Transcendentalism: A Social And Progressive Movement

The American Revolution brought a plethora of changes to the new nation of the United States. While there were obvious shifts in political ideals during this transformative time, social changes had an equal impact on the birth of the new nation. Transcendentalism was one such social and progressive movement in nineteenth century America that centered around reality existing not merely on a physical level, but on a higher, spiritual one as well. In order to achieve this understanding, one must seek truth and perceive life with ideas and emotions. To illustrate this idea, Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau created five principles that provided the foundation for this movement: nonconformity, self-reliance, confidence,
The website mkgandhi.org explains that Gandhi went to jail 12 times over a span of 34 years in both South Africa and India because he felt that being arrested for his activism would bring awareness to India’s plight and suffering under British rule. One must have immense confidence to take such a drastic step because even slight doubt would indicate to others that the mission is hopeless. His confidence in his ideals spread throughout India and brought more people to support his beliefs, leading to the eradication of British authority from India. King also believed confidence would effectively convey his messages to the masses. In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered during the March on Washington, King sought to bring awareness to racial discrimination in the United States. He declared, “I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!” King’s emotionally-charged and powerful rhetoric exudes confidence in his dream for a nondiscriminatory world, and thus, his audience develops confidence in his beliefs and passion to defend these ideals. Gandhi and King spread their confidence to a myriad of other people, allowing them to successfully fix problems of their
The National Center for Biotechnology Information’s website elucidates that Gandhi promoted economic independence for Indians, especially in the textile industry. He proposed homespun cloth to show resistance to imported textiles from Britain. This connects to self-reliance because Gandhi deduced if Indians did not need the British in terms of trade, this independency would spread to other aspects of the Britain-India relationship, and enable Indians to achieve political freedom more easily. Furthermore, history.com describes King as a leader in the Montgomery Bus Boycotts of 1955 and 1956. He encouraged African-Americans and other supporters of terminating racial segregation to provide transportation for themselves instead of rely on the prejudiced public transportation system. During the boycotts, the Montgomery bus systems lost a significant amount of money from the African-American population, which caused the United States Supreme Court to rule segregation in public transit as illegal. This established a precedent for future laws to end discrimination. After explicating this information, one concludes that by urging people to rely on themselves for transportation, King empowered victims of racism to become independent from discrimination. The concept of self-reliance was prevalent in both Gandhi’s and King’s work as