What Is Emerson's Beliefs About Individualism

Around the 19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson was known for being an American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist. After spending a year in Europe, Emerson would teach on such topics of spirituality and how it is represented as personal nature. The teachings he shares during his lectures would be transformed into essays. For many years, Emerson wrote in his journals that included his inner thoughts and actions. All the journals he kept, he would return to as a way to bundle them all up into one source for his published essays. With journal entries dating back since the year 1832, the time he spent in Europe by developing into a transcendentalist, was what made him accomplish his essays “Self-Reliance” and others. The essay “Self-Reliance”
He wrote that being an individual is important, but that doesn’t mean the values of individualism are better then being with others. Hedlund believes that one should not be alone, and that such strength will not be gained without the help of others. He believed that Emerson would “rebel” only to preserve for his individuality and that others do not rebel like him. “Then we would all be little rebels accomplishing nothing but vain and chimerical satisfaction, while society rolls on as before.” Hedlund also argues against Emerson saying that being great is to be misunderstood. He believes that being great doesn’t always have to be depended on self-relying. “For an individual to be edified, he must not rely only on himself, but rely on others, and allow other to rely on him. The virtue in most request is not conformity, but
Hedlund must have misinterpreted Emerson’s essay because it seems that he argues Emerson wants every individual (including himself), to ignore society. Emerson is not ignoring society but merely standing out from others, and learning on his own to find what he is in life on the inside. He isn’t stating to be alone forever or to hide from the world, but that being with others can give an individual a certain path they might not have wanted to take. Hedlund must have become who he was from the help of others, but many people don’t always want others to guide them in life. It actually connects to today’s modern culture, how many children grow up becoming the opposite of who their parents want them to be, or how society (like the government) wants them to be. Since the 60’s, many younger generations have grown with the use of indivualism and have succeeded, and that was because it was their choice to do so and are happy they can find their “true self”, just like Emerson did and wrote