Self Reliance

History

The first hint of the philosophy that would become "Self-Reliance" was presented by Ralph Waldo Emerson as part of a sermon in September 1830 a month after his first marriage. His wife Ellen was sick with tuberculosis and, as Emerson's biographer Robert D. Richardson wrote, "Immortality had never been stronger or more desperately needed!"

From 1836 into 1837, Emerson presented a series of lectures on the philosophy of history at Boston's Masonic Temple. These lectures were never published separately, but many of his thoughts in these were later used in "Self-Reliance" and several other essays. Later lectures by Emerson led to public censure of his radical views, the staunch defense of individualism in "Self-Reliance" being a possible reaction to that censure.

"Self-Reliance" was first published in his 1841 collection, Essays: First Series. Emerson helped start the beginning of the Transcendentalist movement in America. "Self-Reliance" is one of Emerson’s most famous essays. Emerson wrote on “individualism, personal responsibility, and nonconformity.”

The Transcendentalist movement flourished in New England, and proposed a revolutionarily new philosophy of life. This new philosophy drew upon old ideas of Romanticism, Unitarianism, and German Idealism. Some of these ideas pertained closely to the values of America at the time. These values included nature, individualism, and reform, and can be noted in the essay “Self Reliance,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. In this essay, Emerson states his values and incorporates them into his philosophy of self-reliance. In the past 170 years, some of the ideas stated by Emerson in his literary work “Self-Reliance” have weathered the test of time. However, since his archaic examples no longer apply to modern life, other sources of transcendentalism must be found to sustain the ideas. Such strongholds of ideas may be scarce, but they do exist in the form of environmentalists and hard working people who have produced signed consent that such ideas are, in fact, held. Contrarily, other modern barriers have risen, and they impede the validity of the original transcendentalist values of “Self-Reliance.” While the ideals of “Self-Reliance” fit well with Emerson’s audience of the time, some aspects of his work need alterations in order to totally relate to a contemporary teenager. In the essay “Self-Reliance,” Emerson elaborates upon his idea of self-reliance with the incorporation of major themes. For example, when Emerson discusses the conformity and consistency issues of people, he explains how most people act like lemmings, and also how they only trust their successful past actions, rather than exploring new paths. Emerson then ties these issues to people’s lack of self-trust of their intuition, or the innermost part of people that guides the way in life.

Themes

In popular culture

Emerson's quote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," is a running joke in the 1998 film Next Stop Wonderland. A single woman (portrayed by Hope Davis), who is familiar with the Emerson quote, goes on dates with several men, each of whom tries to impress her but misquotes the line, and misattributes it to W.C. Fields, Karl Marx, or Cicero. The woman finally meets a man (portrayed by Alan Gelfant) who correctly attributes the quote to Emerson.

Early in his career the writer Isaac Asimov co-authored the textbook Biochemistry and Human Metabolism. While reviewing the galley proofs of each author's contribution, he and his two colleagues would frequently encounter differences in matters such as the spelling, capitalization and hyphenation of technical words and terms. Rather than undergo the laborious task of harmonizing all these trivial variations, hearkening to the "foolish consistency" statement they would all call out "Emerson" when one of these was encountered and pass directly on to the next item.

It is also quoted in the Python Style guide for the Python programming language.