Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren
Speaker 1: Volbebam here. Today, a lot of Americans feel strongly about
Speaker 1: issues such as racial justice, women's rights, and protecting the environment,
Speaker 1: and many believe in the power of nonviolent civil disobedience
Speaker 1: to achieve progress towards a better fairer world. And while
Speaker 1: not all of us realize it, in many ways, we
Speaker 1: take after a group of mid nineteenth century New England
Speaker 1: intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Throw and
Speaker 1: Margaret Fuller, among others, who espoused philosophy known as transcendentalism.
Speaker 1: The Transcendentalist movement, which emerged in the mid eighteen thirties,
Speaker 1: had a straightforward idea at its core. Adherents argued that
Speaker 1: every person possesses the light of capital d divine truth,
Speaker 1: then should look within themselves defined it, rather than simply
Speaker 1: conform to whatever the powers that be want them to think.
Speaker 1: But from that notion of spiritual self reliance, a lot
Speaker 1: of other ideas blossomed, from reverence for nature to the
Speaker 1: view that everyone is entitled freedom and equality. That led
Speaker 1: Transcendentalists to become an important part of other activist movements
Speaker 1: in America at the time that sought to abolish slavery
Speaker 1: and achieve women's suffrage. For example, it was inspired in
Speaker 1: part by thinkers on the other side of the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: The actual name of the movement, Transcendental, came from German
Speaker 1: philosopher Emmanuel Kant's seventeen eighty eight manuscript Critique of Practical Reason.
Speaker 1: Emerson was a great admirer of English Romantic writers William
Speaker 1: Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, both of whom he met
Speaker 1: when he traveled to Europe, and Frederick Henry Hedge, a
Speaker 1: Unitarian minister who studied in Germany, brought German philosophy back
Speaker 1: to America with him, along with a number of other
Speaker 1: interested writers, politicians, and thinkers at large. They began meeting
Speaker 1: in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in eighteen thirty six. Before the article
Speaker 1: this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke via
Speaker 1: email with Laura Dasso Walls, the William P. And Hazel B. White,
Speaker 1: professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and
Speaker 1: author of the acclaimed twenty seventeen biography Henry David Threaux
Speaker 1: A life, as she said, all through the war years,
Speaker 1: the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the War of eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: Americans found it virtually impossible to go to Europe or
Speaker 1: even to access European books. But after the peace Treaty
Speaker 1: of eighteen fifteen, suddenly traveled to Europe was wide open again.
Speaker 1: A whole generation of ambitious young American men sailed to
Speaker 1: Europe to continue their education at European universities, above all
Speaker 1: in Germany. The books and ideas and teachings they brought
Speaker 1: with them Kant Girder, the Humboldt Brothers, Samuel Taylor, Coleridge, Wordsworth,
Speaker 1: Byron and Shelley, and Don and on in used American
Speaker 1: colleges and universities with an exciting new wave of European
Speaker 1: literature and philosophy. It was a wave which swiftly spread
Speaker 1: into the popular imagination, inspiring a widespread confidence that a
Speaker 1: new age was born, an age in which the individual
Speaker 1: could intuit truth for him or herself by an inward
Speaker 1: search for meaning. Yet, a year after the group first met,
Speaker 1: Emerson urged in his speech and later essay The American Scholar,
Speaker 1: for Americans to stop looking to Europe for inspiration and imitation,
Speaker 1: and to be themselves. Walls said, Transcendentalism became the first
Speaker 1: distinctly American philosophy because it fused several different currents, all
Speaker 1: of which converged only here in the US. So even
Speaker 1: though the underlying philosophy first emerged in Europe, it was
Speaker 1: in America that it took hold as a philosophy one
Speaker 1: could actually commit to and live by. A One of
Speaker 1: Transcendentalism's key influences was the religious faith of New England's Puritans,
Speaker 1: who believed that every person stands before God and must
Speaker 1: read the Bible for themselves, a Wall said, this gave
Speaker 1: us the bedrock notion of individualism. Another important ingredient was
Speaker 1: the American Revolution, which promoted a quality as an American ideal,
Speaker 1: even if the new country didn't actually afford that status
Speaker 1: to a lot of its people, including women, most people
Speaker 1: of color, and the formerly enslaved a. Walls said. The Transcendentalists,
Speaker 1: whose parents had grown up fighting the Revolution, believed it
Speaker 1: was their turn to continue the revolution, that is, to
Speaker 1: continue the political revolution by igniting it as an intellectual revolution.
Speaker 1: Their small group became known as the Transcendental Club. They
Speaker 1: eventually published a magazine, The Dial, which was edited by
Speaker 1: Margaret Fuller. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was the business manager of
Speaker 1: the magazine, and in eighteen sixty established the first English
Speaker 1: language kindergar in the US. Later, some of the Transcendentalists
Speaker 1: even created a short lived utopian community near Boston based
Speaker 1: on their ideas, a brook farm whose residents shared the
Speaker 1: agricultural work and operated a school. While the Transcendentalists were
Speaker 1: a rebellious fringe, a lot of their ideas eventually became
Speaker 1: an accepted part of the American mainstream. O. Walls explained,
Speaker 1: as Emerson said, in self trust, all the virtues are comprehended.
Speaker 1: This notion of self trust became the foundation for American
Speaker 1: self reliance, another term coined by Emerson. Henry David Threaux,
Speaker 1: a former schoolmaster turned poet and philosopher, bought into Transcendentalist
Speaker 1: philosophical ideas and endeavored to live them. In eighteen forty five,
Speaker 1: he built a cottage on Walden Pond on property owned
Speaker 1: by Emerson, and spent several years living off the land,
Speaker 1: meditating and contemplating nature. In eighteen forty six, Thereau stopped
Speaker 1: paying taxes in protest against slavery and the US War
Speaker 1: against Mexico. He was arrested by the local constable for
Speaker 1: tax delinquency and spent a night in jail before a
Speaker 1: benefactor paid off his debt. The experience led the Roe
Speaker 1: to publish his influential essay Civil Disobedience, in which he
Speaker 1: argued that people should defy the government rather than support
Speaker 1: policies they saw as unjust. Thereau advocated nonviolent action, but
Speaker 1: later penned a letter in support of the violent actions
Speaker 1: of John Brown, who murdered unarmed pro slavery settlers in Kansas.
Speaker 1: Owall said, Thereau gave us the classic examples a first
Speaker 1: in his uniquely individualist form of social protest and civil disobedience,
Speaker 1: and then in pursuing his utopian search for truth by
Speaker 1: living in solitude at Walden Pond, a striking out alone
Speaker 1: to enjoy an original relation to the universe. As Emerson said,
Speaker 1: this original relation included the universe of human history, but
Speaker 1: world literature, the world's religions, modern science, philosophy, all the
Speaker 1: way back to the ancient Greeks play too. Above all,
Speaker 1: but also famously the universe of the outer world or nature,
Speaker 1: which the Transcendentalists regarded as the embodiment of divine reason,
Speaker 1: hence the key to universal meaning. According to Walls, the
Speaker 1: Transcendentalists quote interpreted truth not as something that one could
Speaker 1: find single and static, but as something one lived, dynamic
Speaker 1: and always evolving and changing. That unending search for the
Speaker 1: truth also led the movement's members to become activists in
Speaker 1: big causes of their day. The Transcendentalist belief that every
Speaker 1: person carries God within themselves meant that politics, economics, organized religion,
Speaker 1: and schools, all with tendencies to sort people into hierarchical ranks,
Speaker 1: needed to be reformed or even overhauled. A Wall said
Speaker 1: the American educational system was their first target. Education should
Speaker 1: be free to all of all ages, men and women alike,
Speaker 1: and all ethnicities, races, and creeds. Many of the Transcendentalists
Speaker 1: were teachers, and several Bronze and Alcott, Elizabeth Peabody, and
Speaker 1: thereaux A founded innovative progressive schools which embraced literacy and
Speaker 1: education for everyone, including women and African Americans. Transcendentalists also
Speaker 1: took up the fight against slavery. Walls said it was
Speaker 1: led notably by women who took up the cause starting
Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties by founding anti slavery societies at
Speaker 1: the local level and organizing anti slavery activism at all levels, local, regional,
Speaker 1: and national. Some members acted as conductors on the Underground Railroad,
Speaker 1: and a minister in the group, One Theodore Parker, not
Speaker 1: only preached abolitionist sermons, but formed a vigilance committee to
Speaker 1: protect free black people in Boston from Southerners there to
Speaker 1: catch freedom seekers and Dentalists were also early advocates for
Speaker 1: women's rights. Margaret Fuller's eighteen forty five book Woman in
Speaker 1: the Nineteenth Century contained what was for the time a
Speaker 1: daring proclamation quote what woman needs is not as a
Speaker 1: woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow,
Speaker 1: as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live
Speaker 1: freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given
Speaker 1: her when we left our common home a. Fuller's influence
Speaker 1: was felt three years later at the Seneca Falls Convention,
Speaker 1: the conference that's widely recognized as the beginning of the
Speaker 1: women's rights movement. The Transcendentalist movement eventually began to fade,
Speaker 1: but its ideas never really went away and manifested into
Speaker 1: later reform movements in the nineteen sixties and seventies, for example,
Speaker 1: there was a resurgence of enthusiasm for throw as antiwar
Speaker 1: activists found his ideas about resisting the power structure were
Speaker 1: highly relevant today. Climate activists argue that environmental PreTect action
Speaker 1: and social justice for poor people and minority communities aren't
Speaker 1: separate issues, but are actually inseparably linked. Another transcendentalist idea,
Speaker 1: Wall said, interest in the Roe's ideas is stronger today
Speaker 1: than ever before. Certainly, students in my own classes resonate
Speaker 1: to his message more urgently than ever. They identify with
Speaker 1: the Roe's fear that we're living lies of quiet desperation,
Speaker 1: and many respond with intense hope to the solutions he offers.
Speaker 1: For one reason, his is an individualist form of hope.
Speaker 1: You can take on his ethical project by yourself, on
Speaker 1: your own, no matter who you are or where you live.
Speaker 1: In other words, he offers a sense that even today,
Speaker 1: we can exert at least some control over our lives,
Speaker 1: learn to live by a higher ethical standard, and so
Speaker 1: at the least make our own lives better. A place
Speaker 1: to start the ethical project of making all lives better.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article what is Transcendentalism
Speaker 1: and how did it change America? On HowStuffWorks dot Com
Speaker 1: written by Patrick J. Kiger. Rain Stuff is production of
Speaker 1: by Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts myheart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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