The Transcendentalists

1
The Transcendentalists
2

• Question
• Describe the Force.
• Alternatively, the Zone.

3
Transcendentalism in 4 Easy Steps

• Step One Notion of Unified Soul
• a.k.a. Divine Soul, a.k.a. Over-soul
• Borrowed from Hinduism
• Everyone has an invisible soul, and all souls are
  connected to, or part of one great mass
• Oversoul good God

4
Transcendentalism in 4 Easy Steps

• Step Two Idealism
• Borrowed from Plato (4th Century B.C.)
• true reality involved ideas rather than the
  physical world- goal of life was to see reality
  behind the physical

5
Transcendentalism in 4 Easy Steps

• Step Three Transcendence
• Immanuel Kant (18th-Century)
• in order to determine reality of God, self, and
  higher truth you must go beyond (or
  transcend) everyday human experience in
  physical world

6
Transcendentalism in 4 Easy Steps

• Step Four American History
• Puritan Philosophy (1600s) Nature is an
  expression of the Divine
• Rationalism (1700s) Everyone is improvable

7
Transcendentalist World View

• Everything, including humans, is a reflection of
  the Divine Soul
• Physical facts of natural world are doorway to
  spiritual world
• People can use intuition (not reason) to behold
  the Divine Soul
• Self-Reliance gt Uniformity and custom
• Feelings and intuition gt intellectualism and
  rationality.

8

• Question
• If you buy into the Transcendental philosophy,
  how would you go about transcending your
  day-to-day life and discover higher truths?

9
Transcendentalist Optimism

• We can find the Divine soul directly in nature
• Divine Soul Good
• All evil comes from man, and his separation from
  the Divine Soul
• Therefore, if we transcend the everyday junk in
  our lives, we shed Evil and merge with Good.
• Happiness and Good inside all of us- simply
  matter of trusting self to find it.

10
Ralph Waldo Emerson

• 1803-1882
• Bullied by family into priesthood
• But traveled in Europe and studied philosophy
• Developed theories (explained earlier)
• Became guru for both intellectuals and common
  folk in New England- shocked conservatives.
• Involved with Lycium movement and Utopian
  communities (popular at time)
• Mentor to Thoreau

11
Nature and Self-Reliance

• Nature
• Nature pure pleasure
• Wonder and delight youth
• Perception of nature essential to our happiness
• Self- Reliance
• Individual gt Masses
• Nonconformity gt Passivity
• Imitation Ignorance

12
Henry David Thoreau

• 1817-1862
• Friend and protégé of Emerson
• Decided to do experiment in simple living-
  lived alone in cabin of Emersons on Walden Pond
  for 2 years
• Experience there prompted him to write his 2
  most famous works, Walden and Civil Disobedience

13
Walden

• Compression of his two years in the cabin to a
  single calendar year
• Changes of season represent development of a
  persons soul
• The book uses nature as a model for ideal human
  relations
• Harshly critical of current existing society
  The mass of men
• Walden and Civil Disobedience had little effect
  at time, but were hugely influential later- to
  MLK and Ghandi, among others.

14
Tim Treadwell

• 1957-2003
• Modern-Day Transcendentalist?
• Self-described naturalist (though has no
  scientific training
• Lived with bears in AK for 13 seasons
• Also uses nature as a model for human relations