Charlotte Alter
Tense and Tension
The Past and Present Self in “Self-Reliance”
E
ver since the self-help revolution spawned a
widespread celebration of individuality, Emerson’s message has
often been watered down to one paraphrased, overused line: “be
yourself.” Indeed, though Emerson does famously write, “Trust
thyself,” to reduce this to a chipper refusal to social conformity
would not do justice to the less convenient complexity of his
ideas. In “Self-Reliance”, Emerson explores the already familiar
conflict between the self and society, but he complicates the
understanding of the “self ” by introducing time as a determining
factor: he is advocating intellectual independence not only from
our peers and our predecessors, but also from our former selves.
His famous condemnation of consistency as “the hobgoblin of
little minds” reiterates his promotion of the present self over
the past one, but time and nostalgia complicate this assertion by
forcing the reader to question the very consistency of Emerson’s
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argument for the individual.
One of Emerson’s more obvious arguments against
intellectual dependence on the past is his rejection of the “saints
and sages” of history. “Whence then this worship of the past?
The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority
of the soul” (128). This idea fits in rather neatly with Emerson’s
assertion of the individual over the whole, and the present
over the past. He is denouncing both society and the past by
advocating a simple, timeless existence in nature without the
self-consciousness of historical precedent. “These roses under
my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones;
they are for what they are… There is no time to them” (128).
Here Emerson goes one step further, shifting his focus from the
irrelevance of history to the mechanism of time itself, urging
men to live “with nature, in the present, above time” (129). He
is endorsing a radical form of independence that exists solely in
the present tense, without past or future.
Yet later in the essay, Emerson reveals his own conspicuous
grasp of history when he suggests emulating an earlier species
of man. He is, in fact, making a reference to “former [men,]
and better ones,” when he describes society’s loss of instinct in
the face of technological advancement. “The civilized man has
built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on
crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle” (135). Here we
see Emerson actually wistful for the more self-sufficient existence
of our pre-industrial (even pre-historic) ancestors. Perhaps
Emerson is longing for a species of humans that existed before the
conception of time, and therefore outside of it. Yet even if the
object of his nostalgia is a more natural statue of man consistent
with his earlier points, the nostalgia itself contradicts his own
appeals for timelessness. Emerson goes on to refer to characters
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of history, such as Galileo and Columbus, in order to prove that
great thought existed before modern technology, but this also
exposes his own recognition and appreciation of the past.
N
Emerson’s emphasis on the
present over the past, but it also undermines his stance on
the individual versus the nameless group. “The great genius
returns to essential man” (136). The use of the word “return”
as a directive is paradoxical to Emerson’s message of radical,
timeless originality; how can we “return” to any state when we
are supposed to exist above time? Only a few paragraphs earlier,
Emerson mourned man’s tendency to “postpone or remember…
[and] with reverted eye lament the past” (129). Furthermore,
Emerson’s assessment of the effects of technology seem to
take on a more social orientation than much of the rest of his
essay; “man,” as he uses it, is meant to indicate a group, not an
individual. The “civilized man” is not a free agent, but a reflection
of the civilization from which he springs. The same is true of
the “essential man,” and although Emerson might characterize
him as less corrupted by technology, he is still using him as a
representative of many rather than an example of one. So here
Emerson is going one step further away from his present-centric
individualist dogma; he is advocating not only a reversion to
the past, but a return to the model of the nameless man who
represents his kind but not himself.
On a more individual level, Emerson’s incongruous nostalgia
enters the personal lifespan in his reverence for the characteristics
of infancy and youth. “Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform
to it” (122). On the one hand, Emerson is commenting on
babies’ ability to make adults coo (“one baby commonly makes
four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it”), but
ostalgia not only complicates
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he is also referring to what he perceives as the pure soul of a
child, untainted by outside influences. In terms of intellectual
independence, babies and children are often more self-reliant than
adults. Emerson points out that the youth “cumbers himself never
about consequences, about interests: he gives an independent,
genuine verdict” (122). They are more capable of living in the
present, and more likely to think and speak with plain honesty:
both qualities Emerson attributes to individuality. Meanwhile, an
adult is more aware of the cumbersome obligations of time, and
therefore more likely to be “clapped in jail by his consciousness”
(122). Yet Emerson’s appreciation for the timeless self-reliance
of children further contradicts his praise of the present self
over the former self. We were all young before we were old and
therefore children, in addition to symbolizing our future, also
symbolize our past. By admiring children’s ability to live outside
of time, Emerson is again acknowledging and succumbing to the
very reminiscence he seeks to avoid.
And yet all of Emerson’s tangled and contradictory notions
of the past and present identity are ultimately justified by his
beliefs on consistency: “Speak what you think now in hard words,
and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again,
though it contradicts everything you said today” (125). Emerson
is essentially saying that the individual should refuse to conform
to any previous standards, even his own. But this rejection of
consistency is more than just a promise of intellectual immunity;
it implies that originality exists only in the present, independent
of the notions of the past. It draws a clear line between the
present self and the past self, identifying the present as the only
possible setting for individual truth. The fact that Emerson
periodically contradicts his own ideas only further exemplifies
his point: “Why drag about a corpse of your memory, lest you
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contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place?”
(125). Emerson doesn’t care if his views on the “essential man”
correspond with his interpretation of history or the truthfulness
of youth, nor does it matter when these arguments were made.
The point is that he believes all these things at once, that they
are not conditional upon each other, and that an original thought
does not need to fit with others around it or before it. “Your
genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other
genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing” (125). In this
way, Emerson’s problematic stance on the tense of individuality
rights itself.
E
merson is best known for his attack on social conformity, but
time and memory play subtle and often unrecognized roles in
the familiar conversation between self and society. Emerson
repeatedly advocates a complete submission to the impulses of the
present; he boasts, “I would write on the lintels of the door-post,
Whim” (123). Yet when the individual feels the urge to conform
to the ideas of society or a group, Emerson encourages him to
remember his previous independence. “It is easy in the world to
live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after
our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd
keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude” (124).
Apparently, the urges of the present are all well and good until
they contradict the individualism of the past. Here Emerson
is actually endorsing consistency, encouraging his readers to
stay faithful to ideas conceived in a past seclusion rather than
conform to the fads of the present mob. In this way, Emerson
brings his capricious estimation of time full circle; he contradicts
his original rejection of consistency as the “hobgoblin of little
minds” by encouraging consistently original thinking, regardless
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of the present circumstances.
By introducing the element of time to his search for
originality, Emerson is suggesting that the “self ” might not be
as easily pinned down as we’d like to think. Individuality is not
an unwavering quality like age or temperament; it’s an attitude
that must be cultivated and maintained within the context of
time. To suggest that the “self ” is a timeless constant is to rob it
of its distinctive twinkle. But by linking the “self ” to the setting,
Emerson adds complexity to an otherwise simple assertion of
individualism, which makes the “self ” in question more of an
ideal mindset than an ideal man.
d
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Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self Reliance.”
Norton Anthology of Literature. New York:
W.W. Norton, 2007. 120-31.
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