Emerson's Argument Essay

802 Words2 Pages

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a famous American poet whose life spanned most of the 1800s, is known today primarily for his creative writing abilities; surprisingly, however, he also used his aptitude for constructing vivid word pictures to devise an interesting theory of environmental ethics. In his famous essay Nature, he proclaimed his love for the environment and explained his reasoning on why people should value the natural world. While several aspects of his argument do align with a Christian worldview, Emerson’s ideology, when taken as a whole, neither articulates the complete, God-given value of nature, nor does it provide sufficient motivation for people to protect the environment. Emerson believed that the beauty and wonder of nature should …show more content…

Worster even says that “‘[Emerson] tended to devalue the material world except insofar as it could be put to higher spiritual uses by the human mind’” (qtd. in Meehan, “Ecology and Imagination”). Because his argument is so narrowly founded on the spiritual aspect of nature, his theory provides no motivation for certain groups of people. Non-spiritual people, people who do not spiritually relate to nature, and people who do not enjoy going outside have no reason to seek to protect the environment, based on Emerson’s theory alone. Moreover, not everyone who enjoys the outdoors is capable of going outside to have spiritual experiences; even Emerson himself once stated that “To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature” (Popejay, “The Beginnings of American Naturalism”). A last blow to his argument is that since he limits the value of nature to the value that individual people give it, he also precludes the formation of a unified approach to environmental ethics by failing to create a system by which we can evaluate how the environment should be preserved. Consequently, Emerson’s argument, at its foundation, provides only limited motivation for the protection of the natural world and it fails to provide criterion that we might use to guide our approach to environmental

Show More
Related

  • Nature Emerson Rhetorical Analysis

    529 Words  | 2 Pages

    The essay "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson implements the use of many transcendentalist ideas through the use of strong rhetorical language. The core belief of transcendentalism is self-reliance and independence, and it stresses the importance that people need to do things on their own. Emerson uses irony to point out many latent truths about the concept. He also uses personification to show that the world around someone can have qualities of a human. Metaphors are also used heavily in the essay as catalysts to help the reader better understand Transcendentalism.

    Read More

  • Emerson And Transcendentalism Comparison

    650 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Emerson’s “Nature” nature is referred to as “plantations of god” meaning that nature is sacred. Also mentioned, is that “In the woods is perpetual youth”(#) conveying that nature keeps people young. Therefore, these excerpts show that nature is greatly valued by these transcendentalists. Transcendentalists would likely care significantly about the environment. In contrast, nowadays nature is often and afterthought. Natures’ resources are being depleted for human use, and the beauty of nature is also not as appreciated by modern people as it was by transcendentalists. The threat to nature in modern times contrasts to the great appreciation of nature held by authors like Emerson and

    Read More

  • Man And Nature In Emerson And Thoreau

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both Thoreau and Emerson teach us, who live in a more narrowed and often polluted nature, to get rid of our false sense of control and superiority that is influenced by the contemporary trends and culture. They want us to discover our proper ethical and spiritual place in nature. We must remind ourselves now and then that we are not crucial to nature's health, yet our capacity to destroy the nature is growing and becoming more violent. The best of our human tendency, though, depends on our fostering behavior, caring and respectful relationships with the nature that provides us with so many beautiful resources. We are liable to serve the nature for it serves and cater our lives in return. That is wisdom beyond eternity.

    Read More

  • Transcendentalism: Nature's Role in Intellectual Health

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    While Emerson never truly factored his transcendentalist ideals into his daily life, Thoreau made a point out of living out his days as a man free from society and connected to nature. In 1846, he refused to pay his poll tax to the government because he believed the war was unjust and did not want to support the government. In doing this, he showed that he remains strong in his own beliefs and will not agree with something just to conform to society. He also showcases Emerson’s philosophy on learning by forming beliefs based on his own life and morals, which were based in nature, receiving instruction from Emerson’s ideas on self-reliance, and taking action against something he believes is unjust. In an excerpt from one of Thoreau’s books, he says, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Thoreau 16). What he is saying through this is that he wants to evaluate himself in the context of nature and understand what life is like in its purest and fundamental form. He hoped to gain a knowledge of the world and explore what nature had to offer and learn from his experience. Also, Thoreau is letting his readers know that connecting with nature is essential in finding yourself and

    Read More

  • The Criticism Of Ralph Waldo Emerson

    2180 Words  | 5 Pages

    Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. He was a son of Unitarian minister and the descendant of New England clergymen. This led him to become a minister himself and later quit to focus on his philosophy called transcendentalism. Emerson started writing in his youth and later attended Harvard University. After graduating from Harvard in 1821 he taught in a women school. The book of Anthology of American Literature says, “Like his philosophy, his writing seemed to lack organization, but it swarmed with epigrams and memorable passages” (939). Even though Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works had flaws, he “was nineteenth-century America’s most notable essayist” (Anthology of American Literature 938). According to Daniel G. Payne Emerson’s point

    Read More

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emerson starts with a description of one who has the ideal relationship with nature, "The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood." Emerson is saying that man needs to retain wonder of nature, a quality often lost as a person ages. People become too distracted by petty conflicts that in Emerson's eyes, are ultimately insignificant.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Emerson's Independence

    755 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ralph Waldo Emerson, a writer and focal figure in the supernatural development amid the 1800's, was for the most part known for his solid confidence in independence: an extremely remarkable theme amid his time. In his exposition "Independence," written in 1841, Emerson underscores the significance of trust, certainty, and the acknowledgment of one's self by proposing to the peruser that each individual obtains question in themselves.  Emerson accomplishes this by utilizing a cozy tone, positive expression, and a concise correlation with himself to manufacture validity.

    Read More

  • What Is Emerson's Essay-Nature

    463 Words  | 1 Pages

    Throughout the other chapters, Emerson explores the idea of nature as instructor to man and how man can learn from nature. He repeatedly says that nature is a divine creation of God and through it man can learn to be closer to god. However, despite the reverence, awe, and prerequisite mental status, he also presents the concept of nature being 'below' and man on a 'Scala Natura ' of sorts. Although man seen as connected to and part of nature, for he questions if we can "separate the man from the living picture" of nature (26), he finds that nature is nothing without human interpretation because "All facts in natural history taken by themselves have not value . . .. but marry it to human history, and it is full of life," (33). However, there appears to be some more complicated interactions between nature and humans because human language, arguably one of the most important inventions/discoveries in our history is immediately dependent on nature (35). In a chapter titled Discipline, Emerson states that 'nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve," (45). Emerson believes that the human form is superior to all other organizations which appear to be degradations of it (50).

    Read More

  • Essay On Muir

    1148 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since the rise of the American environmental romanticism the idea of preservation and conservation have been seen as competing ideologies. Literary scholars such as Thoreau and Muir have all spoke to the defense of our natural lands in a pristine, untouched form. These pro-preservation thinkers believed in the protecting of American lands to not only ensure that future generations will get to experiences these lands, but to protect the heavily rooted early American nationalism in our natural expanses. Muir was one of the most outspoken supports of the preservation ideology, yet his stylistic writing style and rhetoric resulted in conservation being an adopted practice in the early 20th century

    Read More

  • Emerson's Purpose Of The Transparent Eyeball Summary

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    These decisions need to be made with input from the real world, but they should not be expected to change it. Emerson effectively employs the “transparent eyeball” to depict that mankind is not significant to nature,

    Read More

  • Dillard and Thoreau Comparison

    1452 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.

    Read More

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson's Argument In Nature

    1025 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is intriguing how Emerson determines the purpose of natural beauty he does this by writing “The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired so long as we can see far enough” (945). We depend on nature to balance out our lives. Nature gives us the views necessary to achieve

    Read More

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson's 'Nature' By Albert Einstein

    1097 Words  | 3 Pages

    (Emerson 220) taken by Emerson is a perfect explanation to just how many people (and how often) do we truly experience nature so that we feel this sense of great reverence? In an increasingly technological, text-oriented culture, our experiences of nature are often mediated by words

    Read More

  • Emerson Individualism Essay

    558 Words  | 2 Pages

    In today’s world of smartphones and google why would a person ever need to rely upon themselves? This often forgotten concept of individualism was championed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay Self Reliance. He stressed that people should not depend on others or society on how to live, or let material objects define them. Emerson’s ideas in Self Reliance remain true today, as people still tremendously struggle with not just being themselves but thinking for themselves, and are easily overwhelmed by material wealth and possessions.

    Read More

  • Nature in American Poetry

    1746 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882), the leader of the Transcendentalism in New England, is the first American who wrote prose and poem on nature and the relationship between nature and man Emerson's philosophy of Transcendentalism concerning nature is that nature is only another side of God "the gigantic shadow of God cast our senses." Every law in nature has a counterpart in the intellect. There is a perfect parallel between the laws of nature and the laws of thought. Material elements simply represent an inferior plane: wherever you enumerate a physical law, I hear in it a moral rule. His poem The Rhodora is a typical instance to illustrate his above-mentioned ideas on nature. At the very beginning of the poem, the poet found the fresh rhodora in the woods, spreading its leafless blooms in a deep rock, to please the desert and the sluggish brook, while sea-winds pieced their solitudes in May. It is right because of the rhodora that the desert and the sluggish brook are no longer solitudes. Then the poem goes to develop by comparison between the plumes of the redbird and the rhodora . Although the bird is elegant and brilliant, the flower is much more beautiful than the bird. So the sages can not helping asking why this charm is wasted on the earth and sky. The poet answers beauty is its own cause for being just as eyes are made for seeing. There is no other reason but beauty itsel...

    Read More

More about Emerson's Argument Essay

Open Document