Wednesday, December 15, 2010

An Emersonian Hero?

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been in the news many times over the past few weeks. Whether it be for his alleged rape in Sweden or his impact World Wide with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is an international news media non-profit organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources and news leaks. The most noteworthy of these submissions is the publishing of the first 291 of 251,287 leaked confidential documents. While none of these documents were Top Secret they do have lasting political consequences. During one of our earlier units we studied Emerson and his beliefs in depth. Do you believe Assange is a hero based on the Emersonian beliefs we studied? Why or why not?

10 comments:

  1. I believe that Julian Assange is an Emersonian Hero. I believe this because Emerson thought that heroism was fighting the evils of social conformity through one's own intuition. Since Julian Assange believed that it was necessary for these documents to be leaked to break the conformity of hiding important information from the public, he was an Emersonian Hero.

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  2. I agree with Ciaran. I believe Julian Assange models the Emersonian Hero through his actions. Because he broke away from the conformity of ignorance through posting these controversial documents, he modeled what Emerson was trying to display in his essays.

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  3. While it is true that Emerson believed in not conforming with social norms, he did not believe in creating chaos. Assange's actions did exactly this. By releasing sensitive documents, Assange threatened America's and other countries' foreign policy. Documents like these were confidential for a reason, and Emerson would not have condoned such a reckless act.

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  4. Zack and Ciaran,

    You might have the definition of Emerson's hero correct, but I agree with Conor, that you are assessing the situation incorrectly. Yes, Assange believed that he was fighting an unjust institution, but in reality this confidentiality is necessary for successful foreign politics. Assange was extremely reckless and is in no sort a hero.

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  5. What exactly do you find Emersonian about what Julian Assange did, Zack and Ciaran? How did he fight conformity?

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  6. I don't really think that Assange is an Emersonian Hero. I'm with Andrew M. that what he did was really sort of reckless, and it's one thing to form your own thoughts and beliefs, but it is an entirely different to try to destroy the institutions that already in place for the common people. Emerson didn't believe that everyone could reach transcendence, and by releasing this documents, the less enlightened will get ideas that lead them to develop false beliefs. We kinda decided in class, emerson is great. Just not for application in the real world.

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  7. A couple of you commented that Assange was an Emersonian hero because he created WikiLeaks to be non-conformist. I haven't been following the story closely, but from what I know, I suspect that there were less heroic motives as well. It seems to me that Assange was looking for fame, recognition, or something, rather than truly trying to better society by breaking conformity. Do you have anything to show that he really wanted to make an (Emersonian) difference?

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  8. @Emily
    Assange has said that his motive for releasing these documents was to combat governmental secrecy. Now whether or not he did it actually for this reason is another point of discussion. I think what Zack and Ciaran were trying to say (correct me if im wrong) was that Assange was fighting against an evil by releasing these documents. I think they focused too much on the motive he stated and didn't worry enough about his true motive or the means he used to accomplish this goal.

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  9. The points made above make sense in saying that Assange would have been an Emersonian hero due to his act of non-conformity by releasing secret, rather malicious files to fight social evils. However, as Kelsey stated, we did mention in class that it was bad to apply Emersonian beliefs to society. Assange deliberately released thousands of confidential files to show how corrupt and unjust world politics really are. He certainly couldn't have thought that denouncing these social institutions could have been positive or beneficial. However, when taking a step back it is evident that Assange really never conformed to society. His motives for releasing these files are the same thoughts and beliefs held by the majority of society. As Emily mentioned, Assange was going for fame and recognition. Everyone in society wants social notoriety and celebrity treatment. After all of Assange's reckless, rebellious efforts to destroy these social institutions, he ended up conforming to society by going to prison. So he wanted what everybody else wanted (fame, recognition, and to take down the people with power) and he ended up getting thrown into prison (where the majority of people who do something bad end up). Simply put, Assange is not an Emersonian hero.

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  10. I think Assange is Emersonian, but definitely not a hero. What he did has created a lot of transparency, but has also threatened many lives and scared hundreds of informants into silence. Yes, leaking thousands of cables was noncomformist and battled government secrecy, but it's not heroic. Emerson was also somewhat anti-society, claiming that it stifled people, so I think Emerson would support an act like this that is so detrimental to government.

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