What Is Emerson's Beliefs About Individualism

Around the 19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson was known for being an American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist. After spending a year in Europe, Emerson would teach on such topics of spirituality and how it is represented as personal nature. The teachings he shares during his lectures would be transformed into essays. For many years, Emerson wrote in his journals that included his inner thoughts and actions. All the journals he kept, he would return to as a way to bundle them all up into one source for his published essays. With journal entries dating back since the year 1832, the time he spent in Europe by developing into a transcendentalist, was what made him accomplish his essays “Self-Reliance” and others. The essay “Self-Reliance”
written by Ralph Waldo Emerson is most commonly known as taken in the values of individualism. Through his statements in the essay, the needs of any individual are to avoid equivalence and false flexibility, and to follow their own instincts and ideas. Emerson believed that the mind is initially subjects to an unhappy strife and that the public should challenge their own minds as a starting point to being self-reliant. He urges his readers to avoid prejudice or imitating others viewed as models of perfection; instead, he says, that an individual should take pride in their own individuality and never be afraid to express their own original ideas. Individuals should refuse to accommodate to the ways of the popular culture and to stop fitting in and that rather they should live up to their own ideals, even if doing so gains them criticism and change. Emerson’s essay on “Self-reliance” is not only about being dependent as an individual but to not let others take over the individualism’s self for whom they are or want to be, and that’s how one can find their own true self weather it was logical back then or today; just others might disagree. The essay prologue starts off with a Latin language, “Ne te quaesiveris extra” which translates to, “Do not seek outside yourself” and the meaning is to “look within.” This quote promotes almost the entire essay itself about how one should learn to become to become an individual, to not search what is most important and to one’s own competition. Then, in relation to the Latin quote, he continues his essay,“ To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius” In other words, there is nothing more important and more crucial then one’s original self. To only trust one’s self and their inner thoughts and it will help guide them for understanding their true form. The truth is not something that is searched for from others, to not seek outside one’s form but to trust what’s inside it will give proper guidance to who an individual is. When he was in high school, online author Joshua Hedlund wrote a paper about Emerson’s essay titled, “ A Criticism of Self-Reliance,” disagreeing Emerson’s beliefs about individualism.
He wrote that being an individual is important, but that doesn’t mean the values of individualism are better then being with others. Hedlund believes that one should not be alone, and that such strength will not be gained without the help of others. He believed that Emerson would “rebel” only to preserve for his individuality and that others do not rebel like him. “Then we would all be little rebels accomplishing nothing but vain and chimerical satisfaction, while society rolls on as before.” Hedlund also argues against Emerson saying that being great is to be misunderstood. He believes that being great doesn’t always have to be depended on self-relying. “For an individual to be edified, he must not rely only on himself, but rely on others, and allow other to rely on him. The virtue in most request is not conformity, but
sacrifice.” It’s agreeable what Hedlund say’s that without relying on others will not exactly put an individual in a good position, but it actually depends on the individual themselves.
Hedlund must have misinterpreted Emerson’s essay because it seems that he argues Emerson wants every individual (including himself), to ignore society. Emerson is not ignoring society but merely standing out from others, and learning on his own to find what he is in life on the inside. He isn’t stating to be alone forever or to hide from the world, but that being with others can give an individual a certain path they might not have wanted to take. Hedlund must have become who he was from the help of others, but many people don’t always want others to guide them in life. It actually connects to today’s modern culture, how many children grow up becoming the opposite of who their parents want them to be, or how society (like the government) wants them to be. Since the 60’s, many younger generations have grown with the use of indivualism and have succeeded, and that was because it was their choice to do so and are happy they can find their “true self”, just like Emerson did and wrote
about. Therefore, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” is about being self-reliant and how many people can find their inner accomplishments as an individual. In his ways, being an individual and not letting other’s to tell one what to do can give them a perfect achievement. “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” Many people might not agree, because they believe that without the help of others, they might not have seeked their own guidance. That’s true, but like I’ve mentioned before, it depends. I’ve had people in my life trying to shove their opinions on what I should do in front of me, but since I like to think for myself, I ignore them. I agree with Emerson, “to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.