revolution. The rise of the factory meant also the loss of the craftsman, the loss of the human touch. Every piece made was the same, no matter who worked the machines. This capability was both a blessing in productivity as well as a great defeat as it also celebrated, even promoted, conformity. This celebration did not reach only to the products; the culture of the time lost its sense of individuality, and the American people suffered a great identity crisis (Woodlief). In Self Reliance Emerson promoted a freedom of the mind, where the greatest good was to follow individual personal desires, to reject the ideals of common society. Nonconformity made you a man in his eyes, a person worth being, and a person destined for greatness. According to Emerson, to be misunderstood meant nonconformity, “To be great is to be misunderstood” (Emerson 274). It was up to the
singular person to make their thoughts known to the world or else they would simply be stealing another’s thoughts as their own. (Emerson 269) It makes sense that Emerson would resist the rise of the Industrial Revolution then, as the promotion of an almost hive mind amongst the workers of America, the loss of individuality even in their work, goes against his idealistic society of individuals.
Within Self Reliance Emerson supports an almost unthinkable idea that people were at their best when serving themselves first.
This is especially interesting considering this was during a time when small children, no older than seven, were expected to contribute to the whole family. Deadly jobs were readily taken on in factories to help the good of all. Self-sacrifice for the good of the whole was simply expected. People were interchangeable pieces to a bigger puzzle. To many the idea that we should follow what suits the individual best was unthinkable. Self Reliance wholeheartedly espoused this ideal that if being true to one’s self means following devilish desires then that is what will lead you to success and beyond. Emerson writes, “…if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil. No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it” (Emerson 271). The idea that to follow even the evil desire was to be the right path, that ‘bad’ was simply a concept, was very against the ideals of the time. It was not only in a religious sense that people of the times tied to duty and ‘right’. As a family unit, people were expected to pull their own weight – to contribute to the good of all, if not in the factories then on the farm. Even parts of the population that were not expected to work to help the family in a monetary
sense were beginning to branch out in this sense. During Emerson’s time, young women made up a key component of the textile mill industry (Dublin). This expectation of goodness was, in Emerson’s mind, inhibitive of staying true to the nature of the individual. If the only right is that of one’s constitution, then to have a societal expectation, an obligation, to another, whether it was as a family member, employee, or citizen was to inhibit the abilities of that person. If the human was in its natural state good, then to place all of these expectations was superfluous. Emerson’s point was not that we should be free to do all the evils in the world, but that if we were to pursue our own goals, good would be done, there is no need to put these expectations that only serve to prevent the people from reaching their full potential. In this way, Emerson rallies against the ideals of the Industrial Revolution and pushes for truth to the self – above all else.
The ideal that our full potential is reached when one stays true to oneself is so common in the more modern age that it has fallen into platitude. In Emerson’s time however, it was fascinatingly new. Consumed by the Industrial Revolution, America was plagued with byproducts of industrialization and urbanization. A sense of individuality was surprisingly absent in the American culture at the time. The Industrial Revolution brought with it not only the increased power and output for the American people, but also a sense of conformity and societal expectation that overwhelmed a nation. Throughout Emerson’s whole life he spoke out against the attitudes of ‘gross materialism’ and conformity that were sparked by the revolution and characterized the era he lived in (Yannella, 132). Nowhere are Emerson’s points more succinctly put than in Self Reliance. Within the essay he speaks against all the evils he saw in American culture at the time, the society that grew too large and important, the overwhelming conformity, and the stifling of human potential through expectation. Where some saw only the advancement of the whole through the Industrial Revolution, Emerson saw loss for the individual. In Self Reliance it is easy to see some of the tenants of today’s American identity, the self-made person, the nonconformist, the revolutionary. In this context, he was a pioneer in shaping the American identity, when as a country America was struggling to find what made them unique. Emerson’s ideas were so revolutionary, so ahead of his time, that it is hardly a wonder why he remains important in the scope of American literature so many years after his death.