@JLNobody,
A Proposal: Radical Emerson, Radical Idea
by: [SMP]
January 22, 1998
Co-authored by [KAB]
Is it comfortable to accept what one cannot see, or to place faith in the intellect in the absence of solid fact? Many will remain convenient skeptics of such suppositious thinking, preferring to sleep within the safe harbors of proven certainty rather than venture out into the vast sea of the conceptual. It is upon this uncharted shadow-land in which sails have filled and billowed providing course towards possible truth in observation of a pattern contained within American and World history. Each new discovery bears an important significance to the overall picture just as each small part is necessary to create a mosaic.
One of these small parts concerns a group of poets and thinkers who founded a new literary voice for a developing country in the 19th century. These were the poets who have been immortalized to their nation as "The Transcendentalists", and it was this group that worked tirelessly to challange the American consciousness to accept a higher ideology. Basing the movement on the theories of such philosophers as Aristotle, Plotinus, Swedenborg, Boehme, and Carlyle, they set out to deliver a message of hope and rejuvenation for a nation beset with a host of problems erupting from a materialist foundation purposely created at its birth. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who alluded to a struggle between those who accepted the more earthly ideal and those who subscribed to a higher faith in the unseen factors. He labeled the enlightened few as "pure transcendentalists" in his essay "The Transcendentalist". As a poet, social thinker, and theologian Emerson was concerned with the lack of spiritual direction his nation was demonstrating. Enlightened thought was swallowed in the shadows resulting from the worship of established social structure. Such things as wealth, power, politics, and scientific fact were given exalted priority, as Emerson described in "Spiritual Laws":
We call the poet inactive, because he is not a president,
a merchant, or a porter. We adore an institution, and do
not see that it is founded on a thought which we have.
He goes on to say of science in "Nature":
Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and by the very
knowledge of functions and prosesses, to bereave the student
of the manly contemplation of the whole.
He further elaborates on the worship of earthly substances rather than the spiritual by writing:
The foundations of man are not in matter, but it spirit.
A scholar in many diverse respects, it is felt that Mr. Emerson was well aware of the formation of America on a materialistic base. Observations were most likely drawn from history and the forces which shaped the system. Capitalism, which Emerson opposed in light of communal living, based its driving force primarily on the greed of human nature and effect. The philosophy found in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations coupled with the self-fulfilling personal doctrines of certain founding fathers were the realized foundation of the nation as it was known then, and for what it has evolved into currently. From a basic sociological conflict perspective, the phenomenon of planned obsolescence, hegemonic power structure, and retail based economy were also most likely considered in the blueprints.
If Mr. Emerson was aware of this process, as is suspected, it is most certain, based on his character and influence, that he would be most instrumental in effecting some method of change, or securing an opposing force to act in counter balance. A study of Emerson's personal journals reveals a mention of a mysterious experiment, which is not described or named. It is true that Emerson viewed the Brook Farm experiment with some skepticism regarding it as "the age of reason in a patty-pan", and it may be safe to speculate that Mr. Emerson himself undertook an experiment of his own nature, with the aid of other poets who remained within his circle of friends and confidants.
Speculation based on both literal and decoded interpretation of certain texts and their connections has led, invariably, to the model of a grand scheme assembled by Emerson himself. The following will include a brief definition of what is felt to be the primary nature of the experiment: Realizing that he was becoming older, and unable to carry on with his message of idealism, Emerson provided a way in which a future generation could revive the 'heroic personage' through a study of his writings. He discusses his own passing, and the person or group whom he hoped to inspire within his biographical study entitled "The Uses of Great Men":
When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a
successor, but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished
with him. In some other and quite different field, the next man will
appear; not Jefferson, not Franklin, but now a great salesman; then
a road-contractor; then a student of fishes; then a buffalo-hunting
explorer, or a semi-savage western general.
Reaching out through his writing to that future entity who would be a "true idelaist", Emerson hoped to rekindle the ideas of truth and pure reason at a time when it would most likely be needed. Emerson was interested in what a hero should be -- but he was most interested in what he could help to assimilate in human nature and disposition through detailed instruction found throughout his writings. Good writing was important to "intstruct", as well as, provoke "thought" of which he speaks in "Spiritual Laws". By providing a manner in which his texts should be approached in thought, Emerson encourages the scholar to read deepley into the ideas presented. In "uses of Great Men", he writes:
I count him a great man who inhabits a higher sphere of thought,
into which other men rise with labor and difficulty; he has but to
open his eyes to see things in a true light, and in large relations; wilst
they must make painful corrections, and keep a vigilant eye on many
sources of error.
Expounding further on the process of thought, he arrives at the concept of interpretation and its significance in the stucture of things:
The possibility of interpretation lies in the identity of the observer
with the observed. Each material thing has its celestial side; has its
translation, through humanity, into the spiritual and necessary
sphere, where it plays a part as indestructible as any other.
Through the writing, Emerson offers specific instructions on how to approach the material, provided that one is in tune with the thinking process. The primary impetus of the compositon was to instruct.
The possibility also exists that Emerson had access to a large amount of capital, by which the poets operating during this time period were able to gain sustenance. This capital was obtained or known about by a power structure that had once existed at West Point and had been made known to Emerson through certain men by the names of Jonathon Williams, and Joseph Gardener Swift, Sr. both in Europe and America. Throughout the mid-eighteen hundreds, the money was used to help spread the literary ideas by aid to certain writers and poets within the circle. A provision of this material wealth was made for the future generation of writers and philosophers, and it is encoded into poetic form. By obtaining the literal meaning of each word through the use of a simple dictionary, a pattern emerges in a quantity of Emerson's poems. Items such as coins, diamonds, and a varitety of other jewels are mentioned. Certain specifics, such as color, shape, and storing methods can also be observed. It was James Russell Lowell who blatantly described the "true" content of Emerson's poems in his poem entitled "A Fable for Critics":
"There comes Emerson first, whose rich words every one,
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on...
They're not epics, but that doesn't matter a pin,
In creating, the only hard thing's to begin;
A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak;
If you've once found the way, you've achieved the grand stroke;
In the worst of his poems are mines of rich matter,
But thrown in a heap with a crash and a clatter...."
It would not be hard to make the necessary literary connections between Emerson and Lowell, as they are certainly aware of each other's works in the open. E. A. Poe, it is recalled, was a friend and confidant of Lowell, and it has been noted that he was the author of a strange story entitled The Gold Bug. This story was peculiar in that it does not adhere to his regular subject matter of melancholy, cadaverous material, but rather was the detailed outlines for a treasure hunt based on the observation of two unrelated objects by a crazed genius. These objects, when studied objectively, led to a great find. It is interesting to note that Mr. Emerson also comments on intellect as an engine to correlate unrelated object. In "Intellect", he writes:
The intellect pierces the form, overleaps the wall, detects intrinsic
likeness between remote things, and reduces all things into a few principles.
Seen here is an example of the Syllogistic Reasoning of Aristotle which argues that objects of organon can act as talismen, provided they are accompanied by proper intuition. Could Emerson have been influential in the creating of The Gold Bug through his connections to E. A. Poe? Could he have used this story to demonstrate a search method to follow when seeking the "mines of rich matter"? Or, did Poe use Emerson's idea of "detects intrinsic likeness between remote things" to create his tale involving a gold bug and parchment? The whereabouts of this treasure, this capital, is not alluded to in any breakdown of poetry, could Emerson have provided objects of significance that when studied in the proper fashion reveal to future poets the exact location of a treasure or a hollow cavity where it was once stored?
In the Concord Museum, a plaque imprinted with the likeness of the Bedford flag, is displayed near a case of swords. This flag, known as "the first flag of the revoltution", bears the image of a sword wielding arm protruding from a cloud. Surrounding the cloud are three round objects which resemble gold coins covered with silver or white.
A young boy uncovered a family heirloom in an old trunk in the mid-1970's. It was an old (German made) Italian military sword with a blackened, solid gold handle which seemed to date to the beginnings of West Point, or perhaps even further beyond having possibly been the possession of one of America's founding fathers. The sword came to the boy from the same household as that of a serrated Spanish coin which contained a blade, file and scissor sandwiched between the halves. The coin was dated within the early 1870's, and was solid gold, covered over with silver. Many years and much intense research later a theory has emerged, stimulated by the discovery, observation, and scrutiny of these objects. Has Emerson's project or experiment of objects thrown to fate been consummated? Has the "pure Transcendentalist" emanated, has Nietzsche's Ubermensch appeared?
Could these objects lead to a find of hidden capital? This is of little matter, for a more important message has been gleaned from the study of American history and the procession of pattern which has emerged. America is in need of change from a materialistic base to a more enlightened thought consciousness. A simplistic faith in what cannot be explained, or proven, is thrown by the wayside in view of hard facts and material worship. As a people become satisfied with material objects, scientific fact, and selfish views; they cease to question, they cease to challange, and then to think altogether. This is exactly what Emerson warned against, and it is what is happening in the world currently. The extent of this project is far-reaching, but its message of hope is a simple one, which can be grasped just as it was in the days of the transcendentalists.
Nature never sends a great man into the planet, without confidiing
the secret to another soul.
~R.W. Emerson
**Listening to beautiful music:
Ludovico Einaudi's - "Indaco"
and
So appropriate:
"Superman's Song" - by the Crash Test Dummies.
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