points the way to a new horizon for the United
States, where the prototype American scholar
must stake out an education from all that has
come before him and from the presence of nature
to form a new, intellectual nation. The American
Scholar becomes, in a sense, the prototypical
Emersonian man—independent, patient, free-
thinking, and in tune with nature. Complacency
and decorum are evils that pervade the education
of Americans, primarily because they value the old
and shun the new. Emerson wants to free America
from the binds of European education and begin a
new American education with the students born in
the land—an education born in the United States,
for its people, and by the young scholars of the
new country.
Michael Modarelli
individual and sOciety in “The American
Scholar”
The individual and society play a fundamental role
in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar.”
The main themes consist of the past and present,
the individual’s engagement with a past society that
has been handed to her or him, and the relation of
the individual to her or his society. Throughout the
address, Emerson constantly refers back to these
main ideas, emphasizing the struggle the individual
must undertake to break free from societal pressures
and expectations.
Emerson first addresses the link between the
individual and society. For Emerson, individuals
who are not connected in an organic way to society,
meaning they perform for themselves, are “ampu-
tated” from the body of society. In a society where
this happens, individuals exist only as placeholders,
such as “farmer” or “priest.” When individuals strive
to become more than a vocation, Emerson argues,
they become attached to the great intellect within
each of us; then the individual becomes “Man
Thinking.” “Man Thinking” steps outside of his
vocative placeholder and into society to intermesh
with others and past societies, to learn from every-
thing, to become more aware of his place in the link
in history.
This idea blends easily into Emerson’s notions
about nature as an entity. For Emerson, nature is
circular: There is no beginning or end—much like
patterns of history. When we are very young, we
see individual patterns in things; we notice separate
entities. “Man Thinking,” however, understands the
links between the individual and society, between
the leaf and the tree, between the past and the pres-
ent. Given this idea, then, the individual should not
strive to become a mere scholar, separate from the
society within which he lives; he should become
more a part of the whole, engaging with the people
and culture around him. Living is the most impor-
tant aspect for the individual, living within and
interacting with her or his society.
In fact, Emerson claims it is the job of the indi-
vidual scholar to show men the real truths amid the
world of appearances—in this case, the individual
“parts” of the organic whole—and to help elucidate
how the many parts fit into the whole. Moreover,
the scholar should show how the tangible goals for
which people strive, such as fame and money, are but
elements of the organic unity of all things. Again,
this unity appears most evident in nature, but,
Emerson argues, we are a part of nature—our past
and present—so this translates to society.
Under the great pressures of history, the indi-
vidual scholar must veer toward a new future, always
moving, never static. This is a problem Emerson has
with books, which contain the stagnant written his-
tory, not the malleable future or the active present.
Although books are good to a certain degree—for
they are, as Emerson says, written records of past
societies—they should not be used to guide the
focus of the individual or society. As “Man Think-
ing,” the individual must create his own society, free
from the chains of the past and linked in an organic
unity with his fellow citizens.
For Emerson, the individual and society exist as
a tension, or interplay, between the smallest part of
a unit and its greater mass. In a democracy, these are
two inseparable things; an individual must represent,
to a larger degree, her or his society. Furthermore,
it is because the individual stands for the society
that Emerson takes great pains to enumerate these
ideas. A society full of individuals who embrace
the notion of “Man Thinking” would, in his mind,
become a vastly superior growing and organic unity
to societies of the past. In fact, nature, too, would“The American Scholar” 395