Descending The Norm Through Time Analysis

"Transcending the Norm, Throughout Time" Society is always about conforming. To "fit in", there is a certain way one must dress, a particular activity one must enjoy doing, and ways one must act. Society is obsessed with normality and conforming to what everyone else is doing. Transcendentalism is a movement that seeks to do what the normal society considers shocking: break the mold. This movement has been going strong since the early 1800 's, and continues in some form to this day.Transcendentalism is all about overcoming society, breaking the mold, and doing what the individual thinks is right, not necessarily society. People such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Martin Luther King Jr, and films such as Dead Poet 's …show more content…
was a true crusader for civil rights. He was not violent, he was not radical, he was simply a peaceful man, peacefully asking to be treated equally. He too exhibited the signs if transcendentalism in his life when he transcended the life the African Americans at the time were living; that of an oppressed and mistreated people. Many others at this time went beyond this treatment as well, such as Rosa Parks. Dr Martin emulated Thoreau when he stood up for his belief and was thrown in jail. Like Thoreau, he also wrote about his experience. Rather then a narrative though, he wrote an informative letter. In "Letter from Birmingham Jail" Dr King states that "I would agree with St Augustine that 'An unjust law is no law at all '" (256). Dr King demonstrated that to transcend the discrimination and to go above and beyond the norm, the most important thing is to stand up for it, and take any consequences that come with it. He exemplified the most important part of transcendentalism, going past people 's expectations and forming his own path, and not conforming to what society was telling him to do. Society told Dr King to sit down, but Dr King told himself, and other African Americans, to stand