Transcendentalism In American Culture

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What is transcendentalism? Transcendentalism is an idealistic philosophy and social movement that teaches divinity pervades all nature and humanity. This has it’s roots from New England in the 1830’s. A way to look at transcendentalism is looking at a triangle. In that triangle, Imagine that there are three points; God, Nature, and Man. Members of transcendentalism have held progressive views on feminism and communal living. American culture and Transcendentalism have always been closely related. In American Culture you can see Transcendentalism through music and protests that are going on constantly. One person that spearheaded transcendentalism was Ralph Waldo Emerson. His essays titled “Nature” and “Self-reliance” had a big impact on …show more content…
This means that they need to be able to take care of themselves and not depend on others. He is saying this because people will not always be there for you. You have to be able to take care of yourself. Someone isn’t always going to be there holding your hand to get through everything.
Another person that was involved with Transcendentalism was Henry David Thoreau. He wrote an essay titled “Resistance to Civil Government”. The title of the article technically explains that Thoreau was against the idea of people being in control of him. In the article, he explains, in the opening sentence, that government is best, which governs least. This is being said because the less restrictions people have on them, the less likely they are to commit a crime in the first place. Thoreau once spent a night in jail because he didn’t pay poll taxes.
One thing in American Culture that connects to Transcendentalism is Bob Marley’s music. In one of his songs, he says: “free yourself from mental slavery” (Redemption Song, Bob Marley). He also says that no one but yourself can free your mind. This ties to Emerson’s essay “Nature” because in “Nature” it says ‘To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.’ This means, that to be free from the dangers of society, you need to remove yourself from

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