In Search of Beauty
Created | Updated Jun 24, 2002
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude”
Emerson, Self-Reliance (1130)
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s desire to secure a place in the world where one’s ideals and principles need not be compromised is the struggle of the artist. Society does not reward those who challenge its institutions and traditions; and unconventionality will often be met with nothing but the utmost of disdain from a mass populace. Times change; situations vary. Movements come and go. But in the artist is forever an iconoclast stance, where one adheres to a higher calling and a search for beauty.
“Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” scenarios aside, there is a deeper, more philosophical question of how does artistic sensibility find any common ground in a world which most of the time employs values and ethics that are in direct conflict with 'art' and 'beauty'? With Nature, Emerson offers up a rallying cry for man to carve out his own unique relationship with nature; in Self-Reliance, Emerson attempts to explain the way a man need not be compromised; with The Poet, Emerson declares to never to champion mediocrity. These are the sentiments seen in centuries past, in the brilliant indigos and carnation hues of Van Goth’s pallet and echoed forth into the poetry of the beat writers.
The point I’m getting at is that it's not so much how this particular author (Emerson) would view modern day society, as it is a commentary I’m trying to make on the constant plight of the artist to seek out beauty in the face of a hostile world. A world, populated and governed by those whose ideologies often differ from the artist's - those whose high regard for wealth and materialistic concerns will generally offend their very person.
How would Emerson feel if he were alive in America today?
Using Self-Reliance as model, I imagine Emerson would feel pretty much about society now as he did about society then.“Society is a joint-stock company in which the members agree for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater.” - (1128)That is society - always will be. But Emerson is in the minority in his views. Most people simply don’t view society in the same light; most people have no problem conforming to society’s conditions and rules.
Emerson’s perspective is the perspective of the artist. The causes he celebrates are the causes of the artist. The world at large is built mostly on the model of a bureaucracy - in other words, it is designed in terms of maximum efficiency. “Unique” and “spirit” and “beauty” fall by the wayside. Efficiency isn’t all that concerned with these things. What Emerson wrote about - what touched me so deeply - was the idea that most of humankind spent their lives sleepwalking - going through the motions - working dead-end jobs that left them spiritually bankrupt, emotionally drained, and moreover, did little by way of fulfillment. His passionate plea is that it doesn’t have to be this way; that it shouldn’t be this way.
He was calling out for people to find the beauty that is all around us. He urged us to not get pigeon-held by the debt of materialistic trappings and accrued interest. He believed that the essence of life was much deeper than that. He believed, heart and soul, in the idea that we should all adhere to our own individualistic potential, and foster the fulfillment of our own individualistic dreams.
I would never be so arrogant as to suggest that I belonged in a class with a genius like Emerson, but I have spent my life in pursuit of beauty - either commenting on its abundance or complete lack thereof as an artist; and at every turn I’ve been greeted by a world that holds individuals with such a viewpoint at bay. I love the ideas of “higher truths” and “spiritual planes”, and I am in no way saying that simply because society doesn’t recognize, for the most part, any of these virtues, that Emerson’s point isn’t valid. It makes his point all the more so.
The problem is that transplanting Emerson to modern day America and asking how would he would feel about certain details isn’t really necessary because society doesn’t change in terms of how it functions - only the particulars do.
Let’s ask, for instance, what would Emerson feel about the recent terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11th. Well, I highly doubt he’d be wrapping himself in the flag, like everyone else around here. Emerson, although I’m sure was as patriotic as the next guy, wasn’t one to toe the party line. He doesn’t seem to me to be so gullible. Emerson was a man who spotted hypocrisy, so, no doubt, he would be disgusted by lectures of moral servitude from a national leadership (the United States) that commits more terrorist acts than any other nation on Earth.
All three works I read by Emerson this semester (Nature, Self-reliance, The Poet) showed me a man who hated injustice and inequality. He hated oppression; so how would Emerson feel about the very same police force that just a couple years ago was in hot water for the brutal rape of a Haitian immigrant with a toilet plunger and for shooting an unarmed man forty-one times as he reached for his wallet, now being called “heroes” for simply doing their job? I don’t know, but belonging to a certain artistic sensibility, I can venture forth a guess that he’d be nothing less that appalled.
Emerson wrote in Self-Reliance, “a man must be a nonconformist”. He also wrote,
“For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure” - (1130).How safe would it be in America today, in light of these recent attacks, to speak out, in any way, against the status quo? Not very. If you’re not in total agreement that our military should be doing exactly what it’s doing - if you entertain notions that the spilling of more innocent blood
to avenge the spilling of innocent blood is just slightly absurd and counterproductive - if you believe that perhaps the U.S. should stop trying to police the entire world, or that even, the Palestinians have a valid argument - keep your mouth shut! Speaking out would not only be ill advised - it’d be dangerous. Emerson took the stance of never backing down - that it is imperative for everyone to stay true to who they are; but if Emerson were to view the current political conditions and climate in America today, I imagine, his words would still touch only a handful of enlightened souls; and for the most part, he’d be ridiculed and misunderstood, because what Emerson so highly touted was to rise above the mundane and strive for greatness. And the truth of the matter is most people (or at least the ones I’ve been around my entire life) don’t care for such poignant aesthetics. My point (while trying to keep this paper relatively short) is this: It doesn’t make a difference when Emerson would’ve been alive, or how he would feel about this situation or that situation, because the ideals and virtues and ethics he possessed will always be at odds with society. He will always be in the minority, as artists generally are.
I believe in what Emerson wrote about - that
“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance, that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till” - (1127).Or in other words, that man makes his own destiny. And in the face of that destiny is life and the constant struggle to uphold one’s beliefs. This is especially true for person of an artistic inclination.
When I think of society, I see moving parts, interchangeable systems; I see bankers and carpenters and teachers, each doing an assigned job. I see people readily accepting their assigned lots in life, and questions about the meaning of life seem passé the older we get. Emerson’s writings were almost child-like in their innocence and exuberance. He wanted transcendence. He wanted the intangible. He wanted the spiritual. He wanted the things that a cynical planet can only criticize and mock. Transplanting Emerson into modern day America and asking what he would feel, for instance, about the political aspirations of suspected murderers , leaves me feeling somewhat ambivalent - it misses the crux of what he so deeply cared about. That “transparent eyeball” Emerson urged us all to be in nature, will see the same hypocrisy in society year after year; it will see the same destitution and degeneracy; it will see the same plundering of the environment, the same mean-spiritedness, because human nature is consistent. That “eyeball” - (especially the “eyeball” of the artist) - will continue to find itself fighting a battle to uphold higher principles.
I probably should’ve just answered the question. I could have just as easily asked and answered how Emerson would feel about the recent tax cut by George W. that netted the richest 1% in this country 45% of the revenue. I could have just as easily speculated on his abhorrence to wage system improprieties. It’s just that any answer would’ve been trite and less than heartfelt. I have not read many authors whose eloquence reverberates within my soul the way Emerson’s did, and I felt his work deserved more respect from me than to merely placate and go through the motions.
It’s unfortunately a sad fact of life that most people never achieve the actualization their minds are capable of, and that they settle for less than they want or deserve. It’s unfortunate that society deems 'this or that' appropriate, with little concern for whether or not everyone is comfortable, or indeed, can even operate within its confines. The artistic goal of creating and sustaining beauty and a keen interest in spiritual matters doesn’t much figure into a Gross National Product or low overhead. This doesn’t make Emerson’s words any less eloquent or important - not to this reader, at least.
Works Cited
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Fifth Edition, Volume 1, p 1126-1143
