Individualism: The Role Of Transcendentalism In The 19th Century

What do we know as a perfect society? Is it a society where people do not have any sort of moral problems? Or is it where we look at nature, and all its beauty that is has created and base our life around that? Taking that in consideration, I have participated in experiments that unlock the full potential of transcendentalism, a philosophical movement that developed in early nineteenth century United States, to see if they are relatable in the twenty-first century. While Transcendentalism is not a necessity to enjoy our life, they do imply many ideals that could be morphed into our daily life to better our own society. One of the main theme Transcendentalism implements is individualism. As Henry D. Thoreau, one of the founding father to transcendentalism, had said in his famous essay Walden, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” However, living in a society that believes that a perfect city is composed of same or similar social norms makes this task close to impossible to achieve. Also whenever I do something that defines me as an individual with an opinion, i seem to get banished from my classmates, or the rest of society. By correcting my teacher’s work in Pre-Calculus over unit circles, I received many unwanted gestures from my peers, telling me “nobody cares,” or “stop trying to be a teachers pet,” taking no effect from …show more content…
Society expects everyone to be the same and if you stand out of the crowd, you are what is known as a social outcast. We wish to not stand out because standing out means more attention. more attention means more work, therefore, standing out of the crowd takes a lot more effort. Although individualism brings out the true potential of yourself, one should never exceed to where it is considered to be outright unjustful. We could simply just do what fulfills your needs. this should break the chains off society 's “perfect