Ralph Waldo Emerson was the consummate influencer of his time. “Say, who?” Emerson is not a name that many children know today. To paraphrase people of my age, Emerson is a white, intellectual dead man, and was among the writers and poets whose works dominated academic study from the 1840s to the 1970s. Yes, but – what he wrote and talked about is more important today than it was in antebellum America. If students do not know Emerson, they should and we must teach them.

In the face of today’s 24/7 social media and insidious mind-bending noise of self-announced prophets who want to tell children what to think, how to think, and who to believe, Emerson’s essay “Self Reliance” is an eye-opener for a person who will take the time to think and reject being talked “at.”

What do we know?

Ask a child this foundational question. “Who do you trust to tell you what you should know?”  The answers surprise because research in the question tells us that children’s trust is very contextual – trust depends upon the topic. As a group, children trust

• Their parents for questions of personal well-being and safety,
• Teachers and academic text for formal facts, knowledge, and scientific information,
• Research organizations like Pew and Common Sense for large, global issues,
• Google and Wikipedia for quick, non-depth answers,
• Peers and friends for social and cultural ideas like music, clothing, entertainment, and peer dynamics. They do not trust friends for facts, yet commonly misconstrue opinions for facts, and like many adults, “go along to get along” with their peers.
• Do not trust mass media organizations – television, radio, and print – for the factual and unbiased news.

As children move into middle and high school, peer pressure, social dynamics, and school environments begin to change and refine how they perceive their parent and family views.

The answers also surprise because very seldom does a child say, “I trust my own judgements and intuitions. I trust me.” Where are children on their self-reliance? Is self-reliance relevant today?

What should we know?

This is where Emerson and his essay, “Self Reliance,” become highly relevant today. First, understand that “Self Reliance” was an essay written in 1841. Whereas Emerson used “Self Reliance” to extol his generation to separate itself from copying European perspectives and Eurocentric thinking, his essay is a primer for every generation of young Americans beginning their own era of adulthood.

These are the key points Emerson made about the self-reliant man.

• Be an original not an imitator. A person who only repeats what he is told prevents his own intellectual growth. Instead, listen and watch, consider and think, compare and contrast, and then give your thoughts your own informed interpretation and personalization. A self-reliant person does not repeat slogans to make himself resemble another person and what that person says. Blind imitation of what others think is intellectual suicide and too many kill their personal thinking by imitating

America in the 1840s was rapidly moving west, receiving millions of immigrants every year, prospering with new inventions and pre-industrial energy. “New” was happening all the time and the increased opportunity for being new begged for originality, invention, and reinvention.

• Resist social conformity. Society wants to narrow the range and diversity of thinking and behavior to make communities of people more manageable. And to make them more compliant. Political and social leaders use subconscious encouragement that shape speech and attitudes around policies and rules that restrict non-conformity. Emerson believed in non-violent protests, and he talked of personal and community resistance to public policies, laws, and rules that constrained individualism. Though educated as a New England minister with the region’s conservative traditions, her resisted dogmatic thinking and a prescribed life.

• Growth requires change and adjustment not blind consistency. Emerson’s generation was on the move, and the multi-sides of dynamic change needed new economic, political, and social models. New territories, new businesses and industries, new populations, and unfamiliar problems needed innovative solutions. Old answers did not solve new problems. Emerson urged America to shed traditionalism in favor of contextual adjustment and change. In all questions, he did not hold with “blind” repetition of familiar and safe responses but urged innovative experimentation and thinking.

• Trust your internal intuitions and convictions. As a transcendentalist, Emerson spoke of the laws of nature that humans cannot break or bend. He watched migratory birds and animals that knew when and where to make an annual migration necessary for their survival. As extension, each person has an immutable intuitive power, an inner voice that tells him what to do and how to do it. Emerson told his generation to believe in their intuitions and their convictions based upon an inner voice.

Consider the writing and thinking of Thoreau, a friend and student of Emerson’s, who moved to Walden Pond into nature, to contemplate the social, economic, political conditions of his time. His writings and personal lifestyle were shaped by his intuitive power and self-determinism.

With strong beliefs in originality, non-conformity, change, and self-determinism, Emerson was not a revolutionary. He did not espouse recklessness or selfish behavior or a rejection of community and social mores. The core of Emerson’s image of a healthy society is based on self-directed, critical thinking, innovative individuals who rely on their natural intuitions and convictions rather than unconscious repetitive habits.

Finally, Emerson and his peers, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Herman Melville, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, authors and poets, became the gold standards of American literature. Their names and their writings were known, and read, and quoted. Emerson and this group were the influencers of their times.

What does Emerson tell young adults today?

The Bible’s Solomon tells us, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Young adults in the 1840s and young adults in the 2020s face many of the same fundamental problems of how to confront sociocultural, politico-economic, and moral questions. A different prophet, Bob Dylan, tells us that “The times, they always a-changing,” and each generation must find its fresh solutions for Solomon’s recurring problems.

How interesting it would be if those annoying pop-ups on our smartphone, tablet, and laptop screens told young people today –

• Be original not a copycat of the self-serving slogans of today’s leaders.
• Do not conform for conformity’s sake; do not be a human clone of other’s ideas and lifestyles.
• Be contextually innovative and create original changes; inconsistency can break bonds to tradition.
• Be intuitive and follow your internal convictions that comport with the laws of nature.

Compare and contrast these four Emersonian ideas with the messages of our political, economic, technological, and cultural leaders today. As Emerson urged a new day in America in the 1840s, his ideas urge a new day for young adults today.

The Big Duh!

Parents are correctly alarmed at the power of social media to influence, distort, and misdirect the thinking and behaviors of their children. While most influencers are driven by the monetary rewards and status of their follower count, we could substitute Emersonian ideals that would build the inner selves of children and prevent their blind conformity with others’ external subservience.

This is not just the work of parents and educators. It is a messaging from conscientious and thinking adults to help the next generation to be conscientious and thinking adults. Young people need our role modeling not just our words.

It starts with us.