Lecture 10: Transcendentalism

The Transcendentalists, the two best known of whom were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, rose to the height of their influence between 1830 and 1841. They rejected Locke's materialism (i.e., his idea that all that can be known for certain is what can be experienced with the five senses, and that to be valid, an idea must be able to be proven empirically) in favor of Kant's idea that "transcendental" knowledge was innate in the human mind. Intuition, therefore, surpasses knowledge as the guide to truth. The individual mind is, they argued, a microcosm of God's mind. It follows that the individual is sacred, as are his rights.

The Transcendentalists were drawing on a long tradition: the Greeks, especially Plato, the Hindus, Christian mystics, and European Romantics. To oversimplify quite a bit, the Transcendentalists drew from these sources the basic belief that human nature was good, and that born in us was a knowledge of perfect goodness in all things. They rejected the idea of the "tabula rasa," i.e., the idea that human beings were born blank slates and that character was formed according to education and experiences. They argued that each human soul was already illuminated, at birth, by the divine. The purpose of human life was to look inside oneself (rather than outward, to the community) for a knowledge of what was good, and then to live according to that goodness.

The Transcendentalists spoke of an "Oversoul," "an all-pervading power for goodness from which all things come and of which all things are part" (McMichael 659). Because of their emphasis on individuality, they rejected the value of organized religion. Each person's relationship with God must be addressed individually, they believed, not mediated by an outside source. Like the English Romantics, the Transcendentalists saw God reflected in Nature, and Thoreau argues that going for a walk in the woods is a far more religious experience than listening to a sermon inside a church.

The Transcendentalists were among the first voices to reject the Protestant Work Ethic with its emphasis on commercialism and materialism. They argued against acquisition and for simplicity: when one is focused on attaining material goods, one cannot make good moral choices, because, as Thoreau argues, one's moral sense is blunted by one's desire to get money and goods, and one's conscience is blunted or erased altogether. The Transcendentalists made two attempts to create Utopian communities which supported their beliefs: one called Fruitlands in 1843, and another, the more successful, at Brook Farm, from 1841-1846. Both were communcal farms on which there was an equal sharing of burdens and benefits. The living conditions were, by design, spartan. Plenty of time was allowed for privacy and solitude, and a basic principle was equality of the sexes, classes, and races.

The Transcendental Club was a group of authors who met regularly, most often at Emerson's home in Concord, Massachusetts. They issued a magazine called The Dial which espoused the ideas of Transcendentalism. Among the members of the club were Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott), George Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody. Emerson was the guiding light of the group; his ideas influenced the other members, and their ideas flowered out in different directions. Margaret Fuller became one of the most vocal proponents of women's rights, and Thoreau's ideas on civil disobedience and passive resistance influenced people all over the world.