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Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”

Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”. Background. ~35 years old Lots of flack from his speech on religion & scholarship at Harvard (“The American Scholar”) Left ministry a few years earlier Wife died after only 18 months of marriage (tuberculosis) No real career path or job (write & speak?).

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Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”

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  1. Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”

  2. Background • ~35 years old • Lots of flack from his speech on religion & scholarship at Harvard (“The American Scholar”) • Left ministry a few years earlier • Wife died after only 18 months of marriage (tuberculosis) • No real career path or job (write & speak?)

  3. Self-reliance • All we can ever know is within us • Not selfish or self-centered because all have access to truth, though few discover it

  4. Self-reliance • Innate wisdom • Projection of God within us • Few access it • Prophets and poets (artists)

  5. Self-reliance • Believe in yourself • Says this over and over and over • A new powerful idea in 1838 • In every Disney show and self-help book today • Don’t let others interpret life for you • Ophelia Syndrome

  6. Self-reliance • Weaknesses in the argument • Trusts in innate goodness • Discounts or ignores environmental pressures • Manliness of essay • Be a man • Preachers and teachers viewed a bit less masculine than others then—and now? that’s why I joined the army first! (-: • Concept of “fate” • Limitations imposed by circumstances • Imprisoned by our own wisdom? • We can’t receive truth or wisdom from the outside?

  7. Nice metaphors • “The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.” –Emerson “Self-Reliance” • Spiral out of grief—C.S. Lewis A Grief Observed or his approaching God “wave” • The spirals of Mt. Parnassus & Mt. Purgatory

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