Emerson's Independence And Self-Reliance Essay

Emerson believed in independence and self-reliance. He believed that people need to learn to think for themselves and rely on their own intuition. Emerson’s plan for Americans to become thinkers and doers in the new country was designed to better society and the individual but it would be very difficult to work into society today. Emerson’s transcendental ideas would be suppressed in the twenty-first century by the introduction of new technology and the reliance on a career-specific college education. Emerson’s plan for individuals to learn to follow their own intuition and not follow what society says is correct would not be very workable into our world today because of the deep reliance on technology and the ever growing supply of technology

Emerson wanted people to have a very well-rounded education and to know about and how to do many different tasks. He planned for Americans to be able to do everything they need by themselves without the help of others. However in the world today, students are taught specifically for one job. Most often, they are also finding ways out of classes that have no correlation with their major. For example, when I go to college, I am going to major in biology and instead of taking a general History class, I could elect to take a History of Medicine course that would more closely relate to my major while still fulfilling the course requirements. Many students nowadays are choosing to take these types of classes because society says that to be better in your field, and in life, it is better to focus on one specific area. This is precisely the opposite of what Emerson wanted for Americans; he wanted people to learn and gain knowledge on every subject so they would be more beneficial to the world as a whole. Receiving a career-specific education is so deeply embedded in the world today that trying to change it to the way that Emerson would have wanted it would be nearly