Season 4 Podcast 58 Self-Reliance Concept 5 Non-Conformist
I have selected ten concepts from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Self-Reliance. Each concept expands the virtues and variations of Self-Reliance or warns of the vices of the ways we forfeit Self Reliance:
· Concept 1: Blind Obedience
· Concept 2: False Charity
· Concept 3: Truth
· Concept 4: Faith
· Concept 5: Non-Conformist
· Concept 6: To Thine Own Self Be True
· Concept 7: Self-Reliance
· Concept 8: Character
· Concept 9: God
· Concept 10: Solitude
In this Podcast, we shall discuss Concept Number Five: Non-Conformist.
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
Satan’s greatest tool today is to call good evil and evil Good. In the words of Isaiah,
(Isa. 5:20.)
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
Emerson cautions, “He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.” Emerson asks us to put the integrity of our own mind above the philosophies of man. This is explored in Concept 3 Truth.
Conforming has both negative connotations and positive connotations. The negative would be subservient, obsequious, ingratiating, bowing, scraping, fawning, cowering, cringing, toadying, bootlicking.
The positive would be to acknowledge, to respect, to concur, to harmonize, to accommodate.
Emerson doesn’t ignore common sense, but he strongly advocates self-reliance. He cautions against accepting other people’s truths. He opposes subservience, servility, obsequiousness, acquiescence, capitulation, deference, submissiveness, docility, timidity, passiveness, or unassertiveness.
Emerson found refuge in truth rather than in institutionalized orthodoxy.
A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.
He practiced what he preached. One can only imagine how Emerson would respond to the religiosity of the left as they impose their woke values on the nation. The left attempts to crush anyone who disagrees with their philosophy. Emerson would advise us all “to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.” He continues his argument for non-conformity.
My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.
