Transcendentalism , chance perkins H01

Transcendentalism is an American philosophical and political movement that got its start in the early 19th century. Transcendental idealism was a fusion of many ideas from around the world. The first being Unitarianism in which Christians have one divine entity, not three(father, son, and Holy Ghost). Other influences include romanticism, German idealism, and some aspects of Hindu Religion. The most important and widely known figure in the movement was the one and only Ralph Waldo Emerson, another prominent figure was Henry David Thoreau. To recall who Ralph Waldo Emerson was, he was a famous American philosopher and authored many works including Nature(1836) and Self Reliance(1841). Henry David Thoreau is remembered for his contributions such as Walden and Civil Disobedience.

    The central message of transcendentalism is that the society that existed in the early and mid 19th century was prone to corruption by organized religion and political parties; and that man was better off being as self reliant as possible.In other words, as man returned to nature and left society, he would be the better for it. Because society with its excesses, people being bad to one another would easily corrupt a person, while the relationship with nature would bring purity of the soul. One of the most famous works of this philosophy was Walden where Henry David Thoreau live in a remote house in a somewhat secluded location for two years. Transcendental views on society as whole was not were not favorable, people of a nation to be spread out and not penned up in cites as many are, especially in industrial pre-civil war America when it seemed like cities were popping up everywhere and growing more and more quickly.

    An example of an attempt at a somewhat transcendentalist society was an  1840’s commune called Brook Farm. At Brook Farm all the citizens did whatever job the thought the most enjoyable and they all got equal pay no matter the job, women included. The irony lies in the fact that Transcendentalism was centered around man getting back out into nature, so creating a whole society of people who want to leave society doesn’t seem like the best idea.

To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” The founders of Brook Farm may have overlooked this critical viewpoint. Founded in the  early 1840’s outside of Harvard Massachusetts, Fruitlands was another attempt at a Transcendental society based on agrarian lifestyle founded by Amos Bronson Alcott, the commune was economically communists, all property belonging to God. Politically they were Anarchist and they were also vegetarian. Once again the experiment in communal living did not work as well as planned when in late 1843 the founders of Fruitlands decided to leave the commune.

The most modern and relatable depiction of Transcendentalism was in the film called Into The Wild. It is based off of the book under the same name about a young man who leaves his seemingly fortunate life after he graduated from Emory University in Atlanta GA. He abandoned his life and began the nomadic lifestyle of “tramping” or travelling by foot around the United States. He walked the nation this way for two years until reaching his goal of getting to Alaska and living there with minimal provisions for 100 days. When people asked why he left his life and his family the most prominent answer to paraphrase was to escape the sick society.

Chance Perkins H01