Thursday, September 23, 2010
Self-Reliance Response
Emerson believes in "A prior I" which means that people in society all have knoledge within us, before we learn somthing. Emerson believes that in society we experiance things and we gain knowledge but we also start with knowledge that we develop over the years. Emerson says that as babys we start off as a blank person who can develop things in your own way, we are infants starting out on a blank slate. When we are born we have the cahnce to be or do whatever we want in society before conformity comes in. Once we are not babys anymore we conform into society, and the controversys come alive. A person in society should be their own person and non comform as an infant. If we non-comform to start we grow up and become our own person, and follow any path we think is the right way to go. Emerson says, "The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficent distance, and it striaghtens itself to the average tendency"(Emerson pg25). This means that the best choice may not always be the most obvious one. And we are going to make mistakes before things work out well. Emerson means that flaws dont change who you are as a person. Flaws make a person and make society who it is, and what it should be. As a perosn grows up they make mistakes, but these mistakes make who they are today.
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I like how you said knowledge is eomthing you staer blank with and build up over years. It really adds to Emerson's point on developing your own knowledge and not just accepting previous knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI agree you homestyle! bball is nothing compared to this, girl you rock! dont stop believing :)
ReplyDeleteShira, it's your favorite sister Shosh. I love what you wrote, and the crazy thing is I was just reading Emerson for my American Literature class! We also talked about how Emerson believed in the idea that as infants we are blank slates and slowly society corrupts us over time. But Emerson also discusses the idea that every man is connected to every other man, and our perception of the world comes from within rather than how other people construct it. This also relates to Freud (you should look him up)and his ideas about the ego and superego and the id. But Shira, you should be more specific like when you say "things." Like what things are you talking about? Also, there needs to be some serious spell checking going on here. Mom is very distraught over your sloppy spelling. Love ya, call me!
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