Background: Session Three A
The Transcendentalists: Lyle will present a fictionalized journal dialogue of the friendship between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Paul will present on "Transcendentalism".Session Summary
This evening we explored who the Transcendentalists were. Learning who this group was can give us a perspective on who Emerson was in relation to them, and to the climate he was living in. Paul and Lyle gave us two different angles on this group.Paul reworked an article on the Transcendentalists he had started a few years ago called Shedding the Husks of Dogma. In it he highlights the parallels between the Concord group and our own Watershed community. In helping us understand Emerson in his time, this article also helps us understand who we are in relation to other traditions. For any group to grow in self-awareness, it's important not to ignore the past, or import current experience into it, but reflect on the past with honesty and openness.
Studying Emerson's life raises the question of how a son of a theologically liberal but socially conservative Unitarian minister, and nephew of a fanatic Calvinist could have developed a spirituality that foreshadows modern religious and transpersonal psychological thought. In a similar vein, Paul reflects on the evolution of his own spirituality: how the son of a middle class family with a Baptist Fundamentalist Grandmother, who had evangelical ideas and training could have developed a spirituality that has much in common with the Transcendentalists? And many of us could ask the same questions. What accounts for the continuity between the sort of people in Watershed and those in the early transcendentalist movement? Wherein lies the differences between these groups that are separated by both tradition, ethnicity and location?
Here are some comparisons we talked about.
Although not initially apparent, the roots of Puritanism and Calvinism can be detected in Transcendentalist thought. American New England Puritanism began as a social-religious dissent and an attempt to bring the Kingdom of God to New England. This tradition originally contained two conflicting streams. One was a stress on piety, religious passion, inward communication with God and religious symbolism within Nature and was reflected in doctrines of regeneration and providence. The other stream emphasized social conformity to divine law and order and was expressed in demand for propriety, decency, respectability, self-control.
As American nationalism and capitalism flourished, these two streams became divided. A rising merchant class valued the economic stability that social order brought. The mystical side of Puritanism was dropped in favor of the rationalistic, conformity emphasis. Unitarianism, as the successor of Puritanism, embraced the conservative lifestyle, and disconnected from the orthodox beliefs of the past. Rejecting this dogma that stifled the spirit, the Transcendentalists saw God revealed in nature, self-reliant intuition and eventually in the divinity of humanity. Their primary tenant of spirit preceding matter directly contradicted the materialism of the Boston Unitarians, and thus alienated them from their elders.
Watershed also evolved from a spiritless tradition. We were counter-culture and yearned for spirit. Our emphasis is on direct experience as a source of revelation. The Transcendentalists were more aesthetically and intellectually oriented. Watershed stresses a personal lived experience of God in Nature, through Nature and perhaps beyond. Watershed has more of a communitarian emphasis, whether this is a mature blending of self-reliance and god/other reliance or a collective fusion. Regardless, the similarities between the groups suggests we share aspirations for a life lived in gratitude and hope. In recovering a vital spirituality, our task is to honour the mystical piety of our tradition while unlinking ourselves from the rigid dogma and literalism that came with it.
The discussion following Paul's presentation started with a question: Did Transcendentalism die when the group died? Transcendentalism as Ideal existed before and after Concord. But during Emerson's time it was embodied in a unique and vital way. Today's materialism seems to overshadow the political, social and literary influence that Emerson had in his day. Today he is culturally unknown. We may feel sad for such a loss, but Bev also remarked that many people have distorted Emerson's views. The tradition the Transcendentalists left behind is always available. Perhaps becoming permanent is not always a helpful thing. Someone else mentioned that the Theosophists survived their 19th century beginning but expend a lot of energy determining correct dogma.
The conversation turned to the Platonic Ideals that influenced Transcendentalism. Paul suggested the influence was more likely the mystical neo-platonism, rather than the inherently conservative Platonic ideas. Likewise the Unitarians were more culture-conforming than the Transcendentalists that came after them. Transcendentalists, with less emphasis on conformity, ditched dogma, like that of predestination. Emerson became a universalist. This tension between conformity and vitality is seen with the Mennonites too. They started as pietists, became conservative and influenced many of us to seek a less-dogmatic spirituality.
Lyle mentioned the irony that Unitarians believed in miracles. But it was the physical proof of God's existence that appealed to them, a rationalistic deduction. David Hume's philosophy, which questioned whether miracles proved anything, was a major influence in Emerson's work. In attempting to answer the questions Hume set, Emerson found new forms for an old faith, Puritan spirituality without the dogma. In this way the existential anxiety that Hume's work started was also an opportunity for "new wine".
This universalizing tendency of Spirit is seen in our own history. When part of Mennonites, we used to seek those who were like us; difference mattered. But Watershed as a spiritual principle applies to all people, just like Transcendentalism is always present. Life constantly conspires opportunities for people to make decisions that lead towards consciousness. Our structural emphasis is now on providing resources to anyone, not just those who agree. We are all at different places in integrating this vision, but it is universal in its message. Similarly, the Transcendentalists all evolved differently. One of them, Orestes, eventually became an anti-transcendentalist.
After a break, Lyle presented a dialogue between Emerson and probably his closest friend, Henry David Thoreau.
His main source was Carlos Baker's book Emerson Among the Eccentrics. The art of conversation and letter-writing were two notable characteristics of this group. Conversations could last days. And there are thousands of extant letters in archives today. This imaginative dialogue was derived from actual journal entries. It may be truer than history.
The dialogue begins in 1837. 34-year-old Emerson has just given his "American Scholar" address to the Harvard seniors, one of whom is this promising 20-year-old named Henry David Thoreau. Their friendship begins with mutual respect for each other's thoughts and aspirations, and a common love of nature. They argue amiably, sharpening their thoughts on each other. As time passes, they become aware of faults. Thoreau remarks on Emerson's abstract and heady relation to nature. Emerson is frustrated with Thoreau's lack of ambition and his need for conflict. This is encapsulated in two entries:
Emerson: I believe England is the country of success, and success has a great charm for me.
Thoreau: I am in great contempt for things England and European. I am skeptical of English success, materialism, steam, speed, talk and books.
Their friendship deepens to contain these conflicts. Their ideas on love, friendship, nature, God evolved through their walks and correspondence. Their relationship survived the threat of an affair between Henry and Emerson's wife. After 17 years, the friendship ends with the death of Thoreau from tuberculosis. Emerson writes the eulogy "The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in the midst his broken task which none else can finish, a kind of indignity to so noble a soul that he should depart out of Nature before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what he is." Emerson could well have been writing of his own heart.
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