Emerson's Persuasion Rhetorical Analysis

Emerson’s tone, to some people might be snobby, or pretentious. But Emerson’s tone is not snobby at all. He is expressing what he thinks “men thinking” or being an intellectual scholar is. Yes, Emerson is very blunt and you could even say harsh. “...but there is no scholar without the heroic mind. He is very blunt and he is opinionated. That is how authors should be. Authors should have their personal opinions and should not be shaken when others have opposing ideas. They should stand by their opinions with full belief that they are right. The man who is fully invested in his opinions or believes so deeply in them, even if they are wrong, is the man thinking and the man/woman that everyone should strive to be.

Of course Emerson is a visionary. A man can be whatever he wants to be in the world. “Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. Whatever he wants to be and he can be. You can have your own thoughts and opinions without having to rely on other people to tell you that those
opinions are correct, because you have faith and knowledge that your opinions are correct. Emerson showed how “men thinking” can be based on nature, novels, and actions. “It remains to say somewhat of his duties.”

The “delegated intellect” is much different from the “man thinking.” The delegated intellect has pre-conceived notions and thoughts that are not his.
He gets his opinions from the minds of others. Just like a son follows in the footsteps of loving his dad's favorite sports team, a delegated thinker follows what other people tell him to think. “...he tends to become a mere thinker, or , still worse the parrot of other men’s thinking.” All of his opinions are invalid because he only believes in what society tells him to believe. He gets his beliefs from the minds of others. Now, the man that has his own opinions, sticks to his own judgement, and doesn’t crumble when someone states an ad hominem argument against him, is the the “man thinking.” This man does not get ideas from other people. He generates his own ideas and can stand with them and can argue them. He is the man thinking. He is the man that will be able to stick to his
ideas.

There are “men thinking” in the world today. They could be around you right now. But if everyone was a man thinking? That would ruin our earth. You have to have people on the higher and lower side of the totem pole. You have to have an equal amount of strengths and weaknesses. If not, we wouldn’t have people working for restaurants that we all love. We wouldn’t have people taking out the trash every Monday. If everyone was so brilliant to be working as a surgeon, or politician, or lawyer? There would be no equality.

Emerson is talking about men as a generic man. Man and women can be scholars and can think their own opinions. Emerson is definitely not being sexist, he is knowing that the reader is going to understand the allusion.