Self Reliance

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

A man’s relationship to his peers is a central concern in “Self-Reliance.” Emerson suggests that a person who agrees with and follows the norms and conventions around him will be welcomed into society. When, alternatively, one exists merely by himself, he instead acts as an individual freed from outside influences and follows a personal creed and principles. Emerson says that only “great” men can maintain staunch individualism when immersed in a crowd, instead of conforming.

“A man must consider what a blindman’s-buff is this game of conformity.”

Emerson continually denounces all forms of conformity and imitation, insisting that a man needs to trust the genius of his own independence, invention, and originality. The reference to literal blindness invokes the idea of figurative blindness in following things like leaders or societal norms without personal introspection or meaningful criticism. He likens a society in which conformity is widespread and valued to a game wherein a blindfolded participant stumbles through the ranks of his peers, possibly exposing himself to danger, and never in full control of his own destiny or direction. 

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day.”

Emerson presents performed consistency as another type of conformity. He suggests that it is foolish and wasteful for a man not to rethink his opinions and continually offer original insights, even and especially if they contradict a previous position he espoused. Part of trusting one’s self is voicing one’s positions with confidence and conviction, free from the concern of being judged at any point by other men. Consistency is, in Emerson’s estimation, akin to hobgoblins—mythical, mischievous little creatures—which implies its foolishness and negativity. Consistency leaves a mind unchallenged and uninterested, no more engaged than watching shadows. 

“Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature.”

An essential part of the notion of self-reliance is trust: Emerson trusts that the individualism each man is capable of is universally good and valuable. With that assumption, he suggests that it is imperative for a man not to accept the authorities imposed upon him but to adhere to his own authority. He detests the prevalence of conformity and voluntary submission in society and calls for an overthrow of these tendencies by imploring his audience to denounce the “mediocrity” and “squalid contentment” of the present situation and replace it with a new emphasis on the right and natural order of individualism. This was a radical call-to-action in the context of the time period.

“Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design;—and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients. A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man.”

Emerson cites the men in history that, to him, embodied the virtues of individualism, acted on their inner convictions, and as a result, created something utterly new and great. Emerson assumes in this passage that the creation of the Roman Empire and advent of Christianity were great markers of progress and major steps forward in civilization. This is a Eurocentric worldview that was deeply enmeshed in Western philosophies and politics in the 19th century when Emerson wrote. While Emerson values the contributions of these individuals, he is more suspect of the “train of clients” that follow in their wake. A person’s devotion to just self-rule and to the divine should be profoundly personal and internal, not dictated by doctrine. 

“The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps.”

Emerson asserts the existence and power of God but, like other transcendentalists, imagines the connection between an individual and God to be direct and personal, rather than in need of an intermediary like a church or clergy. Each human bears the capacity for divinity within their soul. Self-reliance is essential in harnessing that inner divinity.

“Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?”

History is a potentially troubling concept in Emerson’s philosophy. People value history and bare nostalgia for the past, but self-reliance is largely dependent on embracing the present and even disregarding the past. Conventions are repetitions that are products of the past. Insights are born of an unencumbered present. Emerson makes that argument in this moment through the use of rhetorical questions, forcing the reader’s involvement. 

“He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.”

While this quote expresses sentiments similar to the previous one (that one must live in the moment to be self-reliant), here Emerson relates that practice to happiness, strength, and nature. If living in the present, free from the lingering tendrils of the past, is the right and wise thing to do, it is also the thing that will bring genuine happiness and fortitude. In this way, ignoring the past and embracing the present is not a sacrifice but rather a step toward happy self-fulfillment. Nature is at the center of the philosophy because it is not manmade and therefore not under outside pressures and false laws. 

“Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives.”

Transcendentalism both emerged from and refuted the dogmatic beliefs of particular sects of Christianity. Emerson argues that a man connects with God within himself, not in churches or at the behest of intermediaries. He laments the fact that common religious practice is so literal and dependent on the recorded history of God communicating with particular individuals. Understanding God along these narrow confines and in only this specific context denies each man his ability to be one with God simply by being utterly himself. In this way, Emerson opens up the definition and possibilities of divinity and gives individuals more agency to access it. 

“Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.”

In this passage, Emerson makes a scientific argument for self-reliance, suggesting that even though humans often lack the capacity for it, it truly is a necessity in the larger universe. No plant, animal, or cosmic realm can afford to depend on another entity for its growth and longevity. The implication of this argument is that it is unwise for humans to do so. He presents self-reliance not just as a means to enlightenment but also a means to basic survival.

“But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men. We must go alone.”

Though Emerson frequently criticizes the human society of which he is apart, this moment is a particularly condemning description of his peers. A mob is seemingly mindless, and that is the state to which Emerson believes society has descended. In every man’s mind is an ocean of possibilities for exploration and fruitful discovery, yet the average man will instead seek the meager fruits of another man’s labor instead of strive for his own. Emerson believes in the maintenance of some type of solitude that removes a man from his peers even if they are nearby.

“Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton?”

Stressing the worthlessness of imitation, Emerson lists these examples to prove that true genius is new and not contrived from conventional apprenticeship. Shakespeare represents genius in literature, Franklin and Washington in revolutionary political philosophy and leadership, and Bacon in philosophy and science. These men did not learn their greatness from a master; they expressed their own genius to achieve what Emerson considers greatness in each of their respective fields. While stressing the importance of individualism and denouncing historical influences, Emerson still celebrates figures from the past that he believes embodied those ideals.

“And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property.”

Emerson presents property, as in material possessions, as distractions from the true worth to be found in the world and in each man. When someone relies on man-made institutions and entities outside of his control to protect and support him and his property, he does not act in a self-reliant manner, but quite the opposite. This rejection of materialism is common in transcendentalist writing beyond Emerson’s. In this condemnation of materialism is also a challenge to the value of the constructed institutions that in various ways control property and influence men’s minds with dogma, conventions, and laws.