I think that Transcendentalism is still very relevant today. Some of the qualities such as the advocacy of anarchy are impractical but I think that they "self-reliance" component is very important. With all of the information available to us, via television, and the Internet, it is of the utmost importance that we all step back and evaluate this information for ourselves. It is so easy to accept what we have been told, and adopts it as our own. But through this construction, we may have beliefs that are not true, and we may not even really believe in them negating their strength. I have this fear that someday our world will be filled with people who never learned to think for themselves and only allowed themselves to be swayed by ostentatious presentation, and in this world, change will be made by a few people instead of many, leading to a corrupt world. I think that utilizing transcendentalism could help us avoid this dangerous path.
Kelsey, your fears for the world's direction reminded me very much of the world in Orwell's 1984, with "Big Brother" in power and everyone else completely brainwashed. I thoroughly agree that this is a scary concept, and that in some ways technology has brought us closer to that. However, technology is a huge part of life today, and getting rid of it isn't really an option. I think that today, we face the same issues of practicality in terms of technology as the transcendentalists faced with anarchy.
ReplyDeleteI can see the negative effects that so much unfiltered information in society can have, but I believe that there will always be those who do think for themselves. When a society becomes complacent, we begin to quietly have our rights taken from us. Eventually, we lose so many of our rights that we wake up and chose to fight, remembering to think for ourselves. At the beginning of the Iraq war, many accepted the new that Saddam Hussein was in possession of WMDs, but now that we know we were lied to, we are far more skeptical of claims like this. Of course, eventually, we will forget and return to complacency.
ReplyDelete-Jessica
Kelsey, I really enjoyed your response to the Transcendentalist movement and your thoughts on the possible future filled with people who do not think for themselves. I also agree with Emily's comment that this does remind me of Big Brother. While reading 1984 last year, I remember thinking of how awful my life would be living under Big Brother and constantly watched by spectators. In a way, I think that common people in our lives are like the spectators of Big Brother. Everyone, like our friends and parents, are judging us and possibly filling our brains with incorrect information. I think that we need to step back from this and start thinking for ourselves, like you have mentioned.
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