Transcendentalism: Ideals and Reality

A detailed Summary of Transcendentalism: Ideals and Reality

In 2002, the United States stock market investors took a massive hit. Heads and accountants of the technology giant, Enron, were exposed for falsifying their records. Instead of reporting their loss they lied and reported gains to draw investment. These few corrupt officials profited enormously when the lies caused their own stock holdings to rise in value. When these records were exposed, the company was decimated. The stock value was reduced to pennies, thousands of jobs were instantly lost, and the entire technology market was severely impacted. What does the Enron scandal have to do with a nineteenth century spiritual movement? The point is the actions of few rippled out to affect the nation. However, The beliefs of transcendentalism are inapplicable. On the national level, people are too materialistic. In effect, falling into conformity has become characteristic of Americans. The self-reliance preached by transcendentalists is nothing more than a helpful guide to spiritual peace and moral improvement.

Henry David Thoreau took his view of transcendentalism to practice. He lived a rugged life surrounded by nature for years searching for answers to life and the most perfect way to live it. His ideas involved the least amount

Transcendentalism is idealistic. Its impracticality can be attributed to this. Transcendentalism, like other schools of thought works on paper, but not in reality. Thoreau believed in the purity and morality of the nature of humans. Nathaniel Hawthorne believed that to sin is to be human nature. It is this belief that is correct and is the undoing of utopian transcendentalism. As long as humans retain their nature of eventual conformity there is no way that a transcendentalist society could survive. Transcendentalism could then only be used as a guide to improve one's morals, not change one's way of life.

It is obvious that transcendentalism would fail on a large scale, but what if it was done singularly. If one tried to do this now by himself, he would be regarded as either an antisocial eccentric or a hobo. Of course, following in the transcendentalist mind frame he wouldn't care what other people had to think of him. This person may or may not achieve whatever it is he set out to do. However, as a whole, people in this day and age have become too materialistic. After a few days trying to find themselves, thoughts of Must See TV and how many vacation days one is using would swarm in one's mind. People are also too concerned with social norms. Few people participated in yoga 15 years ago probably because it looked odd. Since there is a strong following, people do yoga now not only since there is no

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Approximate Word count = 950
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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