What is Transcendentalism?

Thomas Hood · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject: What is Transcendentalism?

"Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism

Not at all. Contrary to notions promulgated in numerous, authorative webpages, the Transcendentalism practiced by Thoreau had nothing to do with Kant, Unitarianism, or Harvard Divinity School.

Thoreau was part of the Romantic Movement -- the philosophy going back to Montaigne and Thomas Browne, both of whom he read, that focused on the uniqueness and importance of the individual. In the wilderness of mass man -- mass movements, mass culture, and political and economic collectivism -- how could an individual exist? How could individual genius find freedom in an unfree world? Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe reached the same conclusion at about the same time: The self could be both protected and affirmed by concealed disclosure. For the use of concealed disclosure in Hawthorne and Melville, see

http://www.geocities.com/seekingthephoenix/h/aeneid.htm
Hawthorne and Melville by Thomas St. John

Thoreau was the optimist in the lot, and for him I'll give three examples of concealed disclosure.

An individual is created, or at least modified, by life experiences which give an emotional charge to future experience. Subtle objective features of things that suggest the original charging experience evoke a subjective, charged emotional atmosphere and unite subjective and objective.

1.

Consider this sentence from the second paragraph of Walden: "Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students." Thoreau was a charity case at Harvard, an outsider and a loner. The Thoreaus were so poor that a women's charity offered to make shirts for him. Harvard's dress code required a black coat. Unlike every other student at Harvard (so far as I know) because of Thoreau's poverty -- the family could not afford to buy him a black coat -- Thoreau was given an exemption and wore a green coat.

2.

1.9 "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats."

1.89 "The muskrat will gnaw his third leg off to be free."

The muskrat was Thoreau's totem animal, the creature with whom he most closely identified. As the muskrat (Thoreau perferred the Indian name 'mushquash') built his house of sticks of his own gathering, so Thoreau built his house at Walden. In reading 1.89 the reader needs to know this bit of charging, biographical information: At the age of 4 Thoreau accidently chopped off his right big toe.

3.

1.33 ". . .often the richest freight will be discharged upon a Jersey shore. . . ."

The reader needs to know the charging event to which this apparently objective observation alludes: In July, 1850, Emerson sent Thoreau to Fire Island (parallels Long Island) to recover the remains (shark-bitten body parts, manuscripts, . . . ) of their friend Margaret Fuller.

Tom

BabyBlues · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:53 pm Post subject: Reader's Digest Version

Tom makes some excellent points about the Transcendentalists. They can be seen as a complex force: not quite a religion, a philosophy, or a literary style, yet embodying aspects seen in all three. Falling under the umbrella of Romanticism, they have many tenants, but for those new to the Transcendentalists (who were also part of the Transcendental Club that met at Emerson's house) it might be nice to look at some of the big categories that their ideals fall under. As I said, the Transcendentalists are not as simplistic as I am making them, but this is a user-friendly starting point. When we teach the Transcendentalists, we have the students start with these four ideals:

* Intuition
* Individualism
* Nature
* The Over-Soul

Since there was a prevalent feeling in Transcendentalism that man was created good, it made sense that they would say that Intuition was key. You should follow they individual voice inside of you, that was put in you at creation to lead you down the path to be the perfect "you". This of course goes hand-in-hand with individuality, which is not just being different as some students think, but in essence being yourself, defined by your intuition instead of defined by conforming to or opposing some other standard. Through our reliance (…think Emerson’s idea of Self-reliance) and belief in our intuition we can achieve our individual successes. As Thoreau tells us in his conclusion:

Thomas Hood · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 6:32 pm Post subject: Re: Reader's Digest Version

BabyBlues · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject: Walking the Walk

Robert Tulip · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:28 pm Post subject:

Tom, BB
You seem to imply that Thoreau presents an objective transcendentalism. And yet he is deeply subjective in his perspective. This objective-subjective tension comes through in his attitude to commerce, where he seems to argue commerce is objectively bad, even though for all to live as he does is simply not possible. Thoreau presents a romantic back to nature ideal that is highly alluring for the desperate sadness of industrial life.

To pun on the comment that T was not trapped in mentalism, we could ask if this ideal he presents is 'mental' or 'dental'? If he is indeed 'trapped in mentalism', this leaves open the problem of what a transcendental philosophy might be. In this regard it is not so simple to separate Thoreau from the philosophical context, eg Kant. It is magnificent that the wild frontier was close enough to permit Thoreau to give free rein to his transcendental imagination, but I still feel in reading him that he is capturing a vanishing possibility, the potential harmony of American civilisation with nature. This romantic poetic idea is something that I think has to reconcile with commerce, not just oppose it.

Robert

PS - From reading Your Inner Fish I can't help thinking of ostracoderms in the pun on transcendental - their toothy skulls from half a billion years ago are objectively transcendental.