Transcendentalists

[aaaaafkp]

Anyone read short essays/poems by Emerson or Thoreau?

If you don't know what a Transcendentalist is...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Transcendentalist
http://www.transcendentalists.com/what.htm

Emerson was brilliant. For someone to write the way he did, and shovel out visions like his on a whim is hands down genius.

Here's one of Emerson's most famous quotes, and it almost sums up one of the largest points to Transcendentalism.:

"Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball-I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me-I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances-master or servant, is then a trifle, and a disturbance. I am a lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I have something more connate and dear than in the streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature."  

[alliop]

I respect the transcendentalists but I do not agree with them in the slightest.

Their conclusions seem to be based off only their feelings and emotions. Personaly emotions and feelings mean nothing to me. Therfore any conclusion they draw (even if it is right) is already flawed just because it is
not reached through the use of at least a little reason. That is just my humble opinion though. I am certian they would disagree with my rationalistic point of veiw.

The only part I agreed with on the transcendentalists was their critism of traditional religion.  

[aaaaafkp]

alliop

I respect the transcendentalists but I do not agree with them in the slightest.

Their conclusions seem to be based off only their feelings and emotions. Personaly emotions and feelings mean nothing to me. Therfore any conclusion they draw (even if it is right) is already flawed just because it is
not reached through the use of at least a little reason. That is just my humble opinion though. I am certian they would disagree with my rationalistic point of veiw.

The only part I agreed with on the transcendentalists was their critism of traditional religion.

Emerson didn't see his 'lack of rationality' as a flaw, though. The reason he rejected society was because he believed they deprived man of his intuition. And really I can't explain how, but he believed man's true wisdom was in primordial intuition. Is it possible your rationality is only a societal construct? He was skeptical of the idea.
And I know what you mean with emotions, as an INTP I rarely sustain any. But I believe there is truth within them. It may be beyond convention, or even below, to grasp- but it bears meaning and a subset of wisdom we cannot achieve by intercorrelated facts.
But I guess that's hard to see, as I am agnostic. He believed nature > freed intuition > you are close to God.  

[AbrAbraxas]

alliop

I respect the transcendentalists but I do not agree with them in the slightest.

Their conclusions seem to be based off only their feelings and emotions. Personaly emotions and feelings mean nothing to me. Therfore any conclusion they draw (even if it is right) is already flawed just because it is
not reached through the use of at least a little reason. That is just my humble opinion though. I am certian they would disagree with my rationalistic point of veiw.

The only part I agreed with on the transcendentalists was their critism of traditional religion.

i dont think that you are correct about that. first is that you may not base all of your actions on emotions and feelings but they are still there, a part of you and you are only robbing yourself of a fuller life by putting them down, they too need to be developed just as much as reason and the two would serve as a balance for each other. if reason gets out of hand then it loses meaning. anything can be reasoned and justified if you have no feeling. the transcendentalists, as much as i have seen, used a great deal of reason but were also very inclined towards subtle aspects of reality and self such as emotions and intuition.