The Old Fable

“Perhaps the time is already come, when it ought to be, and will be, something else; when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under it iron lids, and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill ...”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Divinity School Address, Essay On the American Scholar
July, 1838

Do you find it odd that most writing, and ultimately, oratory, is fiction? In other words, does it bother you that the human mind regularly conjures up utter bullshit and employs its finest arts to paint it up as sunlit truth so easily?

Hope you're not offended or misled by that fact.

The Merciless One asked me to review Emerson's words today. His recent research on transcendentalism brought him to it.

I accepted the challenge but found that exercise to be like watching a proverbial train wreck, man. Fascinated by the speed and sheer power of an imaginary engine, moved by a fanciful gust of wind from unseen mass, yet disturbed and repulsed by the mindless and pointless result.

“... The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant.”

Spoken, I thought, like a self-absorbed man who was spared the drudgery of common existence for most of his life. I would dare Emerson to join me at the local pub, entertained by the enduring philosophy of long-haul truck drivers, tire salesmen and carpet installers, just to find out how “decorous and complaisant” today's society really is.

Hey, he asked for it ...

The problem with Emerson is that his opaque, romantic tongue makes what he once said almost indecipherable. He croons an antique Herman Melville chorus that's more like the unsure distance from a low rumble of thunder rather than a violent strike of lightening which torches an exact spot in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Not really his fault. Looking back, the time and the context of his words demanded no less gilded obscurity.

But I agree it should be recited at least once a year, accompanied with a complete reading of “Civil Disobedience”, perhaps with the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance” playing softly in the background.

There are important lessons in all that.

To me, the hitching post he leans on is planted in the Vedic mud of Kantian concepts, “Mind is the law-giver to nature”, we are unique because of our instinctive A Priori gland, and so on. His philosophy invites Plato, “reason is everything”, to conduct a secret wedding ceremony for Descarte, “we think therefore we are”, to an unwilling Hume, “seeing is believing.” And the ultrasound shows that the child of this marriage is standing alone at the intersection of Rio Rationalism and Empiricism Avenue, nothing but an unwelcome and shadowy mistake, delivered to the ages by the inebriating effects of one fancy man's fancy.

“... The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man—present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty, and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man ...”

In a distinct way, I tend to side with the curious foundation of this wobbling idea. For some reason I have for a long time sensed that there is no human individuality of any great, cosmic importance. (That does not surprise you, I know.) Even if so, then it's not a matter of American intellect that brings me to such a conclusion since my personal in-grown faculties are known to often mimic the anatomical equivalent of a soiled Missouri mule's butt.

Meanwhile, Emerson cried for an American voice but his chant sounds remarkably unable to echo beyond the polished, marbled halls of his own Victorian influence.

Hmm ... thankfully, I think, Sam Clemens met that supposed “postponed expectation” to find a witty and wise voice without Emerson's help. (Perhaps “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” is what we should better review today.)

I know how it goes. For a while, a couple years ago, I was deep into another humor-less visitor to Walden: HDT. Read a lot of his bogus invites to dewy-eyed knowledge. In the end, I realized he was just mindlessly commenting on the constantly changing weather conditions while meticulously reporting on the age rings of naturally fallen trees. He was a faker, an overstuffed literary pussy, just like his mentor.

The chest-thumping proof is always easy to see. If Emerson was so taken by his own “declaration”, he wouldn't have talked so loudly about it.

That's my bullshit for the day.

Cheers,
Mb