Henry David Thoreau wrote
Civil Disobedience to express his frustration with the way the government was being run at the time of the Mexican American War. It is full of his disappointments in not only the government, but also the governed people. He believes that human beings, especially the American people, possess the ability to force change in an ineffective government to achieve an ideal State with Ideal humans. He believes that "we should be men first, and subjects afterward." Men must do what is necessary; men must act. Subjects quietly submit and go about their lives. "Action from principle, the perception, and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was." Thoreau believes that actions can cause the necessary change, and he challenges the people of America to do their duty, to take action. "For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what one is well done is done forever." The American people do have the power to force change, no matter how small it may appear. Thoreau's seemingly negative writing is laced with his idealism for a better world and country.
Similar to Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson believed in the perfectibility of man. While his work
Nature was not as politically driven, his message was similar: there is an ideal state of being achievable by man. For Emerson, though, this state is achieved not by doing one's civic duty, or rejecting one's civic duty - it is through nature and all its wonders that man is able to exist in an ideal state. Unlike the early Puritan settlers, Emerson believed in something ethereal and healing in nature, that allows one to grow with God, not fall from His grace: "Therefore is nature the ally of Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment." Believing that perfectibility can only be achieved by God's grace, this is a good argument in nature's favor. When Emerson speaks of his ideal perfectibility, he describes it as a "harmony" between both nature and man: "Its effect is like that of a high thought or a better emotion coming over me...Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both." Nature, and all of the gifts it provides, is the tool by which man can reach an ideal state of being. "Nature stretcheth out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she follow his steps...and bend her lines of grandeur and grace tot eh decoration of her darling child. Only let his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. A virtuous man is in unison with her works, and makes the central figure of the visible sphere." Emerson believes that Nature is God's physical way of manifesting his awesome majesty. If a man is "virtuous" and uses nature correctly, then he has been blessed by God and has achieved perfectibility.
You did a good job of connecting the two essays finding their common point of finding the perfectibility in the world through the actions of men. The way you set up the two sections of your blog post shows how the two essays can play off of each other and strengthen their own point while agreeing with the other. One objection I had was that I really didn’t see Emerson as an argument gear toward the state, although it does briefly touch on the topic, it didn’t seem to linger on it. While Thoreau’s definitely is, Emerson’s essay seems to be more of a presentation of the perfection already around us. Yes, that can be easily positioned to present the a change of state argument, but the focus of the easy as a whole seemed to be Emerson’s belief “in something ethereal and healing in nature, that allows one to grow with God, not fall from His grace.”
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree with how you connected Nature with man's perfectibility. Nature is a tool for us to connect with, and when used correctly, man can be perfect within nature. Not only can we access those tools naturally, but we can also live in "harmony" with them as we work towards gaining possible perfectibility. My question for Emerson, though, is if he thinks that anyone has actually achieved this perfectibility yet. Has he achieved it? What are some real life examples of us getting closer to perfectibility through nature? I found that hard to come by in the reading.
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