One of Emerson’s most popular essays is “Self-Relianceâ€. He speaks of many things in his books and lectures but this concept “self-reliance†runs throughout his writings. I wanted to acquire an understanding how this concept compares with “rugged individualism†that seemed to be a phrase that identified especially the individuals who sought the new frontier during America’s early development.
Self-reliance denotes especially a psychological-philosophical-intellectual aspect of human behavior. He says that an intellectual person (Emerson speaks to and includes every normal person) must have “no engagement in any thought or feeling which can hinder him from looking at it as [something] foreign…The true scholar is one who has the power to stand beside his thoughts or to hold off his thoughts at arm’s length and give them perspective.†Emerson makes his lectures and books difficult and elusive to disappoint expectations that he will furnish doctrinal conclusions. His commitment is to one of a “method of intellectâ€.
“Truth is our element of life, yet if a man fasten his attention on a single aspect of truth, and apply himself to that alone for a long time, the truth becomes distorted and not itself, but falsehood.â€
“A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like to him wherever he goes. He takes only his own out of the multiplicity that sweeps and circles round him.â€
“The commonest remark, if the man could only extend it a little, would make him a genius; but the thought is prematurely checked, and grows no more. All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.â€
Emerson makes clear that he considers that knowledge of the world leads to a deeper self-knowledge, “the knowledge of all men that belongs to self-knowledgeâ€.
Emerson implies that self-reliance is an intermittent process, perhaps an advocation that is more than a mood, but requires persistent struggle. It lies in independent being, doing, or acting.
For me the most important aspect of Emerson’s self-reliance is what has latterly been called the “hand-made life.” That is, you make your personality and your character by active, dynamic evaluation of the materials of your life, and not by accepting the popular taste or the popular opinion. Independent judgment.
Would you care to make a comparison between self-reliance and Maslow’s Self-Actualization. I have been thinking about trying to get a better handle on S-A. Do you think that concept has any value?
I’m sorry, which “that concept”? Maslow’s Self-Actualizatoin or Emerson’s self-reliance.
I think you have to do a lot of preparatory bridgebuilding to get from Emerson to Maslow, though it’s probably not impossible. I think of Maslow’s Self-Actualization as a closer analogy to Nietzsche’s Will to Power. Of course, it’s relatively easy to get from Nietzsche to Emerson, so . . .
Again, it sounds like a theory that prefers machine over man. man has emotion but if we are to hold thoughts we hold dear at an arm’s length then we are denying our humanity. unless the study is in the field of mathematics or physics, then study without passion is dull. especially in philosophy which is secular theology, would become unberable. even theology emphasis on the human need to love.
my idea of philosophy is that Plato was a paedophile, kant the hermit, wittegenstein the german english, marx the dreamer, rawls plato the second…
we are affording men with fame too much honor. we have elevated the mysteries which they themselves don’t explain properly like truth, they have become Gods which we constantly speak of. for this very reason, just as philosophy will remain so will theology. they are both derivatives of the human need to worship, either Kant or Jesus, someone above whom they look upto. for they themselves can not bear to bear the burden of being first, because of the expectation and the responsibility that the leader has to take up.
edit: so they always sit in the back seat of the car.
I did mean S-A. I have never studied Nietzsche. Could you recommend someone who gives the layman a good look at this author. I never like to read the original author like N in the raw if I can help it.
I’ve never studied Maslow in detail, but his hierarchy of concerns seems fairly straightforward to me.
It’s very difficult to suggest any commentator on Nietzsche, since there is so much blatant misreading of him, and almost nobody seems to have an appreciation for how coherent his entire body of thinking is. There’s a “nietzsche boom” going on right now, and Sturgeon’s law dominates that discussion. I can say that the book “What Nietzsche Really Said,” will probably not be helpful, as the authors haven’t the slightest clue. Everything essential is contained in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” but it’s a very dense book and written in metaphors and ironic language that is easy to miss if you aren’t prepared for it. Even Jung missed quite a lot.
I would say, perhaps start with Walter Kaufmann’s intellectual biography of Nietzsche and pick up Kaufmann’s Viking Portable Nietzsche as a companion. Those two books will give you the overview. There’s been a great deal of scholarship since then, and Kaufmann has been nudged off the King of the Hill position recently, but essentially 20th century and now 21st century Nietzsche scholarship starts with those two books as a foundation.
No kidding. I have also noticed in my local book-stores that there are more philo-biographies of Nietzsche than any other philosopher. This “boom” that you speak of is most certainly true. And how ironic that Nietzsche forsaw this event- our century is his entirely.
I often tell people that the most influential philosopher of the 20th century died in 1900 – and they look at me like I’m crazy (not that these propositions are completely mutually exclusive . . . )
The thing that gives me cognitive dissonance is how very many of the books of that shelf after shelf, both in academic and in popular bookstores, “explaining” Nietzsche are written by people who don’t see really basic relationships – like the concept of agon as it relates to the concept of the transhuman.