Individualism and Empowerment Essay Example

📌Category: Philosophy
📌Words: 1478
📌Pages: 6
📌Published: 25 March 2022

The transcendentalist principles have changed the world and people’s morals as new ideas create room to differentiate as a whole. Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that started in the 1830s with the belief that the most important reality is what is sensed or what is intuitive, rather than what is thought such as scientific knowledge. Certain principles I will connect in my essay are individualism and empowerment at the same time in ties with self-reliance. Individuality is believing in one’s uniqueness by not comparing one another since they are a separate and original person. The conflict between society and individuality has been valid for centuries and has been dealt with today as people have been accepting others as who they choose to be, but the level of understanding is still an issue as it always will be. Achieving self-discovery and one's potential is most effectively reached by gaining principles such as individuality and empowerment to flourish one’s mindset to new obstacles.

Thoreau creates a big picture in his book, “Walden”, of what he believes is wrong and right, to be a voice even if it’s dismissed by many. “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,... to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world;...” (Thoreau 1). Henry personally wanted to be involved with life itself, he wanted to live the most purposeful life and be exposed to the nature of it to its extent. Once he achieved what he could he then shared his thoughts and discoverings in this excerpt. Just like Thoreau found himself by isolating himself from society, the pureness hidden in nature allows an individual to notice things they haven’t before and truly live. Principles that facilitate this growth are potentially empowerment and intuition, discovering oneself on their own naturally. Thoreau continues his argument, “And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us” (Thoreau 2). There can be a number of confusing metaphors Henry Thoreau uses throughout this excerpt but his message is visible, although people are renovating to travel with inventions such as trains, the innovations are actually taking control instead of them. Applying this to the transcendental perspective, people have been focused on growing more industrially rather than looking up to the things nature offers and living to full content. He argues for the world to not be so involved in the world, but to become of it, an individuality principle. Thoreau’s words fittingly complement the transcendentalist views of living.

A passage by M.A. Zimmerman presents his meaning of empowerment with citations. They start off by explaining what empowerment means to them, “Empowerment calls for a distinct language for understanding lay efforts to cope with stress, adapt to change, and influence our communities” (Zimmerman 44). Zimmerman describes how empowerment is very effective in its own way, it’s powerful enough to influence communities and cope with stress and change just by having that control towards your future and life. Having a strong mindset to potentially change society or to be bigger than a community in general needs empowerment. This author puts believing in oneself completely to have that confidence to overcome unjust situations a priority. Another principle could be nonconformity, discovering oneself as an individual is very valid. As continued, “Some individuals are best served by mutual help, helping others, or working for their rights, rather than having their needs fulfilled by a benevolent professional (Gallant, Cohen, & Wolff, 1985).” (Zimmerman 44). Using context from another author, Zimmerman supports his claim of empowerment being efficient and important, rather than having an expert finish their work it is much preferred for someone to personally do their own tasks to fully develop experience as well as offer some help for another. Being useful is of the utmost importance. Self-reliance also ties with empowerment here for there has to be personal gain to nourish one’s brain capacity to be open to do more and be more. The growth of an individual is vital and necessary to find themself effectively. M. A. Zimmerman points out the transcendentalist principle of empowerment to sufficiently address the importance of personal growth and virtue. 

An article on NPR visits the individualistic world as the perspective can give many new ideas applied today. Marsh states, “Although growing prosperity and individualism may bring some societal costs, an inevitable increase in selfishness does not seem to be among them”. selfishness doesn’t necessarily adapt from being individualistic, simply wanting to be unique and wholesome isn’t greedy. this doesn’t mean that having this mindset is completely harmless, awareness of your community and generosity comes hand in hand. if a person was to be a kind individualist there would hardly be any societal costs, a way someone can find themselves and connect with others at the same time. this way a person can truly live extraordinarily and peacefully, the principles of individualism and intuition are facilitating this growth. She adds, “As the researchers reported in the journal Psychological Science, individualism has increased by roughly 12 percent worldwide since 1960. This increase appears to be due mostly to increasing socio-economic development, including higher incomes, more education, urbanization, and a shift toward white-collar jobs”. Since individualism has been more influenced recently, the economy overall has increased. the virtues of individualism being applied more rapidly have proven its purpose, for it was meant to be good in the first place. Every human needs their own space and time alone to develop understanding in their own way without society interfering, so, the charts and journals have shown that being independent and self-reliant could get a person to success all the while discovering themselves along their journey. Individualism can have its troubles but self-reliance and intuition confide in an individual to venture beyond the horizon and help the economy as well as their state of mind.

Frederick Douglass discusses the life experiences that definitely shaped him into the person he became while using self-reliance methods. Frederick says, “I have observed this in my experience of slavery,---that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one” (Douglass 125). Douglass is sharing how as he was under the ownership of Mr. Gardner he was too busy being excited to bring in more money as each week went by that he thought only of it and forgot completely about his freedom. He comes to realize that this is the goal of the slaveholder, to train them as pets so they solely forget about the chance of liberty, for there to be no inconsistencies, so robotic-like that they even allow being a slave to be right. While Douglass was going through this he finds himself at the same time as he thinks more about his human rights. Having this intuition and empowerment to enlighten his thought process away from the trance he was in, Frederick limited himself to how he was going to let other humans control him since he knew his place, his worth, by later planning an escape. Later, Frederick admits, “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed” (Douglass 52). After having his eyes opened to the brutal reality of it all, his twelve-year-old self desired to unread everything he learned and envied the other slaves for their stupidity. Everything came at him all at once and he couldn’t go back to how he was. Douglass couldn’t feel anything after that since he felt like there was nothing else to be known, such a numb feeling. As Douglass goes through these trials at a young age, he discovers his true identity, not the society’s, but his own. With an individualistic mentality, he centers himself through it all, even if the thoughts of wanting to die entered his brain he still persisted to know even more about the truth to blur out all the lies he’s been living with. With this knowledge, he creates a border between his slaveholders, he becomes Frederick Douglass with the help of empowerment. Frederick uses empowerment especially to gain a sense of who he really is and what he is capable of, not something a person can control, only him.

Gaining principles such as individuality and empowerment to flourish one’s mindset to new obstacles is how achieving self-discovery and one's potential is most effectively reached. Empowerment is essential for self-improvement whether it’s easily achieved or not, being independent gives a step closer to discovering who an individual really is. Perhaps isolating themselves from society for a while can assist in focusing on what they need to improve as a person. There can be negativity in individualism but there is nothing wrong with being selfish if used in the right context. Having transcendentalist principles applied to daily life is exclusively meant to refine an individual, not the other way around. With this information collected, changing a perspective to some of these principles has the power to change a life. In this case, an individual comes first before anything, one would need to have the reassurance that they’re strong enough to aid another person, only positive aspects are exempt.

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