Ralph Waldo Emerson, a prolific writer of the Transcendental era, suggests that American democracy should progress through the individual part of a whole opposed to the largely popular idea that it takes a group of many. In his address titled “The American Scholar,” Emerson hopes to obstruct the present American democracy “in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, - a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man,” and trade it for the Transcendental view of democracy (Emerson, 811). Obviously, a finger nor an elbow would be able to act accordingly without the solidity of their common body in working function, much like a “planter” and/or “tradesman” cannot become successful until after they acknowledge their being a part of a unified body (Emerson, 812).
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While Emerson addresses the individual’s part of a whole, he also attempts to outline the key elements for the development of the individual American Scholar. In his attempt to layout the functions of individuality, he uses the natural world in a way that connects to the individual’s mindset. Emerson attempts to showcase that through observation of the natural world, the American scholar “shall see, that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal, and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess” (Emerson,813). It seems as though Emerson believed that the American scholar should put an emphasis on nature to acquire a deeper comprehension: “And, in fine, the ancient precept, ‘Know thyself,’ and the modern precept, ‘study nature,’ become at last one maxim” (Emerson, 813). For an individual to help America progress towards a more accurate democracy, they should use nature and its intricacies to have a better understanding of the commonalities inborn to all humans.
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The American Scholar: Analysis of American Democracy and Its Unique Pathway.
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