To Emerson, the ‘transcendental law’ was ‘the moral law’ through which humanity could experience the nature of God as a living spirit as opposed to the historical focus of Christianity where religion was practiced as if ‘God was dead’. In Emersion’s ideas of self-reliance and general divinity, life’s true nature was fluid and energetic. The self-realization of human beings, therefore, became possible when they became one with nature which is why Emerson had to leave the church to understand and serve God better. Emersion proposes that the divine is something large and visible in the form of nature which blankets everything in the world. Emerson believed that it was okay to defy the misplaced social structures and be misunderstood because all great men in history were misunderstood at some point in their life.
Thoreau focuses on the simplicity and divine unity of nature. From his individualism study, Thoreau expresses his faith in humanity and draws from nature to remind people what they were behold the institutions and empowers them to be better. According to Thoreau, the only way humanity could understand life on earth is through learning from the natural world around them. He believed that it was impossible for humanity to have enough of nature’s beauty, vigor and vast figures which is inexhaustible. Thoreau, therefore, calls on humanity to emulate nature and overcome their limitations. To have a moral life, people need to overcome the limits to their own life and become one with nature.
Emerson and Thoreau advocated for the inherent good of man whose purity had been compromised by the society and its institutions. While Emersion considered nature to be the revelation of the divine, Thoreau directly compares nature to religion whose ability to transgress limits offered humanity the opportunity to overcome their own limitations. To the transcendentalists, nature is important because it reveals that human beings have the ability to detach from reality and experience life wholly. Through nature, human beings are able to escape their minds and connect with their inner spirit which improves the life of everyone in the community. Therefore, through nature people are able to transcend the material realm thus focusing on personal feelings and trusting on a personal authority which reveals their actual positions in the world and makes them moral agents from the limitations of the society.
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In ‘Civil Disobedience’ Walden connects societal institutions to law and human nature. According to Thoreau, citizens have the moral responsibility to actively refuse to obey unjust commands, orders, demands and laws without resulting to violence. In the peaceful form of political protest, the society is able to collectively force concessions out of a democratic regime. Thoreau, therefore, calls onto the members of the society to follow their own conscience when determining the morality of the laws they are asked to uphold which is the problem he has with his contemporaries.
I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also. (Thoreau)
Thoreau faults his contemporaries because they chose to recognize the US government as their government even when it condones inhuman practices like slavery, oppression and discrimination. Therefore, these men are immoral because they are unwilling to refuse tyranny by declaring their allegiance to the oppressive regime through taxes and upholding the laws that hurt other human beings because they are afraid of imprisonment. In a society where all people are equal in the eyes of God, hatred, discrimination and oppression are some of the conventions that I feel I would like to rebel against. People have a duty to alleviate the suffering treat accommodate diversity hence it is immoral to support regimes that alleviate some communities, races or other nations. Therefore, I would be willing to disobey any rules that disenfranchise certain groups simply because they are different.
References
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Emerson
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Thoreau
- Poetry Foundation – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Poetry Foundation – Henry David Thoreau
- Biography.com – Henry David Thoreau
- Hands on Heritage – Thoreau’s Truths: Transurrectional Benefits of Nature
- Simply Psychology – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
