Nope, I'm not a Transcendentalist

Transcendentalism is a sort of Americanized romanticism in my eyes. As I'm taking AP European history, its very interesting to see the similarities in these two ideologies. I've been able to more fully comprehend transcendentalism because of it. Transcendentalism is believing in the individual. I think the strength of transcendentalism is the trust it places in the individual. As seen in Self Reliance, he says that one must not follow the institution or the government but ones own inner will. Many of the transcendentalists claimed an inner good to humans or that we all have a little piece of God within ourselves, but we just need to listen to it.

This point is the transcendentalists' weakness. I don't really believe that all humans are innately good. In all honesty, its a question of cultural upbringing for a lot of it. For example, in New Zealand native population culture, they are raised to murder any person that crosses them that's not part of their family. Men in these tribes are respected for the amount of kills they make and murder and warfare is common and accepted. Oh, they also are cannibals eating the bodies of their deceased loved ones, which is all cool and good. Well, in western culture that's basically satanic. I mean, I think most people have empathetic behaviors --being able to understand how others feel, feeling for them-- but some people don't categorize "good" in the same way. This could also be due just to mental differences. I think some people are just born with more or less understanding on how others feel. By claiming that there's good in everyone in some way claims that we would all make the right decision if given the opportunity or in the right circumstance, but would we really?

Transcendentalists, on the other hand, make a good point that one person can make the major difference. Many times, all a movement needs is one person to start a cascade of other events to follow. Many today believe that speaking against the system or the government or anything is futile because it won't make difference but it takes one grain of sand to tip the scale, or something like that.

I'm not a transcendentalist. In many ways, humans are social animals that often work in groups or with others. Although I agree with the point that people should stand up for what they believe in especially if it's not the majority, I don't think that people are innately good and what they have to say is useful.