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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,

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Speaker 1: and there's Charles w. Chruck, Bryant, Jerry, Jerome Rowland is

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Speaker 1: here with us somehow, some way, and this is stuff

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Speaker 1: you should know. Yeah, transcended to listen men. Were you

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Speaker 1: into Transcendentalism when you were a teenager? Seems about I was, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in college, mainly as an English major, is when I

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Speaker 1: kind of got into it. Okay. I discovered these guys

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Speaker 1: at age like fourteen and was super into him for

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Speaker 1: a while. Could make headser tails of a lot of

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Speaker 1: the stuff they were talking about, but I just something

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Speaker 1: about it just hit me just right. So I think

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Speaker 1: I caught like the the ethos of it, but not

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Speaker 1: necessarily the intellectual aspect of it. But I was into

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Speaker 1: him big time. They actually um led me away from church.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's good. I met the train, I met

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Speaker 1: the Chance and Donallysta. That was it for me in church.

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Speaker 1: I started going to to the woods on Sunday mornings instead. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is one that hits home for me because,

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Speaker 1: as everyone knows, I love being in the woods and

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Speaker 1: I love camping and I love my camp. Um. By

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Speaker 1: the way, we got a bear. Did I see me

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Speaker 1: the picture? No? You go like chained up at your

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Speaker 1: campground or something. No. I have a trail cam set up,

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Speaker 1: which is emotion activated camera that you just strapped to

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Speaker 1: a tree and hunters use them a lot and stuff.

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Speaker 1: But I got one and pointed it towards my like

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Speaker 1: my camp area. Uh. And we've been calling it crow

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Speaker 1: cam because we've gotten four pictures of crows since I

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Speaker 1: set it up. Uh. And every once in a while,

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Speaker 1: I'll get a picture come through at night the next

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Speaker 1: morning and I'll be really excited because like maybe a

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Speaker 1: box or a raccoon, never anything. And the other morning

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Speaker 1: I woke up and it gives a little thumbnail, and

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Speaker 1: I saw a little thumbnail. I saw a large creature,

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Speaker 1: and I freaked out to like rush to the app

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Speaker 1: to unto embig in it. And it's a bear, dude,

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Speaker 1: pretty net a little blackie. I'm gonna texted to you

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Speaker 1: right now, just wandering through the camp and there was

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Speaker 1: something about it that just thrilled me to no end

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Speaker 1: to know that I'm sharing the woods with this squeezy

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Speaker 1: little bear. That's pretty cool. Chunk and He's not gonna

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Speaker 1: attack me. Don't worry people, he is archie. Uh. There's

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Speaker 1: never been a bear fatality in Georgia, and I think

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Speaker 1: only two in the history of the Southeastern United States. Great,

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Speaker 1: that's a cute looks like you could take that bear

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Speaker 1: anyway if you wanted to. Do you see him? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's cute bear. Isn't that crazy? I'll looking for a

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Speaker 1: picnic basket, I guess so. Um, But a long way

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Speaker 1: of saying that I love the woods and so Transcendentalum

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Speaker 1: and transcend Dentalism in college is something that kind of

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Speaker 1: hit home. And then for a little while I was

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Speaker 1: kind of like, but wait a minute, is this just

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Speaker 1: a bunch of who lazy people in a bunch of

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Speaker 1: I hate to say, mental masturbation, but like, what do

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Speaker 1: they actually do? But then this made me feel a

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Speaker 1: lot better about it, because the Transcendentalists led to a

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Speaker 1: lot of great progressive reforms. Yeah, totally, Yeah, that's definitely

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Speaker 1: phase two of being into transcendentalism is hating the Transcendentalist

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Speaker 1: and like, I think it's really resenting them for who

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Speaker 1: they were and all that. But this brought me back

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Speaker 1: to it for sure as well. I'm a big time

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Speaker 1: friend of Thorows. Now again, I used to think he

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Speaker 1: was just a complete useless waste who just dropped out

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Speaker 1: and probably lived off his parents money or something like

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Speaker 1: that and did what did his own thing. It was

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Speaker 1: not like that at all. And I think we owe

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Speaker 1: Thorow an episode. Frankly, I think he's a pretty cool dude. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a lot of myths and legends around Thorow um and

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Speaker 1: real quick before we dive in, I did post that

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Speaker 1: picture on my Instagram at Chuck the podcaster, very nice shout.

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Speaker 1: That was some good social means promotions. All right, So

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the mid eighteen thirties and this idea

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Speaker 1: that these people came forward with very anti establishment ideas

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Speaker 1: where they basically said, uh, everybody has the light of

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Speaker 1: the divine truth, and we should all be self reliant.

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Speaker 1: We should all look within ourselves define that light, and

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Speaker 1: we should be self reliant in anyway, spiritually self reliant

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Speaker 1: or maybe you want to go out into the woods

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Speaker 1: and live and be self reliant on yourself. But basically

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Speaker 1: everyone is entitled to freedom in this country or back

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Speaker 1: then supposedly and still the case supposedly, but it led

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Speaker 1: to a lot of great things later on with these

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Speaker 1: progressive movements, but initially and throughout the sort of the

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Speaker 1: heyday of Transcendentalism, it was just a lot of thought

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Speaker 1: in talking about and writing about this, these thoughts. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was a philosophical movement. It was a philosophical movement

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Speaker 1: associated with action and doing things um as much as

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Speaker 1: it was about sitting down and writing things out and

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Speaker 1: figuring out arguments and theories to root these things too.

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Speaker 1: And actually that's where the trans Andelists tripped themselves up

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Speaker 1: is they took something that was very pure and didn't

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Speaker 1: really need any rooting in in in um in theory.

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Speaker 1: It could just be like walking through the woods is

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Speaker 1: good in and of itself. It doesn't need a theory

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Speaker 1: that explains why it's good in and of itself. And

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Speaker 1: so when they did try to do that, they actually

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Speaker 1: kind of shot themselves in the foot because they couldn't

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Speaker 1: do it. And that's one reason why you know, you

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Speaker 1: start to hate the Transcendentalists after you really start liking them,

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Speaker 1: because a lot of it is just kind of WHOEI

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Speaker 1: when they tried to explain it, because it didn't need explaining,

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Speaker 1: I saw somebody describe it that they it didn't need

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Speaker 1: theory anymore than an airplane needs wires to hold it up.

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Speaker 1: And yet they they tried that because I think they

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Speaker 1: wanted to explain it and they wanted to be taken seriously.

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Speaker 1: Emerson definitely considered himself a philosopher. Whether he was or not,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would consider him a philosopher.

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Speaker 1: But when they tried to ground it in philosophy, it

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Speaker 1: kind of got screwed up, like trying to nail jello

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Speaker 1: to the wall or something like that. Uh. It has

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Speaker 1: been called the first sort of distinctive American philosophy, like

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Speaker 1: truly American philosophy, and it was influenced by a lot

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Speaker 1: of things though, um like kind of any movement, and

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Speaker 1: this one starts out with the Puritans who came over,

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Speaker 1: who said that, you know, they were very much individualists,

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Speaker 1: and it's sort of that root of individualism that helped

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Speaker 1: sort of inform the early Transcendentalists. Thoughts, Yeah, the Puritans

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Speaker 1: took I guess they we actually kind of talked a

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Speaker 1: little bit about it that Protestant work ethic. They also

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Speaker 1: brought within the idea of self reliance of of like

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Speaker 1: you know, Um being able to make your own way

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Speaker 1: in the world, and it took it took shape for

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Speaker 1: them in the form of religion, where there was this

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Speaker 1: idea that you know, if you were a good Christian

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Speaker 1: and studied your Bible, you know, religiously, um, you could

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Speaker 1: be as close to God as as if you were

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Speaker 1: you know, some Catholic in in Italy who you know,

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Speaker 1: had to go through a priest and a cardinal and

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Speaker 1: a bishop in the pope to get to God. That

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Speaker 1: that's not how it worked. The individual was able to

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Speaker 1: connect with God as well. And that was, you know,

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Speaker 1: a big difference in puritan Um thought. And that was

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Speaker 1: one of the big things that that grew out of

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Speaker 1: it when they arrived here in America was the idea

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Speaker 1: of self reliance in the individual and and that very

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Speaker 1: much Um influenced the Transcendentalists. Yeah, European Romanticism certainly played

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Speaker 1: a part two they were. That was sort of the

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Speaker 1: first emo movement where feelings, uh, there were feelings mattered, basically,

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Speaker 1: an emotion mattered. It wasn't all about reason and order

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Speaker 1: like it was in the Enlightenment. And things really took

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Speaker 1: a turn after the Paris Peace Treaty of eighteen fifteen,

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Speaker 1: because previous to that, during the American Revolution and the

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Speaker 1: War of eighteen twelve, the Napoleonic Wars, you couldn't really

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Speaker 1: go to America, or I'm sorry, Americans really couldn't go

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Speaker 1: to Europe, and didn't even have a lot of great

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Speaker 1: access to the literature of Europe. But after that Paris

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Speaker 1: Treaty in eighteen fifteen, the travel floodgates opened and a

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Speaker 1: lot of um, sort of scholarly literary types went over

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Speaker 1: to Europe and started studying Gerta and Byron and Shelley

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Speaker 1: and Wordsworth, and it became, um, it was like lighting

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Speaker 1: a fire basically, yeah, which I mean like they missed

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Speaker 1: out on a you know, the beginning of Romanticism, which

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Speaker 1: was a big response to like the French Revolution, which

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Speaker 1: was in a larger way of response to the Enlightenment,

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Speaker 1: because the Enlightenment changed everything. You know, we had a

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Speaker 1: really good episode about that, if I do say so ourselves, um,

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Speaker 1: but it placed an emphasis on reason and rationality and facts.

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Speaker 1: And then the French Revolution came along and the people

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Speaker 1: took control and they weren't able to uphold the ideas

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Speaker 1: or the ideals of the of the um, the enlightenment

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Speaker 1: of things like free speech and you know, freedom of thought,

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Speaker 1: and instead turned into like bloody fascists who killed forty

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Speaker 1: people in a year or two um. And so that

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Speaker 1: that led to this recoiling being repulsed by the idea

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Speaker 1: of just cold rationalism and an adherence to facts, and

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Speaker 1: instead it turned into that romanticism that basically said, you know, imagination, beauty, goodness,

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Speaker 1: these are the important things. These are the true things

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Speaker 1: that are there. Are there the eternal truths of the

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Speaker 1: universe that bring you to godliness. Forget facts. Facts are stupid. Basically, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I find myself the more we've done the show, become

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Speaker 1: really interested in, like what causes movements to happen, whether

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Speaker 1: it's uh, a philosophical movement or or you know, knows

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Speaker 1: to the grindstone, you know, get out and do something movement.

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Speaker 1: I just think it's really interesting because it's it's about

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Speaker 1: a bunch of like minded people coming together in a

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Speaker 1: very specific time and place, or or it could fall

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Speaker 1: apart very easily. And in the mid eighteen thirties in Boston, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: a minister named George Ripley got some people together who

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Speaker 1: were thinking along the same lines as him, who are

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Speaker 1: inspired by these same literary grates of Europe and the Romantics,

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Speaker 1: and UH formed the Transcendental Club and they eventually started

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Speaker 1: publishing a three time annually literary paper called The Dial.

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Speaker 1: I think they had about three hundred subscribers at its peak.

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Speaker 1: It costs three dollars and they published it in four

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Speaker 1: volumes for about four years, and they said poetry and

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Speaker 1: prose and literary and music criticism, and it was, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was a literary magazine like we think about today,

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Speaker 1: but it was happening way back then in Boston. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it kind of UM was focused on beauty and

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Speaker 1: imagination UM and transcendental ideals, which was basically that that

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Speaker 1: that if you had imagination, that that was the thing

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Speaker 1: that kind of brought you to UM, to like a

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Speaker 1: communion with the universe or God, the divine, whatever, whatever

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Speaker 1: higher experience you were looking for, it was going to

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Speaker 1: be through imagination. And one of the ways I saw

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Speaker 1: it Puit Chuck was not that they didn't like facts.

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Speaker 1: They were kind of slaves to facts, because the fact was,

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Speaker 1: there's there's badness in the in the world, there's badness

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Speaker 1: in the universe, and they just couldn't account for that that, like,

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Speaker 1: they just couldn't make heads or tails of it um

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Speaker 1: because they were so focused on good. But they they

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Speaker 1: preferred imagination over effects because they considered imagination, the imagination

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Speaker 1: of the individual, to be more powerful than facts. Like

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Speaker 1: facts were that Plato died a couple of thousand years

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Speaker 1: ago and you will never get to meet him because

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Speaker 1: you're separated by time and space. Imagination is that you

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Speaker 1: can go wrestle, have a tickle fight in a meadow

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Speaker 1: with Plato if you want, and that can make you happy.

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Speaker 1: You can go experience that if your imagination is is

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Speaker 1: fine tuned enough. And then doing that that kind of

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Speaker 1: starts to make you question reality, like just how real

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Speaker 1: or unreal was that tickle fight you just had with Plato?

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Speaker 1: And your imagination is what took you to overcome those facts.

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Speaker 1: So to them, society was becoming increasingly industrialized and preoccupied

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Speaker 1: with money and economy and stuff like that, and it

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Speaker 1: was losing its way, it was losing its imagination, and

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Speaker 1: this was a big response to that, and that was

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Speaker 1: a huge ideal of the transcendentalist that it was the

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Speaker 1: imagination of the individual that could make you a happier person,

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Speaker 1: more tuned to beauty and goodness, and that if you

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Speaker 1: were off doing that, you're going to connect more fully

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Speaker 1: with other people. And if enough people did that, then

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Speaker 1: you would have a much better society. That was ultimately

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Speaker 1: the first goal of Transcendentalism, the earliest, um kind of

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Speaker 1: goal of the movement was that. That's right and little

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Speaker 1: known fact, Plato's tickle spot was his thigh inner thigh,

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Speaker 1: upper inner thigh. It was a thigh like a like

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Speaker 1: a horse eating corn. Yep, exactly, there's a birthmark there

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Speaker 1: to guide the way. Even. All right, let's take a break.

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Speaker 1: Then we'll talk a little bit about Walden Pond and

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Speaker 1: Thoraux and whether or not he was who we think

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Speaker 1: he was. Right after this, all right, Henry David Thurreau

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Speaker 1: one of the one of the all stars of the

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Speaker 1: Transcendentalist movement. Enthusiast. He's uh, he was a chin beard.

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Speaker 1: He was one of these guys. He went to Waldon,

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Speaker 1: to Walden to live deliberately, went to the woods to

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Speaker 1: live deliberately, as he said, and built a cottage on

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Speaker 1: Walden Pond near Conquered Mass for a couple of years.

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Speaker 1: And this is one of those where if you have

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Speaker 1: someone who doesn't like Thorow, they will be very quick

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Speaker 1: to point out a lot of things, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: he was only a half a mile from the main road,

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Speaker 1: and he went into town all the time, and he

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Speaker 1: was less than two miles from his main house, and

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Speaker 1: he ate dinner Emerson's all the time, and his mother

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Speaker 1: and his ster would bring him baked goods and donuts

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Speaker 1: every weekend. And those are all true things. So I

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Speaker 1: think it bears saying that over the years, the idea

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Speaker 1: that Thorow was this luddite who just went to live

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Speaker 1: completely by his own resources, all alone in the woods

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Speaker 1: like the Great History Channel uh survival competition show. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And that is not true. And I don't think he

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Speaker 1: ever purported that to be true. He wrote about the

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Speaker 1: interesting aspects of being out there alone and his thoughts

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Speaker 1: and his books, and I think people got that confused

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Speaker 1: and just said, oh, well, that's all he did out there,

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Speaker 1: and he never saw people. He had parties, and there

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Speaker 1: were people everywhere. He walked into town just about every day.

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Speaker 1: That wasn't the whole point of it all was that

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Speaker 1: he was going to go be self reliant and as

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Speaker 1: a survivalist or anti social. He wasn't like turning his

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Speaker 1: back on society now and he liked some technologies too.

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Speaker 1: So throw is misunderstood. And think not because of his

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Speaker 1: own hand and writings. I think because people have romanticized

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Speaker 1: this idea of this like hermit basically, and this is

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Speaker 1: not the case. Yeah, no, I mean the facts are this.

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Speaker 1: He did build himself a one room house on some

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Speaker 1: of Emerson's property right alongside on the shores of Walden

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Speaker 1: pond Um. He spent his time writing UM, reading everything

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Speaker 1: from the Greek philosophers to um religious texts, whatever he

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Speaker 1: could get his hands on UM. And then more than anything,

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Speaker 1: walking in the woods, like spending his time out in

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Speaker 1: nature UM and just enjoying it on its face, like

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Speaker 1: finding the beauty in nature and seeing absolutely everywhere and

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Speaker 1: letting it like increase the his spirit and and lift

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Speaker 1: his spirits. And that that's all he wanted to do

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Speaker 1: in life. And then when he needed money, he would

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Speaker 1: go work as a surveyor or maybe make some pencils

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Speaker 1: in his family's pencil factory. Apparently they made the finest

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Speaker 1: in the country at the time UM. And then he

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Speaker 1: would make that money and then go back and go

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Speaker 1: go live by doing what he wanted to do. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily to tell people how to live. That's how

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Speaker 1: he wanted to live. And he went and did it.

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Speaker 1: And however you feel about thorow Man, I mean, like

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Speaker 1: just the fact that he did that, how many people

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Speaker 1: do that, you know, and do it not because the

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Speaker 1: CIA's after them or the government's listening in on their

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Speaker 1: affairs or trying to keep them off of the pastor land.

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Speaker 1: If this guy did it for his own purposes. He

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Speaker 1: wanted to like go live a life that he found

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Speaker 1: fulfilling like that, and he went and did it. And

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Speaker 1: it's hats off to anybody who does that. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: if you're I don't know, if you're maybe a little

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Speaker 1: bit younger as a listener, and you think, well, that

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Speaker 1: didn't sound that radical and there are plenty people who

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Speaker 1: do that kind of thing today, it's true, but that's

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Speaker 1: not how worked in eighteen forty five. Like, if you

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Speaker 1: were a grown, n able bodied man, you like you

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Speaker 1: were expected to have a job and contribute to society

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Speaker 1: and work. You didn't spend time reading and writing and

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Speaker 1: taking walks in the woods for pleasure. It just that's

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Speaker 1: just not how things were back then. So it was

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Speaker 1: a very radical thing back then to do. Um. It

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Speaker 1: was also very radical to say, you know what, I

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Speaker 1: don't want to pay my taxes because you enslave people

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Speaker 1: here in the United States and we're in a very

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Speaker 1: uh awful war against Mexico, and so you know what,

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna fund this stuff anymore with my what

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Speaker 1: little money I make. So you can stick that in

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Speaker 1: your pipe and smoke at u S government. They came

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Speaker 1: after him, they arrested him, He spent a night in jail.

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Speaker 1: Someone paid off his debt. Even who that was, No,

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Speaker 1: he still didn't he never knew it was a real

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Speaker 1: and anonymous relative, and he was not very happy about

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Speaker 1: that at all, right, because he didn't want to like

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Speaker 1: just have someone pay it. That was the whole point, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he and they forced him out of jail the next

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Speaker 1: day and he was like, no, like, I'm trying, I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to do something here and it didn't work, right.

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Speaker 1: But his very famous essay Civil Disobedience kind of grew

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Speaker 1: from this experience, and he has a really great quote

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Speaker 1: here that kind of hits home to me. Uh in

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Speaker 1: anyone who thinks they might can change things or can't.

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Speaker 1: Let every man make known what kind of government would

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Speaker 1: command his respect, and that will be one step towards

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Speaker 1: obtaining it. Again, just not necessarily a blueprint for uh

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Speaker 1: An action, although there was plenty of action later, but

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Speaker 1: just sort of a thought like something to ponder. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and on on that poll tax um, I think it

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Speaker 1: was a head tax um, which yeah, and he did.

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Speaker 1: He hadn't paid it for years. Um he was inspired

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Speaker 1: by another transcendentalist, Amos Alcott, Louis and May's father, who

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Speaker 1: was a big Transcendentalist thinker. Um, and he hadn't paid

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Speaker 1: poll taxes for several years because the slave as well.

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Speaker 1: But then with the Mexican American War of I think

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty six, when um Thureau started organizing protests against

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Speaker 1: it and calling for other people to not pay their text,

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Speaker 1: that's when he was finally arrested, sought out and arrested.

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Speaker 1: Um and I was reading a little bit about that

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Speaker 1: war and why he and others protested against it. It

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Speaker 1: was apparently an extraordinarily unjust and unprovoked war where a

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Speaker 1: lot of American volunteers went down and committed war crimes

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Speaker 1: and atrocities against Mexican civilians for basically basically unprovoked um

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Speaker 1: And there was a lot of reason for people to

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Speaker 1: oppose it, But that didn't mean that there was a

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Speaker 1: lot of people opposing it. It's just that you can

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Speaker 1: really kind of look back historically and and find yourself

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Speaker 1: siding with the people who protested against that war. But

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Speaker 1: at the time it was pretty radical too to protest

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Speaker 1: against It was a fairly popular war until the press

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Speaker 1: started reporting from the front lines and people started finding

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Speaker 1: out what was going on down there. Like the people

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Speaker 1: in America were whipped up into like this anti Mexican

356
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Speaker 1: fervor at the time, and we invaded Mexico, you know,

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Speaker 1: at the behest of the public. So to stand in

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Speaker 1: the way of that was a it was a very

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Speaker 1: brave thing to do. And that's pretty typical of what

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Speaker 1: Thorow and the Transcendentalists were into. They would look at

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Speaker 1: something and say, this is morally wrong, this is not okay.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to stand up against it. Maybe it'll inspire

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Speaker 1: other people are not to do that, but at the

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Speaker 1: very least I will have done what I think is moral.

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Speaker 1: And I found another quote Chuck from civil disobedience. I

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Speaker 1: thought kind of got that point across really well too.

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Speaker 1: It said that um uh Thorreau believed it is not

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Speaker 1: a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote

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Speaker 1: himself to the eradication of any even the most enormous wrong.

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Speaker 1: He may still properly have other concerns to engage him,

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Speaker 1: but it is his duty at least to wash his

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Speaker 1: hands of it and not give it practically his support.

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Speaker 1: So in that sense, he was like, I'm at the

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Speaker 1: very least not gonna pay taxes to support this. If

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Speaker 1: I I might not be able to keep the U

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Speaker 1: S out of the war, but I'm not going to

377
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Speaker 1: give you money to go fight that war. I don't

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Speaker 1: want to pay Texas anymore either, you know. I mean,

379
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Speaker 1: it goes to a lot of fun, savory stuff. So

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Speaker 1: there you go. If only were that easy, maybe some

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Speaker 1: benefactor would pay my fine, right right, But then that's

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Speaker 1: supposed to take you off because that means that they

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Speaker 1: didn't get your point. Now, they'd be fun with me,

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Speaker 1: all right. So I guess we should talk a little

385
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Speaker 1: bit about some of the activism that sprung from this movement,

386
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Speaker 1: because all these cool hippie dippie philosophical thoughts and usings

387
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:44,520
Speaker 1: are great, but action is what is really interesting to me.

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Speaker 1: And um, that's something like again, that's something that I

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Speaker 1: don't think we talked a lot about in college. It

390
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: was more just sort of an English class, right, yes,

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Speaker 1: type of thing. They should not just be taught in

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Speaker 1: English class or even just philosophy class, like they should

393
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Speaker 1: be taught in cystrics in history. Yeah, it's I felt

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Speaker 1: like that that really does them in disservice. And I

395
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Speaker 1: never put my finger on until you just said that.

396
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Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you. I'm gonna change the educational system.

397
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Speaker 1: And that's where they started to The Transcendentalists knew that

398
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Speaker 1: education was the key. They thought it should be free.

399
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Speaker 1: They thought anyone should be able to go any race,

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Speaker 1: any creed, that women. It was very radical. A lot

401
00:23:24,800 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 1: of them were teachers, and quite a few of them

402
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Speaker 1: even founded their own, um like really forward thinking progressive schools,

403
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: I think, including uh Peabody and Thorough and Bronson Alcott. Yeah, um,

404
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: I think that was Amos, good old Amos Alcott was

405
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: that his first name or something. I think Bronson that

406
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: was his nickname because he was so tough. Hey give

407
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,760
Speaker 1: me a Bunsen. So, um, yeah, they went after like

408
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: they identified education as most social movements do, is like

409
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Speaker 1: a key and and they definitely went after that. But

410
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Speaker 1: I think also, like you said, it was in part

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Speaker 1: because that was their background. They saw, you know, they

412
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Speaker 1: had seen firsthand what needed, how how much improving it needed.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things, Chuck, is like what you

414
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Speaker 1: just described that what they thought the education system would be,

415
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:20,000
Speaker 1: you know, pretty closely resembles what we have today. And

416
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Speaker 1: when you see this stuff and you just take for

417
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: granted with the trans and dentists for four, it really

418
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: gets across like how successful they were over the course

419
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Speaker 1: of a couple of centuries because these were the first

420
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Speaker 1: people who were agitating for this stuff in America. You know,

421
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Speaker 1: they were the first ones just to kind of wake

422
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: up and say, wait, wait, wait, a lot of this

423
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Speaker 1: stuff is going wrong. This could be better this way,

424
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: this could be better that way. And they ultimately, far

425
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Speaker 1: past the times when they died, were successful in that.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a great time for a break. You

427
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:52,239
Speaker 1: set us up nicely, Thank you, Thank you. All right,

428
00:24:52,240 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 1: we'll talk about more activism right after this. M So

429
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 1: one of the one of the big ones that the

430
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: Transcendentalists were involved in from the outset was abolition of slavery.

431
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:36,439
Speaker 1: They was fervent uh anti slave activists and not just

432
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:42,959
Speaker 1: like writing lectures and sermons and letters and um, you know,

433
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,880
Speaker 1: speaking out against slavery and against is the eighteen thirties,

434
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: maybe the eighteen forties. This is not like there were

435
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are still totally cool with

436
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,160
Speaker 1: slavery in the United States at the time, and these

437
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: were some of the first people speaking out about it.

438
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 1: But these people also put their money where their mouths

439
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: were in A lot of including Threaux, who was if

440
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: if you were a whole home about throw before um

441
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: was a personally a conductor on the underground railroad. That's right.

442
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 1: He got in there, got his hands dirty. A lot

443
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: of the anti enslavement movement were women of the Transcendentalist movement. Um.

444
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: One of the rock stars of the Transcendentalist movement was

445
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: a woman named Margaret Fuller who um she was never

446
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: apparently super comfortable being sort of tagged as a Transcendentalist.

447
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: She hung out in that crowd, but she was not religious.

448
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: She was by all accounts probably agnostic, maybe even atheists,

449
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: sort of danced on the fringes of the Unitarian Church.

450
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,640
Speaker 1: But um, religion, it was not a part of her

451
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: sort of mindset. So that's where she kind of differed

452
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:55,159
Speaker 1: some in transcend from the standard transcendentalist. But she was

453
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: for a little while, I think for two of the

454
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 1: three years she was the editor two of the four

455
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: years the Dial, big friend of Emerson. Um. She wrote

456
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: a book in eighteen forty five called Woman in the

457
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:10,639
Speaker 1: Nineteenth Century, and it was really one of the first

458
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: sort of proto feminists Tombs and Um. She was way

459
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 1: ahead of her time. She went to women's prisons to

460
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: interview them. She was a literary critic and an editor

461
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 1: and a writer, and advocated for women to have not

462
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 1: just jobs, but like any job. She's like, go out

463
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: and be a ship captain if you want to. Um.

464
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: Really really forward thinking woman was Margaret Fuller. Yeah. She

465
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: started i think at age twenty nine the these things

466
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 1: called the Conversations, which was a series of discussions and

467
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: talks that were super feminist, which was again really radical

468
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 1: at the time because we're talking the eighteen thirties. And Um.

469
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: She she like the Row. She actually died young. She

470
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: died at age forty, and so we remember Margaret. Yes,

471
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: it was astounding. So Margaret Fuller went to Italy to

472
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: become part of the Italian revolution. Right, this is how

473
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 1: she spent her last couple of years. The revolution fell.

474
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: It wasn't successful, um, but she fell in love with

475
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 1: a younger revolutionary, had a child, and they sailed back

476
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 1: to America. Right. And then, yes, almost almost all the

477
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: way back to America, they had a shipwreck I think

478
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: about fifty yards from shore and died. Um. Some people

479
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: weren't even like. Apparently the rescue attempt, even though they

480
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,959
Speaker 1: were so close to shore, was just um, not strong.

481
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I'd like to look a little

482
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: bit more into it, but apparently Thureau grabbed Emmerson and

483
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: they were like, let's you know, I don't know how

484
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: much longer it was after the shipwreck, but let's go

485
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 1: try and find her at least body. And I'm not

486
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: sure if they ever recovered her, but very tragic de Yeah, she,

487
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 1: her her son, and her husband all drowned. Um, I know.

488
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: And and again she was aged forty. So it's pretty

489
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: astounding and remarkable that we remember her because her productive

490
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: years were just an eleven year period from age twenty

491
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: nine to age forty. But it just goes to show

492
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: you what a powerhouse she was. I mean she went

493
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: and fought in the Italian Revolution. That's it. That's just

494
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: super b. A yeah, And it seemed like any job

495
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: that she had, like, she just did great. Like Emerson,

496
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 1: when The Dial was founded, he that was the first

497
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:26,479
Speaker 1: person he thought of. He was like, well, I need

498
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: to go get Fuller on this because she's a crack

499
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: writer and editor. And uh, I think she was supposed

500
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: to make like two dollars a year doing that, but

501
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: never got paid a dime. Um. The Dial, like you know,

502
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 1: was not a big money maker. I don't think they

503
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: even paid the contributor. So it didn't last that long,

504
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: but very forward thinking literary magazine and Margaret Fuller was

505
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,959
Speaker 1: a big reason why it happened to begin with. UM.

506
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: So so obviously feminism and women suffrage and equal rights

507
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: for women UM were huge parts of the Transcendental movement,

508
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: as was abolition UM. And I looked to see like

509
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: how Transcendentalism ended UM, and apparently it was. It was

510
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:14,239
Speaker 1: like a um No, it was like a sparkler, like

511
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: it burned really bright for a very short amount of time.

512
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: So like the whole transcendel movement lasted maybe to the

513
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties. One of the big things that that that

514
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: took it down was, you know, Margaret Fuller and Henry

515
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: David Threau too, of the really big central figures of

516
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: the whole thing died fairly young. Th Road died of

517
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: tuberculosis in his early forties. Um uh. Emerson remained, but

518
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: um again, there was a there was a big problem

519
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: in like getting across what the Transcendentalists were all about,

520
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: because they would get tripped up in theory and all

521
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: that stuff. And then also I saw that the the

522
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: scientific method started to gain ground around the eighteen fifties

523
00:30:56,120 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, and people turned their attention back to logic

524
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 1: and reason and the Enlightenment ideals, um, which kind of

525
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: took them away from that romanticism of the transidentalysts. Yeah,

526
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 1: and you know, I think my take away from this

527
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: now re studying it all these years later, is like

528
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: it it's a philosophy that doesn't have to go away completely.

529
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people would argue that

530
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: it's still very robust and in a lot of ways

531
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: is just sort of morphed and taken on different forms.

532
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: But you can have transcendentalist feelings and philosophies and also

533
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: believe in science, and I don't think those things have

534
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: to be separated out. So while it did burn bright

535
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: and die out, I think clearly the kids of the nineties,

536
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies were inspired by these people. Uh, and

537
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: people like you and I and college kids still today

538
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: that read this stuff for the first time. I think

539
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: everyone can take a little bit of that with them

540
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: if they want or not. But it's certainly not like outdated.

541
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: I don't think, oh it's not, no, for sure. I

542
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: think that spirit still continues on today for sure. And

543
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: people anybody who cares about social justice, environmental justice, um,

544
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: those are all very much transcendental ideals. And anybody who

545
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 1: like stops and you know, appreciates, you know, the way

546
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: sunlight is filtering on a flower or something like that.

547
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: You're being a transcendentalist right there. It's really easy to

548
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: over over explain. It's really easy to to um also

549
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: just kind of be whatever that transcendentalist ideal was, but

550
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: that that was it in nutshell, just appreciating the beauty

551
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: in the world so much that you basically dedicate your

552
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: life too to appreciating it and not taking it for grained,

553
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And every time I go to the

554
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: family camp and I have that cooler full of beer

555
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 1: and my mini bike and my solar power lighting up

556
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: those beautiful string lights through the woods, and I got

557
00:32:56,320 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 1: my bluetooth speaker, playing some fleet Foxes and burning that

558
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 1: fire from that firewood that was cut by the nice

559
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: gentleman who delivers it down there and stacks it for me.

560
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: I really find myself at one with nature. Very nice.

561
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: You're a transfer dentalist, cut and dried like camping. Let's

562
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: just leave it at that. I like glamping. Yeah, it's

563
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: it's almost glamping. Yeah, it sounds like it. You have

564
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: me a bluetooth. You're still sleeping in a tent on

565
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: the ground though. That's fine, that's fine. Um, you got

566
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: anything else? I got nothing else. So look for a

567
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: thorough episode someday, and in the meantime, go out and

568
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: appreciate the beauty in the world. And since I said

569
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: appreciate the beauty in the world, it's time for listener mail.

570
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this chickens an ancient rome. Remember we

571
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:50,960
Speaker 1: talked about that, which one was that that there weren't

572
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: chickens anycient superstition, ancient superstitions, right, So this is and

573
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: we heard from a few people about this, people that

574
00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: know a lot more about ancient room than we do.

575
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: Romans from Mike h Yeah, exactly, Mike Traina. Hey, guys,

576
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: my wife Ketura is a big fan of your podcast,

577
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: and she was listening earlier today and asked me about this.

578
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: My degrees are both in Greek and Latin language and culture.

579
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: Chickens were relatively rare in ancient Rome, although they did exist.

580
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: Chicken was a delicacy that only aristocrats would eat, and

581
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: even then only on rare occasions. The peasantry would rarely

582
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: eat meat at all, except on festival days. Chickens were, however,

583
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: prize for their use in divination, like we talked about

584
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:35,479
Speaker 1: with the wishbones, and we're often carried with armies into

585
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: battle so that the augurs could attempt to determine the

586
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: auspices of a coming conflict. I recommend the book Handbook

587
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 1: to Life in Ancient Rome Atkins and Atkins. The edition

588
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: I have is Oxford University Press has all sorts of

589
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: great info about daily life as an average Roman citizen.

590
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: That sounds like a cool book. It does. I can't read,

591
00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: wait to read the chapter on chickens. Yeah, that's from Mike.

592
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Mike. That's exactly what I was hoping

593
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,760
Speaker 1: to hear, or the kind of thing I was hoping

594
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 1: to hear when I asked for your help, So thank

595
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: you for hearing me. Um. I also blasted you with

596
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: the E S P plea for requests, so maybe that's

597
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: where you really were prompted to respond. Who knows. I

598
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: wonder if that's an audiobook. I'd like to listen to

599
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: that one. What's it called Chickens in Rome? Yeah, Mike, No,

600
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: it's Handbook to Life in Ancient Room. Very nice. Uh well,

601
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: and it was Mike Wup wrote in right, that was Mike. Yeah. Well,

602
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 1: thanks a lot to Mike, and thank you to your

603
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 1: s O for telling you that we needed your help.

604
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: And thank you to everybody out there listening in podcast land.

605
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this, you

606
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: can send us an email, wrap it up spending on

607
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: the bottom Roman style and send it off to stuff

608
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know

609
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, My

610
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the Heart Radio, o app, Apple podcasts,

611
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H m

612
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: hm