{"id":6082,"date":"2015-01-13T11:29:53","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T16:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=6082"},"modified":"2015-01-13T11:29:53","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T16:29:53","slug":"emerson-wrote-chicken-soup-gobbledegook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=6082","title":{"rendered":"Emerson wrote Chicken Soup, Gobbledegook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Micah Mattix (@prufrocknews) explains the confusing prose of the man who has been called the Bard of Concord. In short, he says we should reduce Emerson’s contributions in our anthologies<\/a> to make room for clearer thinkers of his time.<\/p>\n

His central idea, of course, is \u201cTrust thyself.\u201d In his earlier essays, he encourages his readers to disregard the past, institutions, and dogma, and to obey \u201cthe eternal law\u201d within. \u201cI will not hide my tastes or aversions,\u201d he writes. \u201cI will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints.\u201d But in a later essay on Napoleon, who seems to have embodied the \u201cdeep\u201d self-trust Emerson lauds, he states confusingly (after praising Napoleon) that what made Napoleon\u2019s egoism wrong was that it \u201cnarrowed, impoverished and absorbed the power and existence of those who served him.\u201d And whose fault is this? “It was not Bonaparte\u2019s fault. He did all that in him lay to live and thrive without moral principle. It was the nature of things, the eternal law of man and of the world which baulked and ruined him.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the law of man and the world ruined the man who wanted to rule the world. Did he not trust himself enough?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Micah Mattix (@prufrocknews) explains the confusing prose of the man who has been called the Bard of Concord. In short, he says we should reduce Emerson’s contributions in our anthologies to make room for clearer thinkers of his time. His central idea, of course, is \u201cTrust thyself.\u201d In his earlier essays, he encourages his readers … Continue reading Emerson wrote Chicken Soup, Gobbledegook<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}