The cross-post follows:
What an amazing class we have this semester. I've been reading your Thoreau posts on your blogs and following the online discussion concerning stuff what what it means to led a full, good life. I've been impressed by the experiences and insights reflected in these posts. It points toward the discussion this semester being a rich, full one, which will help make the reading easier and more meaningful.
Billy's and Iwona's blog post in particular stand out in my mind. Like Billy and Thoreau, I have found myself heading toward water and nature aa a why to get get away from the "noise" of society and gain the quite needed to get in touch with my best self. Since moving to Richmond, I've found myself drawn to the James, first for its history but, increasingly, for the river itself. Being Cherokee, the mountains and nature have always been a basic part of my life, and it was good to see that the Romantic love of Nature is still at work on other's lives and in their road to discovering their best selves. You'll read more about this when you read Thoreau's essay, "Walking," and there is an extra-credit assignment which is as simple as getting out in nature for a walk and then writing about it. Iwona's comment, "I will not be afraid to be myself, to express my feelings and to say what I expect of me not what “everybody else” anticipates from me. ," also struck home. Not only is the comment a mark of someone who has become and in becoming a good adult citizen, it is also a short version of what Emerson and Thoreau wanted for their readers and were trying to help us find in our own lives. If you find yourself needing a short version of all Thoreau and Emerson are about, combine Billy's looking toward nature to find himself and Iwona's and Billy's learning not to be afraid of being their best selves. As you will find in reading their blog posts and Emerson's "Self Reliance," learning who your best self is and letting this best self out takes courage. It is very easy to let your best self hide behind, as Iwona says, what others expect of you or, like Billy in high school, use others and their worse vices as a screen for a self we don't yet fully know. It takes courage to say what your best self feels, to get to know this self, and to then act on these feelings. Reading Thoreau and Emerson can help in this process, and it's the main reason for their popularity today.
Soon, we'll be reading how the Romantics took what they knew of their best, how to get to know these selves, and how to construct a good life and translated these ideas and feelings into acting in society and making a difference in their communities. You'll hear about Thoreau's notion of civil disobedience, which is just his getting in touch with what he saw is his best feelings toward others and refusing to support, through taxes the worst of what he saw in society. For Thoreau, there was a difference between a higher moral law and civil law, and he let his ability to feel for others help him define what he though of as the more important law, that is, moral law. Thoreau's notion of civil disobedience was radical in the 1840s and '50s, and it was radical when Gandhi read Thoreau and Emerson and adapted their ideas on passive civil disobedience. Gandhi managed to lead India out from under British colonial rule and become an independent nation, all by getting millions to get in touch with their best selves, feel for others, and act on these feeling. Thoreau's notion was equally radical when Martin Luther King read Thoreau and Gandhi and used passive civil disobedience in leading the civil rights movement (see King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail.), and we celebrate King because he helped the nation lay a foundation of law for treating African Americans as equal citizens. In the process of reading your classmates and the upcoming lit, you'll discover the role played by Romantics in Abolitionism, that is, the fight against slavery. After all, it is difficult to give yourself permission to get in touch with your best self and to feel deeply and not learn to feel for others. Abolitionist tracts, based on the Romantic tradition of getting readers to identify with and feel for others, were the emotional and often the ideological foundation which allowed a person from the North to know that going off to fight in the Civil War was right. For those in the North, the war became, as much as anything else, a fight to free the slaves and to try to end the mistreatment of others inherent in slavery. Look, for instance, at Howe's "Song of the Republic," from the first week of class. It was based on an Abolition song about a martyr to the fight against slavery, that is, John Brown, the man who led the raid at Harper's Ferry, WV.
American Romanticism, in particular, the Transcendentalist (Thoreau, Emerson, et al), has served as a foundation for the American penchant to feel and root for the underdog, the oppressed, and those just needing help. This Romanticism, often unrecognized as Romanticism, remains a part of American society and how we view and act in the world. Of course, it was also the foundation for believing that races are different from each other and one basis for the notion of manifest destiny, that is, the belief that God had ordained that America was destined to civilized the west, conquer the continent, and provide room for the great experiment of democracy and liberty to succeed. Romanticism is, hence, a foundation for some of the best and worst of what it means to be American. It helps justify reaching out to help, as in Haiti, and invasion under the guise of spreading democracy and helping the oppressed.
As always, write with questions, and keep up the good work,
Steve
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