Journal #21

Emerson's views on self-reliance are very similar to those of Benjamin Franklin. However, there are a few differences which make them unique and separate Emerson's transcendentalist ideals from Franklin's Rationalist ideals. Emerson's "Self-Reliance" is generally about how he thought self-reliance itself is very important, and he explains a few of his thoughts dealing with the common people relating to the entire population. For example, he strongly feels that many people in today's society are not unique; there is too much conformity and not enough individuality. His views on nature itself were not exactly expressed in his work "Self-Reliance," but it was easy to match things up from his work "Nature." He basically said that nature was somewhat of a gateway to reach spirituality. This is because of his strong transcendentalist beliefs that deal with rising above the physical world. To do this, one must have great intuition and think similar to a child. Yet, transcendentalism is not all about nature, but through it one may rise above all to the spiritual world. Benjamin Franklin on the other hand, has similar views, but they are still quite unique and reflect a bit of his Rationalist ideals. Franklin feels that people should have more uniqueness, but he says this more on a personal level. While Emerson expresses this more in a way that effects the whole society, Franklin states that each person should reflect upon themselves such as he did with his list of virtues. Franklin did not seem to care to much on a large scale scene about peoples' individuality, and this was Emerson's main focus. This transcendentalist personality and style of Emerson may be due to his shift and rejection of Romanticism in his later years. I believe this is the cause of his views to be slightly more pessimistic and more wide spread than those of Franklin. In summation, I can see that the views on self-reliance between Franklin and Emerson are quite similar, but they still have a few unique factors that are mainly because of their conflicting belief systems.