Rationalism: The Transcendentalism Era

As an inspiration from Rationalism, Transcendentalism developed in the 1800s in an effort to change the minds of individuals. It was a philosophical movement that arose as a reaction to protest the general state of intellectualism and spirituality. Inheriting the goodness of people and nature and having faith that people are their best when truly self reliant. Transcendentalism emphasizes subjective intuition over objective empiricism. Although this era has come to an end, core beliefs of the Transcendentalists are shared throughout modern media. Pure simplicity was an important fundamental belief to this philosophy and the anti-materialistic followers. Society has become caught in the focus of financials and wants to live up to the wealthy …show more content…
The Swedish pop rock band, The Royal Concept, expresses their frustration with society’s lack of originality and motivation, “I see the world has gone mad. I see them talk the talk, walk the walk, but nothing stands out. I see the world has gone mad. I think I’ll do you like I used to do, do it all night.” in their song “World On Fire”. The song continues with the rhetorical questioning of where people are and what their next move is because it is seen that their future is planned out in incredible detail. The song is meant to point out that life is what you make of it, so why not relax and live it in an ideal way. The Transcendentalist author, Thoreau, did not support living life based off of a plan, “We live meanly like ants [...] our life is frittered away by detail.” (Thoreau 203), because it meant it was being wasted away. The average lifespan is not long enough for us to see what all the world has to offer us. Transcendentalists believed individuals take life for granted and do not pay attention to detail, but instead live to just live. Modern society often passes by the detail put into our civilization, but time is not taken to acknowledge