I think that in the United States, ideas from the Romantic Era of the Transcendentalists stil heavily influence thought today. For example, the value of each person's own thoughts and acts of creation is highly valued. Most people today believe that they're expressions of creativity have value and that one can express himself without conforming to any existing rules or precedents. For example, modern art breaks all conventions, relying on the active and creative spirit within the individual self, rather than examples of art that have come before. Also, I think the (618). The reading of texts from the past is an essential role of a college education, but one is not supposed to believe the text contains all truth and is the only way to express one's self. In college today, students are encouraged to wrestle with the text and critique the ideas, then deciding for oen's self which view is the best.
What do you think Emerson would say about this time period? Would he agree that key Romantic values are still present?
Mary,
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think you're right, especially when I read contemporary US poetry. I think that Emerson would find our society strange and superficial--but he might also see the romantic program that underlies what we do.
We think we're going to access something big through poetry, something beautiful. And that's pretty Romantic. But unlike Emerson, we're by and large afraid to exit culture to seek this thing. We don't adhere to the kind of positivism, and when we do it's also a little, as doug puts it, superficial, or weak. WE lack the same level of commitment to the idea. This isn't necessarily bad. But we are largely in a crisis of epistemology, something Emerson was lucky (though not necessarily smarter for it) enough to not feel.
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