Examples Of Transcendentalism

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Transcendentalism is the idea that the truth transcends the senses. Writers like Whitman and Thoreau believed two of truths were the relationship with nature and becoming one’s own individual. Though in today’s society, these truths have become distant and irrelevant. The transcendental philosophy is based on the premise that truth is innate in all creation and that knowledge is “intuitive rather than rational”. Thoreau’s and Whitman’s writings were emanating individuality of one’s voice, the strength of having original character—that “imitation is suicide” (Emerson). They took an hopeful approach and view on life and humanity. They tried to connect “all individuals to both the natural and their own inner worlds”. During the time transcendentalism…show more content…
But the American Dream fights directly against it. In today’s society (stressed in television, commercials, magazines), the power to buy things is the sign of success in life. The media is constantly putting the message out that you ‘need’ to buy this or you ‘have to get’ this. Thoreau and Whitman would frown upon such an idea. They believed that your life should not be driven by materialistic goals or other external forces. Walden, another transcendentalist said to “not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played is dissipation”. Walden stressed the idea that if you cannot afford things in the first place you are forced to experience the basic vivacity of life. It’s easy to see that today people are fighting to keep up with the Jones’s. Jobs are something given to make money, money to buy things, the job is not usually chosen to “front the essential facts of life”. We instead are awed by careers which “yields the most sugar and most starch”. The fact remains, that in the 21st century, transcendentalism is no longer applicable in society. The idea of “not troubling yourself much to get new things” is contrary to
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