A psychological writer such as Ralph Waldo Emerson can be analyzed and interpreted in several different ways. A few things that may affect the way that people interpret Emerson are past experiences, time period, and social climate. Emerson has proven to be one of the most influential writers of the Romantic time period and his ideas and writings still have an active role in social views today. Emerson has published works such as "Compensation", "Self-Reliance", and his first published essay "Nature", published in 1836. These essays serve as a gathering of Emerson's ideas and morals about man and how man reacts to the world that he lives in. Emerson says, "Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong is against it" (Manley 1). Emerson explains his cocky point of view in this quotation about good and bad.

Romanticism for Emerson was a period of time that broke down old social barriers and set new standards for society. The general attitude toward man was drastically changed; the individual became the center of life and experience. Everything that happened revolved around the individual and di

As Emerson developed his ideas from Romanticism he lost sight of many aspects of reality. Reality is defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as the quality or state of being real. Well, how can he lose grasp on something that is real, you ask? By absorbing himself in his absurd and ridiculous ideas and morals. Emerson first began to lose his grasp of reality by singling out practices and calling them unjust. Emerson's mangled view of justice is seen time and time again in his essays. Emerson dismisses conventional understandings of justice for his own more enlightened view. He states that injustice of ordinary justice is that it protects us from the experience of conflict; this is an example of how he becomes abstract with his idea of absolute justice. He then goes on to give a valueless explanation to how justice offends our moral judgment. "The only kind of justice worth affirming is an absolute justice, one that leaves no place for competing evaluations of the good" (Larson 5). Justice is commonly known as what is generally right or fair and in no way does that affect one's personal moral judgment. Next, he shuns ideas of conformity and begins to become obsessed with the importance of the individual in every situation. "For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face" (Emerson 57). This quote shows that Emerson strongly disagrees with society choosing how a person should look and act. He despises the idea of defining greatness as the level of greatness of the act as perceived by others. Government is not necessary to Emerson because he says that man can adequately govern himself because God is in every man and therefore man will be able to survive and get along flawlessly. This thesis of a world without government and authority working perfectly has already been proven on numerous occasions to not work, under any interpretation of the word. Emerson also gives the thesis that one can learn nothing from others; other can only stimulate the thinking of the individual in order for the individual to draw their own conclusions. This thesis is valid to a point, it works on Bloom's Taxonomy of high level thinking where one draws their own conclusions but this thesis does not work when considering the transfer of hard information that can only be taken for face value.

The Romantic time period compared to the current status of society also plays an important role in evaluating an unconnected philosophy such as Emerson's. The time period of Romanticism held many of the same beliefs, therefore making them more open to suggestion and instruction from Emerson. Modern society has drastically changed and although there is still individuality preached it is less prevalent to overall life. Peopl

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Approximate Word count = 1885
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)