Bookchin v. "lifesyle anarchism"

[Carl Remick]

>Carl Remick wrote:
>
>>I just watched a C-span discussion on Emerson and
>>Thoreau (part of a new series on American authors) and was struck
>>again by how fresh, vigorous and accessible their thinking was and
>>is.
>>
>>America's cult of the individual has today devolved into a
>>retrograde celebration of selfishness.  But I believe that the New
>>England Transcendentalist tradition, in which E and T were so
>>prominent, offers a way to tap into the appeal of individualism yet
>>avoid the constrictive narcissism that characterizes so much of US
>>society today.  Renewed attention to Transcendentalism could, I
>>think, help to replenish a sense of basic community and even help to
>>re-legitimize the concept of socialism as a worthy aim.
>
>Huh? Emerson was all about self-reliance. He was a case study in
>narcissism - I almost wrote a dissertation on that, in fact. "Are
>they my poor?," he asked someone soliciting contributions.

I think you're construing Emerson's message too narrowly, Doug, and are 
being insufficiently, ah, dialectical.  I think E.'s basic argument is that 
by contemplating the essence of your individual being, you will discover 
that you possess certain insights and are driven by certain aspirations that 
are shared by all humanity.  I think that understanding, in turn, can well 
motivate people to favor socialism.  I don't know the context of E.'s "are 
they my poor" remark; I do know that he was a generous man, although he did 
feel remote from other people.  My own belief concerning charity is that 
serious social problems require serious commitments of social resources, not 
flickering, self-glorifying "points of light." Perhaps E. meant the poor are 
*everyone's* poor and deserve the full measure of care that entails.


>He did pay
>Thoreau's tax bill, so the sylvan solitary didn't have to go to jail.

According to that C-span program I mentioned, no one knows for sure who paid 
T.'s poll tax.


>I must dig out the excellent parody of them in Melville's
>Confidence-Man, which shows them as weird, icy isolates.

Melville's a genius, no question, and as I've said here before, the 
Confidence-Man is a brilliant, eerily contemporary work that puts me in mind 
of William Gaddis.  Nevertheless, Emerson has a secure place in my own 
exceedingly small pantheon.

Also, re Kelley's comment on Emerson: "gee, a communitarian like wolfe!"

Nice try.  But as Mark Twain said in another connection:  "the difference 
between lightning and a lightning bug."

Carl

"I hate quotation."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson / Journals (1849)
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com