The Pros And Cons Of Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism is not easy to define. The people that identified themselves as transcendentalists were independent individuals. Within their philosophy that they encouraged individualism and the goodness of humankind. Transcendentalists trusted themselves to be their own authority, they believed in sovereignty of man, self-determination, self-sufficiency, and self-regulating. The transcendentalists’ movement was to some extent a response to the increasing industrialization during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They were largely against the dehumanization and materialism that often accompanied it. Transcendentalists also displayed a great deal of dissatisfaction with traditional religion. They embraced a more humanistic, emotionally expressive, and socially conscious form of religion. "The relentless, competitive world of the market revolution strongly encouraged the identifacitation of American freedom with the absence of restraints of self-directed individuals seeking economic advancement and personal development" (Foner 340).
Individuals exemplified the individualist outlook of “Transcendentalists” were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; these gentlemen and countless others
However, they could not deny that the improvements in transportation allowed them and their goods to move about the county with greater ease. The individualistic ideals of economic freedom were beginning to show fruition as people began producing goods for the market instead of production for personal survival. Men could now gain a greater sense of independence by working in the market. Some men would lose themselves and suffer a hardship in their loss of economic independence. As they would lose identity with their ideas labor “price” they would become “wage” laborers, now had the means to rapidly expand to the west in search of individual economic