When I was reading "Self-Reliance," Emerson's ideas pertaining to children caught my attention. R.W.E. makes the point that children are perhaps the most self-reliant people. Unlike adults, children aren't bound by social customs and mannerisms, and are instead free to act as they see fit. Furthermore, children are free to make judgments without regard to "consequences" and "interests."
While I think Emerson made some valid points, his idea as a whole seems counterintuitive to me for a couple reasons. First, when I was a child I know for a fact that I was anything but self-reliant. My parents had to do everything for me, and even now I'm still dependent on them for plenty of things. Next, while children may not be bound by customs, they are in many cases not knowledgeable enough to make good decisions and fair judgments. To label this ignorance as independence, as Emerson does, is foolish.
-Bryce C.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree with you, but I think Emerson might have been looking at self reliance in only a mental perspective, not a physical one. His essay focused mainly on genius and the mind, not on actually physically surviving without the help of others. Whether he meant his thoughts on self reliance to pertain to both the physical and the mental, I don't know, but he only really addressed the mental aspects. If he was looking at only mental self reliance, his argument for children is much more plausible, though as you said, it still isn't accurate.
ReplyDelete-Elizabeth
I doubt that Emerson's argument is even applicable to mental self-reliance. It seems to me that children are blank slates that are immediately covered with the customs and ideas of their parents. Rather than behave according to some sort of innate principle that each human has from birth, I would think that kids simply regurgitate the concepts that their parents feed them (e.g. religion, morality, manners, etc.).
ReplyDelete-Colin