Notes we took for the exam on 11/7/12

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Wife died at a young age, father died
• Poor – no job, no prospects
• Harvard – shunned at Harvard because of his
speech – beliefs were not popular
• Transcendentalism – goes against the Puritan
religion, ideas about individualism and that
we are one with God

2. Nature - Emerson
• Nature – our connection to God is in nature
• God is nature we are part of God – we are
“part and parcel” of God
• Nothing can befall me – can’t tarnish his spirit,
nothing harm him in nature
• Harvard speech, wife died – shunned but he is
protected and happy in Nature

3. Nature continued
• Transparent Eyeball – You actually become a
part of it – transparent – we are one with
nature
• Nature reflects your feelings – colors of the
spirit

4. Self Reliance – Emerson
• Be independent
• Imitation is suicide – if you try to be someone
else you kill yourself
• Joint – Stock – Company – people work together
to create order and abide laws
• But the cost is you give up your freedom, free
thoughts, individuality
• Power that resides – trust yourself – gifts you
give are yours only – “new” no else can give
those gifts, if you don’t offer your gifts the world
is missing out on you

5. Self Reliance
• Trust yourself – It is fine to against society –
Jesus and other great leaders did – great to be
misunderstood
• Foolish consistency – foolishly wasting time
and your life – small minded, simply doing
things to “go along” with society
• Fugitive Slave Law – speak hard words, speak
up against injustice

6. Henry David Thoreau
• Emerson’s protégé
• Highly educated at Harvard
• Teacher, objected to corporal punishment, left
the school
• Opened a school with his brother
• Brother died
• Moved in with Emerson
• Wrote for the rest of his life, died of tuberculosis
at forty-four

7. Walden – Thoreau
• Goes into the wood for 2 years
• The marrow – the good stuff – what nature can offer –
live life simply – spiritual development
• Farm and Jail – no difference because need
commitment - routine
• We pay too much attention to little things not the
“big” things
• No time for what is important – relationships, spiritual
development, nature “the marrow” of life
• Better to be poor – no worries, live simply

8. Walden continued..
• Leaves the woods because it became routine
• Had other lives to live – continue seeking,
growing
• Anything you do over and over again can become
a commitment – need to try and do different
things – explore life
• Beautiful Bug – gets out of the table – like people
who are trapped, we need to be like the bug –
chew out of society – we go through trials and
difficult times but we can break away - then we
are even more beautiful than any other bug

9. Mexican American War
• Texans have a war of independence
• Eventually can’t survive and become annexed
to US
• Polk sends an ambassador to negotiate for
California and New Mexico
• When the Mexican Government refuses to sell
Polk sends in troops
• Congress declares war

10. Civil Disobedience
• Best gov’t doesn’t govern at all
• The people should be able to govern
themselves – if they are ready
• Army is just a part of gov’t – should not be
blamed for war
• Some are controlling the gov’t for their own
personal gain or power
• Not representing the people

11. Civil Disobedience
• gov’t not fulfilling its responsibility and so people
have to do that for themselves
• Gov’t is not acting as a resource (expedient) , it
gets in the people’s way
• Gov’t should empower people to govern
themselves
• Gov’t is a wooden gun – flexible, can be used and
adapted by many (created by the people) but if
we turn it against each other it will be destroyed

12. Civil Disobedience
• We aren’t ready to function without a gov’t
• We need a gov’t that works
• That expresses the will of the people
• He is “calling the people” to speak out for a
better gov’t
• People to let the gov’t know the kind of gov’t
we respect and demand it