"Civil Disobidience"

Civil Disobedience

 

In modern day society, war seems like normal thing; part of everyday life. I strongly believe that stopping the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are something worth civil disobedience. Nothing is coming out of the war, including the people fighting it. War is doing us, Americans, no good. In Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," he clearly states, "It does not educate" (Thoreau 212). The government wants our troops there, but do the rest of us? As a country, we must stick together, and not just send people to fight for us. An excellent quote to describe this is, "I think we should be men first, and subjects afterward" (Thoreau 213). This is telling us that we should stick up for what we think is right, and in this case, that would be stopping war. We should not just be the governments puppets. We are all people and we all have a say, but are we really ever given a voice?

 This quote by, Thoreau, is telling us how if the government is ruling us to do or believe in something we do not want to, then we should rule against it.

 



 

 

 



Contemporary Example of Transcendentalism

Contemporary Example of Transcendentalism 

WaLL-E

     I have found that the Pixar movie, WaLL-E, and transcendentalism, share many similarities. WaLL-E represents transcendentalism through the ideas and beliefs of Emerson and Thoreau.

     Both WaLL-E and Emerson use nature. The whole plot of WaLL-E is centered around the condition of the Earth. In WaLL-E, humans did not care about nature, but when WaLL-E found the plant in the trash, he did everything he could to protect the plant. A quote from Emerson that expresses  the moment when WaLL-E finds the plant is, “Each moment of the year has its own beauty.”

 

Individualism: WaLL-E took being different from the rest of society to his advantage, and never conformed to society. By him never conforming to society, he caused a revolutionary change. Emerson states, "To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature" (Emerson 180). WaLL-E can "see" nature. By finding the plant, WaLL-E found hope in the world.

 

Optimism: Due to WaLL-E's short circuit, he was curious and brave, yet at the same time adventurous and successful.

 

Self-Reliance: WaLL-E stuck to his true self and did not let anything, even society change him.  Thoreau's "Walden" explains this perfectly by saying, "I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours" (Thoreau 208). By not letting society change him, WaLL-E was able to change society.

 

Intuition: While going into the unknown world, WaLL-E never questioned himself on what he was doing. He followed his instinct and ended up bringing human life back to Earth. WaLL-E took finding the plant to an all new level for society then, he used the plant as a way to change life on Earth.

 

 



Throreau

Henry David Thoreau

     After Thoreau moved into Emerson's home, he quickly became a student of Emerson. Soon after that, both, Thoreau and Emerson pursued careers in transcendental philosophy. Emerson was often one to lecture about transcendentalism, while Thoreau practiced it. In Emerson's "Nature," he wrote, "In the woods, we return to reason and faith." Thoreau took this very literally and even though Emerson wrote it, Thoreau took action of it. Emerson believed in living in harmony with nature. While, Thoreau believed in living harmony within ourselves. 
 

     Thoreau truly tested Transcendentalism by taking it to the extremes. Thoreau simplified life. He kept going "back to nature" to test experiences of transcendentalism. He focused on how he could live in peace with himself within nature.  An example of this is, "I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and to reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion" (Thoreau 204).
     If you were to turn to any page from Thoreau's "Walden," you would find a man saying anything that is on his mind; this is an excellent example of how Thoreau practiced what was preached to him.
     Emerson had taught Thoreau to live life simply. Emerson had lived simply and in clear perception. An example that expresses Thoreau practicing what Emerson preached to him is, "Our life is frittered away by detail" (Thoreau 204). This is saying how we spend too much time of our lives worry about every single detail, when really we need to live life more simply. We must simplify life.

 

Emerson

Emerson and the "Big Ideas"

Individualism

The first line in Emerson' Nature, "To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society" (Emerson 180). This is an obvious example of individualism because he is saying that One must not follow the crowd. Nature is often described as an escape from society. Nature is where one can be there own person. In order to be your own person, you cannot form to society. We must escape from the pressure of society to be like everyone else.  
Emerson also says, "Imitation is suicide" (Emerson 183). By being someone else, you are killing who you are. You are killing you individual identity. If you are to be someone else, then you might as well not live at all.

Optimism
Emerson was an optimist about nature, the universe, and about our ability to know the truth. In his essay Nature, Emerson says, "There I feel that nothing can befall me in my life,--no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair" (Emerson 181). He is telling us that in nature nothing bad can happen. He is being optimist towards nature and the good it can bring him or anyone. 

This quote is a great quote from Emerson. It truly shoos his optimism towards life. It is similar to say, "Live everyday as if it were your last." Everyone should take the most out of everyday. No matter how rough life may get, there is always something god in everyday even if it seems there is not. 

Self Reliance
Emerson believes that if we believe we can be self reliant, we cannot go wrong. This is only if we trust our deepest instincts and our most basic beliefs. When we think we have found the truth, we should trust that feeling. In Self-Reliance, "The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none that he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried" (Emerson  184). We need to test ourselves and our own mind before we trust others. 

This image is telling us to rely on ourselves for the future. In order to become who we want to be we need to trust ourselves. We have the power to decide who we will become and where we will go in life. You choose your own destiny; do not let anyone else choose it for you. 

Intuition
In Emerson's Self-Reliance, he states, "To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men,--that is genius" (Emerson 183). This quote is telling us that we need to rely more on our own individual thinking. To have direct perception or insight. 

Go where your mind and heart want you o go. Trust your gut feeling and follow it, even if it strays away from the rest of world. Make your own path in life. 

What is Transcendentalism?

     Transcendentalism is the idea that the only thing from stopping us from doing anything is ourselves. Potentially if we really believed that we could levitate or fly, then we could. The only reason we cannot is because of the passed down traditional knowledge that creates limitations in our minds. Transcendentalism is simply going beyond these limitations. If we begin to question traditional knowledge and believing in the things that we assume we cannot do, then we can control our own reality. To determine the ultimate reality, we must go further beyond our human everyday experiences.
     Transcend means to live on a level above the physical or common level. Transcendentalism is illustrated in Ralph Waldo Emerson"s "Nature" when Emerson describes retreating into nature. He says, "In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and a sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years" (Emerson 181).This quotes talks about how nature supplies a youth and how nature never becomes boring. Several transcendentalists also believed in unifying everything together as one "Divine Soul." This means that all things, in some way, are connected. Ralph Waldo Emerson discusses "Divine Soul" in his Self-Reliance writing piece. A quote is "Speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the out-most,-and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgement" (Emerson 183). By discussing the "inmost" and "out-most," Emerson is showing that everything that the individual thinks or does is connected to everyone else. 

     This picture is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. I believe is an excellent example of transcendentalism. It is telling us that we should be ourselves and not follow the crowd. We should not form to society, but rather take a completely different path in life.