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Description:

"Transcendentalism." Gee, that's a long word. Basically, it's a philosophical movement that stressed independence and isolation, as a means to enlightenment and communion with God. Which is a great excuse for any introvert who's being asked to be more social.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Nature calls....

00:23

simple request please stop carving into me it's majorly annoying hey my aching [Tree talking]

00:29

bark ok transcendentalism, WTF... that's er, Whitman Thoreau and Fuller okay who are

00:36

those people and what is transcendentalism easy question tough

00:41

answer buckle up because things are about to get abstract up in here [Person buckles up seat belt]

00:45

transcendentalism was a philosophical movement that began in the 1800's

00:49

philosophical movement a different kind of movement there did that

00:53

transcendentalist movement A) stress the importance of being isolated and

00:57

physically removed from society? B) encouraged people to spend time in

01:02

nature so they could get closer to God C) argue that nature's spirit could be

01:07

expressed through human beings? D) argue against conformity or E) urge people to

01:14

listen to their own instincts when it comes to judging moral right from wrong

01:17

the answer F) all of the above and i warned you it was complicated okay so [Tree discussing answers]

01:22

let's start with the transcendentalist the folks who came up with all these

01:25

crazy ideas and see if we can get to the heart of their philosophy well in the [Walt Whitman appears and chest opens showing beating heart]

01:30

19th century there were a bunch of great thinkers most of them living in the New

01:33

England area who felt that being alone was just the bomb if a person really [Walt Whitman celebrates]

01:38

wanted to be happy and find enlightenment and succeed in life they

01:42

needed to spend time with numero uno i.e themselves and more time with me

01:47

nature those were the two big ideas of

01:50

transcendentalism spend time alone and spend time in nature basically like

01:54

being on a Boy Scout trip and getting lost you've heard the phrase God is in [Boy scout walking alone in the woods]

01:58

the details well for the transcendentalist God was in the leaves

02:02

and the babbling brooks and you know the deer droppings so the

02:06

big question why did this philosophy crop up well just take a look at who was [A log cabin appears]

02:10

ruling the roost in early america it was the Puritans; the doom and gloom club

02:15

those guys were about punishment for our sins, self-sacrifice grin and bare it down

02:21

here on earth so you can live like a rockstar in the hereafter well that

02:25

debbie downer philosophy sounded like a real bummer to the transcendentalist [Debbie walks up to log cabin]

02:28

they didn't think you should have to wait until you are dead before you could

02:32

have a relationship with God how about taking delight in nature and communing

02:36

with God through all the you know cool stuff he put here how about actually

02:40

getting something out of this gift of life we've been given rather than [Woman looks at christmas presents under a tree]

02:44

focusing entirely on getting rewarded in heaven afterwards add to this disconnect

02:49

the fear of herd mentality you know like your mom asks if everyone else jumps off

02:54

a bridge are you gonna jump too? well if folks conformed ie went along with what

02:58

everyone else did there would be no great ideas or innovation people would [Woman and man on a small boat]

03:02

be afraid to express their own opinions for fear of rocking the boat so yeah all

03:07

of this contributed to the reason the transcendentalist stressed spending

03:11

time alone so you would feel less pressure to conform the social norms and

03:15

spending quality time in nature so you could connect to God without having to

03:19

die first and so with a bunch of like-minded

03:22

people all living in roughly the same area the transcendental club was formed [Man walks into transcendental club cabin]

03:27

they would get together for occasional meetings where they would try to recruit

03:30

new members and attempt to spread their philosophy as much as possible but one

03:34

of the club's prominent members was literary bigshot henry david thoreau

03:38

writer of the book Walden and famed loner and yes when I fell in the woods [Thoreau sitting on a bench with squirrels]

03:43

he heard me and then there was Walt Whitman one of

03:47

the greatest poets in American history author of the poem collection Leaves of

03:51

Grass and 1889 runner-up for best beard in New Jersey we also had Emily

03:56

Dickinson a prolific writer who penned over 1800 poems not one of which was [Emily Dickinson on cover of Playboy magazine]

04:01

published in Playboy and then there's Henry Wadsworth Longfellow author of the

04:07

Song of Hiawatha and victim of much teasing in high school and popularity in

04:12

college for his last name and finally we have Ralph Waldo Emerson essayist, poet,

04:18

hide-and-seek aficionado oh sorry that was the other Waldo there Emerson was at

04:23

the forefront of the transcendentalist movement and he's worth a closer look so [Magnifying glass inspects Emerson]

04:26

put on your 3d glasses now... Emerson was born

04:31

1803 the son of a Unitarian minister and he was trained to be one himself

04:35

Unitarians believed that there was just one God

04:38

hence the Uni there in Unitarian there was no Holy Ghost and Jesus was just

04:44

some dude the son of God but basically just some dude with a lot of hair the

04:48

religion promoted the idea of a free conscience ie you should ask yourself [Woman sitting in a church]

04:51

what's right and then you should use reason to evaluate things from a

04:55

different perspective ie your own well after a lot of

04:59

back-and-forth you were supposed to make up your own mind about stuff rather than [Free conscience tank battles with popular opinion tank]

05:02

just going along with popular opinion in other words society might be telling you

05:06

that girls should play with Barbies and not microscopes but if you're a girl and

05:10

you're interested in microscopes feel free to kick Barbie to the curb or [Barbie doll thrown out of window]

05:14

Society is telling you that spraying aerosols in the air isn't hurting the

05:17

environment but your rational mind is telling you otherwise you should listen

05:21

to your own brain and not everyone else's well Emerson's religious

05:25

background which placed a huge focus on self over society had a lot in common

05:29

with the philosophy of transcendentalism that he would help establish when

05:32

he was older at the same time Emerson was influenced by both romanticism and

05:37

the enlightenment and there are elements of both philosophies clearly evident in [Romanticism and enlightenment chains interlink]

05:41

transcendentalism Romanticism stressed the uncensored expression of emotion it

05:48

bucked all that lovely repression that had been so popular in the 17th and 18th

05:52

centuries British royals had been all about keeping a stiff upper lip and

05:57

revealing zero emotion and that attitude had filtered into the rest of British

06:02

society and then into American society as well while bottling things up was bad [Man stacks bottles together]

06:07

unless it was to be sold out of your local liquor store and there was a

06:11

connection between that recommended outpouring of emotion and nature away

06:16

from the hectic city life on the top of mountain or isolated on a grassy [Woman meditating in a grassy hillside]

06:21

hillside you could really get in touch with those inner feelings and maybe even

06:25

twirl around in circles and sing a song if you were so inclined you know

06:32

and then there was the influence of the Enlightenment the movement that

06:36

originated in Europe but inched its way over to America

06:39

well the Enlightenment was about shaking things up looking at life from a [Person puts salt on a food dish]

06:43

different and new angle there were revolutions galore revolutions of the

06:47

mind but also actual bloody revolutions people like Emerson were suddenly [Emerson reading a book]

06:52

empowered to come up with their own controversial philosophies like giving a

06:56

rude gesture to society and saying suck an egg I'm off to get some me time and

07:00

none of you were invited well as Emerson got older he got his message out using a

07:04

variety of mediums he wrote a poem he wrote and delivered lectures and he

07:08

wrote essays there are two essays in particular that earned him the bulk of [Emerson on stage and audience celebrate]

07:12

his fame nature and self-reliance we'll start with nature...Hopefully you've already

07:17

read it if not give it a look or at least a sniff paying special attention

07:21

to the introduction chapter 1 and chapter 7 go ahead and hit pause if you need to,

07:25

we won't be offended....... alright Nature

07:29

why did Emerson write this thing well he looked around and saw the vast majority [Girl playing a guitar]

07:33

of human beings living in his view incorrectly he saw the demands of

07:37

society distracting everyone from what was right in front of their eyes people

07:41

were caught up in the hustle and bustle of what would lead to a meaningless life

07:44

no one was taking the time to appreciate the air they breathed or to stop and [Girl stops to admire woman's flowers]

07:49

admire the flowers or to roll around gleefully in a patch of poison ivy

07:54

so nature was intended to be a wake-up call Emerson wanted to call attention to

07:58

the beauty and magnificence of nature not just because he thought that

08:01

shrubbery was awesome but because he believed that through nature one could

08:05

find God but it went deeper than that Emerson wasn't just suggesting that we [Man appears in changing room]

08:09

could all benefit from a few days of relaxation poolside the elements of

08:13

nature weren't just pretty they were physical manifestations of spirituality

08:17

itself Emerson explores the idea of spirit in this essay quite a bit and

08:22

yeah it gets a little out there but the idea is that physical nature isn't just

08:27

the twigs and dirt and water you can feel with your bare hands it's a

08:31

spiritual phenomenon and nature's very spirit is expressed through us so if we [Woman walking through woods alone]

08:36

ignore it to focus on the petty superficial trivialities of our lives

08:40

we're doing nature and by extension God a huge disservice

08:44

and finally Emerson isn't suggesting we organize a big ol group of [Group of people sitting on a bus]

08:49

field trips and roast marshmallows over a fire while we all hold hands and sing

08:53

do your ears hang low he makes it clear that this is something each of us has to

08:58

embark upon by ourselves communion with nature has to be a personal undertaking

09:03

so yeah you had to go it alone not even Siri can join you all right moving

09:07

along to another of Emerson's essays self-reliance well if you haven't yet [Girl reading Self-reliance book]

09:12

exhibit some self-reliance and read the darn thing yourself I'll be blowing in

09:16

the wind till you return....As with nature Emerson wrote self-reliance

09:24

because he felt most Americans needed someone to grab them by the ear and [Emerson appears beside a woman in the woods]

09:27

scream bloody murder into their head holes okay that sounded more graphic

09:31

than it really was point being he saw some stuff going on

09:34

that scared that gee willikers out of him he saw mindless lemmings all

09:37

followers and no leaders he saw people ignoring their own instincts

09:42

selling out their own ideals for a quick buck in the essay Emerson says a foolish

09:47

consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and [Paragraph from Emerson's book appears]

09:52

philosophers and divine's huh great line aside from this quote being awesome

09:57

because of the inclusion of the word Hobgoblin among other things it does a

10:00

good job summing up Emerson's main idea he's criticizing mankind's foolish

10:06

consistency i.e refusal to break from one's own established beliefs or

10:11

from the established beliefs of their society it's sticking to your opinion [Tree discussing Emerson's paragraph]

10:15

that the earth is flat even after someone's offered you proof that it's

10:19

round or insisting that Hayden Christensen can act even after watching

10:23

the Star Wars prequels like come on people there are a few major themes in [Man watching Star Wars on TV]

10:27

this essay the first of which is the idea of individual Authority the concept

10:32

there is that yeah there are authority figures in your life if your teacher [Girl throws paper plane at teachers head]

10:35

sends you to the principal's office well, you'd better book it over there

10:39

if a cop pulls you over speeding and be ill-advised to speed up but in Emerson's

10:43

view nothing has authority over the self so you're the Grand Poobah of your own

10:49

life makes sense now he wasn't recommending you spend every waking [Man runs past and places kick me sign on mans back]

10:52

moment sticking it to the man Emerson knew there were rules and he

10:56

wasn't suggesting you start breaking them at will but he did stress that if

11:00

anyone or anything came in the way of what someone believed the self could

11:04

basically push the override button then there's the theme of nonconformity which [Themes appear on piece of paper]

11:08

we touched on you do you don't follow other people's ideas of right or wrong

11:13

we're pretty sure that's been the mantra of many a serial killer but we don't

11:18

think that was Emerson's intention there's the theme of solitude versus

11:21

community this guy was not big on the family and getting together for [Emerson climbing stairs]

11:25

Thanksgiving Emerson would have been the one antisocial dude up in his room while

11:29

everyone downstairs talks smack about him behind his back but in his view

11:33

solitude was the only way you could divorce herself of society's pull so you

11:37

wouldn't get swayed by majority opinion you should have seen the look on his [Emerson appears at dinner table with family]

11:41

family's face when he popped downstairs to announce his decision that real

11:45

cranberries were superior to the canned stuff we're talking real controversy

11:49

here people finally there's the theme of spirituality

11:52

Emerson felt that truth resides within us so by being alone and not getting too

11:57

caught up in institutionalized religion a person can be more in tune with [Man playing saxophone on stage]

12:01

reality not sure how his Minister Father would

12:04

have felt about hearing his son say such things but probably didn't go over too

12:08

well all right so even if we have vaguely

12:10

wrapped our heads around this philosophy by now so what why do we care well there

12:16

may not be any transcendentalist club meetings coming up on your calendar but [Person searches for transcendentalist club meetings on google calendar]

12:20

the movement definitely left an imprint the focus on self paved the way for

12:24

people like Ayn Rand who created a philosophy of her own objectivism and

12:29

inspired generations of followers to adhere to the guidelines of strict

12:33

individualism over the demands of a needy freeloading Society and really our

12:38

entire economic system of capitalism is in line with the transcendentalist [Person draws line from economy to transcendentalism]

12:42

philosophy while we do live in a society ie we're not all living off our own

12:47

private cabins and woods like Thoreau we're working for ourselves providing

12:52

for our own families following our own principles and living life the way we

12:56

choose to live it and how about the Industrial and technological revolutions [Tree discussing industrial and technological revolution]

13:00

of the past 200 years well for us to achieve progress we've had to think

13:04

outside the box explore unchartered avenues of scientific

13:07

discovery all stuff Emerson and company would have applauded [Audience applauds and Emerson standing on stage]

13:11

so there's Ralph Waldo Emerson and transcendentalism in a nutshell now you

13:16

know why the guy was such a tree hugger oh hello can anyone tell me if I made a

13:21

sound when I fell there...any, please? [Tree falls to the ground]

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