The pre-Hippies of two centuries ago

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, biographies, mini biographies, transcendentalism, social movements, abolitionism

My most recent wildcard selection, a rare excursion into reading about intellectualism and literary movements, is The Emerson Circle: The Concord Radicals Who Reinvented the World by Bruce Nichols. Like many, I have read only a little of what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, and I considered him the originator and leading figure of Transcendentalism. He and several others founded the Transcendental Club in 1836, but I find from reading this book that Emerson didn't like the term "transcendentalism". The term he and his colleagues and acquaintances more frequently used was "the Newness".

From reading the book I didn't obtain much of an understanding of transcendentalism. I wondered, "What did they wish to transcend?" So I did some digging.

Per the Encyclopedia Britannica: "Transcendentalism is a 19th-century philosophical and literary movement that asserted that divine, fundamental truths can be known through personal intuition rather than through rigid religious dogma or sensory experience." Emerson and the others were originally Unitarians (Emerson's father was a Unitarian minister), and they were reacting to the cold rationalism and sobriety of what some have called a "faithless faith". They desired a more intense experience, something more spiritual.

Note: These Unitarians considered themselves Christians, but denied that Jesus is God. They had various explanations for this, while still considering that Jesus is worthy of worship, just not on the level of God. This is in contrast to modern Unitarian Universalists, an eclectic mélange of semi-theistic and non-theistic belief systems that are united primarily in their universalism, which is the belief that everyone eventually is received into heaven, perhaps even Satan. The Unitarians of two-plus centuries ago are well described by a term more recently laid upon Episcopalians, "God's frozen chosen."

The transcendentalists, then, weren't acting contrary to Unitarianism, but in parallel, seeking to transcend it. Thus, the Newness was embodied in dramatic experimentation: new ways of living, new kinds of schools, ways of speaking and lecturing and writing that differed greatly from the European models, and an exceedingly self-focused and experimental spirituality. Communes and similar mini-societies arose (and disbanded), new schools were founded (and then foundered), lecture series and small periodicals abounded, and "church" as most understood it was practically abandoned or dramatically changed.

All this reminds me a whole lot of the social radicalism of "the Sixties": communes, a surge of home schooling (quite different from the more effective methods currently in use), social protest against not just governmental authority but "the establishment" in general, and an intense focus on personal self-regard and autonomy. There is a current resurgence of similar trends, most evident in the notion of "my truth" coupled with the weird group-think of cancel culture.

Stepping back, I see all three movements, the Newness of the early 1800's, the activism of the mid-1900's, and the "political correctness" of the 1980's that led to more recent "wokeness", as being like the Hippies of my youthful social environment. In all three, it is evident that the abandonment of Divine morality such as the Ten Commandments leads unerringly to amorality, and the abandonment of God as "the truth" (which Jesus called Himself) leads to "my truth" which leads to "every man a liar." The characteristic of most modern political and cultural leaders now, in the 2020's, is, to paraphrase former President G.W. Bush, "Some lie when they deem it necessary, but these lie constantly, just to stay in practice."

The Newness was not based on overt lies, but on rejection of Divine authority in favor of personal autonomy. The Sixties was mired in falsehood and half-truths that made many fearful to speak the truth (I was one who did, and I was nearly assassinated as a consequence). American society of the current Teens and Twenties could be called the Triumph of Lies, beginning with "You can choose your doctor" and going downhill from there.

So I am not misunderstood, I am a triple Trumper. I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 primarily to vote against Hilary Clinton, because she and her husband were the main focus of the Bush quote above. I voted for him again in 2020 because during his first term he won my respect (As an aside, various articles about Mr. Trump claim that he told ten thousand or twenty or thirty thousand lies. All such articles have been demonstrated to be riddled with lies against him, while proving no more than a handful of untruthful statements he made; in actuality, I observe that the legacy media perpetrates tens of thousands of lies about Donald Trump daily. This is the source of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which afflicts about 40% of the voting public). I voted for Donald Trump again in 2024 with the clearest of consciences. Not because he is a "good man" (I agree with Jesus that "no man is good") but that he is measurably better than literally anyone else in public office. Rather than answer, "but does he lie?" I would say that he tells the truth more than nearly everyone else, particularly the pseudo-journalists of the legacy media.

Back to the book. The Newness had fallen apart by the early or mid 1850's. The rising conflagrations around the country related to slavery and abolitionism forced the transcendentalists and their sympathizers out of their armchairs and writing-desks and into more public action. Firstly, they became more apt to speak in support of abolition publicly, and some took more direct action, such as harboring runaway slaves in their homes and helping them flee further northward. Finally even Emerson, one of the last to do so, spoke fervently in favor of abolishing slavery. As the nation teetered towards civil war, the "life of the mind" and "armchair philosophizing" became untenable, even impossible. The Unitarian and Transcendentalist belief that human nature is basically good was called into question, then denigrated, and finally demolished as more than half a million lives were taken in the war between the states.

The first prominent transcendentalist to die was Henry David Thoreau, on May 6, 1963. Although Emerson gave the eulogy at his funeral, he was himself in decline, at least mentally. Others followed over the years. Emerson himself lingered until his death April 27, 1882, followed about six years later by Louisa May Alcott. She was not a transcendentalist, but a parallel "fellow traveler" whose fame as an author had two strains: books based on her experiences in her family and the "Emerson circle", and rip-roaring adventure stories that she usually published under pseudonyms. 

Transcendentalism had come and gone. Remnants remain in the styles of writing that led to masterpieces such as Walden and Moby-Dick. Experiential writing, what one might call crypto-memoir, is a lasting legacy and informs today's best writers. Emerson's grave, shown here, centers the "transcendentalists' field" and represents more than a gravesite, but a legacy that opened the American mind, fortunately without destroying it.