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Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance

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“Self-Reliance” written by, Ralph Waldo Emerson, tells about how people stick to a certain way of thinking due to the strategy they grew up with and what they have told and seen. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” On the other hand, “Various kinds of thinking” written by James Harvey, tells how people have several different processes of thinking, and their minds and thoughts are constantly changing as they grow. These different kinds of thinking are: conscious, unconscious thinking, mind and body, rationalizing, reverie, real, and good reasoning that explained by both of these authors in their stories. Each excerpt, explains knowledge in its own way. “A foolish …show more content…

One of the methods is, conscious and unconscious thoughts. Considering conscious thoughts, are thoughts that people aware of doing. When human are purposely thinking of something and fully aware of what comes to mind, known as a conscious thought. Besides, there are times when people are thinking without knowing what they are thinking about or why they are thinking about it, which considered an unconscious thought. Sentence of the excerpt, “The explanation of thought has indeed demonstrated that our unconscious psychic life far outruns our …show more content…

Rationalizing, “the action of attempting to explain or justify the behavior or an attitude with logical reasons.” This happen all the time in day to day life. Due to this people are constantly, proving a point by using facts. This needs to happen, so people start learning about what they say, and not just believe it. On the other hand, another way of thinking is revelry. This method, called reverie means, “this is our spontaneous and favorite kind of thinking. When people allow our ideas to take their own course and this course determined by our hopes and fears, our spontaneous desires, their fulfillment or frustration; by our likes and dislikes, our loves and hates and resentments.” This is seemingly interesting to us. However, people are further interested in

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Furthermore, it highlights how an individual can have his eyes closed but in a mental state be “awakened.” The

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Blink, a book written by Malcolm Gladwell where he explains the psychology of unconscious thinking. Gladwell tells his readers about how our subconscious mind affects a lot of our actions and behavior. In the book he brings up the idea of “thin slicing” in which a person uses little pieces of information about a person and uses that to form a larger opinion of the person. Further in the book he continues to say that most humans cannot explain how our subconscious mind works, he uses the example of Vic Braden a tennis coach who can predict when a tennis player is going to serve two bad serves in a row. When asked, Braden could not explain how he could predict such a thing and didn’t know how to explain this fact to others.

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a theory that concerns relation of conscious and unconscious. 4. Unconscious- unacceptable thoughts info process which individuals are not aware of. 5.

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Then there is rationalization, the psychoanalytic defense mechanism through which irrational behavior, motives, or feelings are made to appear reasonable, states Falex Partner Medical Dictionary. An irrational behavior that Caulfield claims to have is in chapter six when he says, “When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't

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Many people rely on the opinions of others, never truly stopping to personally consider the subject at hand. Ralph Waldo Emerson, an impactful American writer, wrote a piece entitled Self- Reliance. In Self-Reliance, Emerson’s purpose is to promote ideas of individualistic thinking. Emerson uses strong, rhetorical strategies, such as figurative language, allusions, and complex syntax and parallelism to effectively persuade his audience to trust their own thoughts.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century, asserted “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Throughout my high school career, I have always been an individual who follows. I relentlessly ask others “Are you going to the game tonight?” or “What are you wearing for the banquet?” I have never craved to stand out or do something out of the ordinary.

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The early 1840s till the early 1950, a person 's desire to follows laws varied. Some people didn 't question any law and just followed them to avoid any trouble. But a few people objected. Two very influential writers, Ralph Emerson and Henry Thoreau, put together their opinions to form essays. Emerson’s work as published around 1841; Thoreau’s work was published around 1849.

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The theme of the essay “Self Reliance” written by Emerson is for beings to not focus on those of others or subside his/her values to fit in with our society, for true geniuses comes from within and are made with their own heart and mind. His idea of self-reliance differs from that of the norm in that he doesn’t encourage those to mix into selfish ways but to be open and proud of their own individuality for that is the true key to life itself. Emerson’s idea is similar to the common use in that he encourages those to not depend on others to define his/her identity. 2. Emerson’s use of figurative language encourages his readers to view his ideas in a clearer and more emphasized perspective.

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Many people in today's society are deciding not to be themselves, but rather conforming to the norm. People are living their lives using a counterfeit identity instead of being the original person that God made them out to be. God made everyone different and unique for a reason; He did not intend for everyone to be the same. The problem that is prevalent across the world is that nobody wants to be seen has weird or different from everybody else, so they do whatever it takes to be seen as normal. When people make that decision to fall into the pressures of fitting in, they tend to lose sight of who they really are.

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In Self-Reliance Emerson’s prison is a figurative allusion of the conformity of society. In Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government Thoreau literally gets placed into prison. However, in Thoreau’s text prison is correspondingly a metaphor for society and its continued conformity. In both texts the writer’s persuasive tone beseeches the reader to not consent to the social-contracts of society. In Emerson’s Self-Reliance and Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government prison is a symbol of being confined in a society that does not accept individualism, but rather accepts and requires the majority and conformism of all citizens and men.

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Throughout both Ralph Emerson’s, “Self-Reliance” and Henry Thoreau’s, “Civil Disobedience” the desire to enjoin the reader to take action against society is very significant in each excerpt. In both pieces one is able to understand the prominent theme of individualism, as it is encourage by the writers for others to not fall under the idea of conformity. In “Self-Reliance,” Emerson expresses the idea of how significant it is for people to not conform since it will only hinder one’s growth instead of progressing even further as a unique individual. Likewise in Thoreau’s excerpt, “Civil Disobedience,” he also explains how people will never grow as people, however, he focuses mostly as to how people need to rebel against societal influences such

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Transcendentalist writers were focused on the belief of the divinity of the individual soul, the inner voice, (Crawford, Kern & Needleman, 1961) to overcome social stereotypes and to avoid conformity. It is highlighted the importance to return to nature to enhance the quality of humans beings by living simply since being apart of common social rules is the only way to be in communion with nature’s wisdom. Those transcendental characteristics could be seen in Emerson’s ¨self-reliance¨ or Thoreau’s ¨Walden ¨ bearing in mind that although, Emerson’s ¨Self-reliance¨ adheres more descriptive examples to illustrate metaphors and Thoreau’s ¨Where I lived and what I lived for¨ introduces metaphors creating much more imagery, both make a critique of the modern individual using

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In the piece “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of Americas most influential thinkers, Emerson talks about the subject of individuality. Using many different rhetorical strategies, he makes his perspective on the subject loud and clear by using personification, alliteration and analogy. “The eye was placed where one ray shall fall, that it might testify ray shall fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. Bravely let him speak the utmost syllable of his confession” (Emerson). Emerson uses personification, giving “the eye” the ability to talk and confess such as a human would.

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The American Creed expresses many ideals and principles that are clearly cherished by a majority of fellow Americans. Examples of these ever-important standards of the American Creed are evident in both Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walden by Henry David Thoreau. After reading and analyzing both texts, the reader detects obvious examples of independence, equality, diversity, liberty and opportunity. While both stories have their similarities in these topics, the two authors also express contrasting opinions. Liberty is a standard addressed in both Emerson and Thoreau’s writings that is alike in both mens’ perspectives.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau both fond nature to be essential to being a whole person: spiritually and emotionally. Emerson saw nature’s effect on people and their thoughts, whereas Thoreau saw the deliberateness of nature and thought that if people could seize the same decisiveness that they would have more to enjoy in life. Both authors believed that humans needed to enjoy nature to be one with the universal being that is the basis of Transcendentalism. Emerson wrote “When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind.” (Nature 693) Emerson was saying that nature is similar to poetry for the mind, in that it is relaxing and wholesome.

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