Emerson vs. Thoreau

First of all, who caught Family Guy tonight? Leave it to a cartoon to lampoon the masses for being uneducated enough to mistake Henry David Thoreau for Rodney Dangerfield. Loved it. And it made me feel smart.

As for my second order of business, I like both of these guys (Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson) because they are anarchists and anarchists are cool. But Ralph is the kind of gentle inward-looking anarchist that struggles with demons, whereas Henry David is the more militant kind of guy that doesn't pay his taxes and calls for the resignation of every office in government.
We spent a lot of time covering Ralph last week in class, which is good. But I enjoyed Henry David's writing a lot more. What H. D. did in "Resistance to Civil Government" was take the transcendentalist musings of "Self-Reliance" and turn them into an attack on organized government. Ralph was calling for a look inward in 1841 and advocating for the self in order for humanity to progress. Eight years later, H. D. repackaged transcendentalism in the same way that Norman Vincent Peale repackaged Buddhism. I like the way H. D. contrasts the self with the idea of government. Benjamin Tucker, another famous 19th century anarchist wrote that" if the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny." That is what we have witnessed, and it is undoubtedly what Ralph and Henry David were witnessing in the lead up to the Civil War. I have had college professors tell me two different things about the civil war: "It was clearly a war fought around, about, and against slavery" and "If anyone tells you the American Civil War was fought over slavery, they're full of shit." Honestly, those are both direct quotes. But what appears to be happening in these works is that power is being taken away from the individual and given to the states, and then that power is being taken from the states and given to the federal government. Maybe there's a tie-in to rights of slave-ownership in there somewhere but I'd rather not get in to that until I'm done with Linda Brent.
That being said here are my favorite extracts from each essay:

"But prayer as a means to effect a private end, is theft and meanness." (Ralph) -- This reminds me of my stepmother praying in church for her '96 Chevy Blazer to get out of the shop early. She actually said that out loud.

"That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have." (Henry David) -- He cuts right to the chase, doesn't he? That's what I love about "Resistance." It kind of has a messianic feel to it.

"... a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience" (Henry David) -- I like this only in its sarcasm. An entire economy has been built on this precept, and it appears to be crumbling before us.

"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet..." (Ralph) -- This whole rant was entertaining as far as essays go. It is funny how much emphasis was and is put on the concept of "Progress" while we as a civilization are losing some of our most important adaptations.

"Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence." (Henry David) -- A great motto to live by.


And one more quote because J. T. can't get any love for Vonnegut:

"We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane." (Kilgore Trout 1907-1981) -- So it goes.