Question: What do you understand by the Cultural Revolution that American Scholar is to bring about?
Or, Émerson's ideal of the American Scholar is that he should bring about the Revolution. How should the scholar bring it about?
Or, Emerson thinks that it is time to bring about a revolution. What is this revolution, and who is to bring about it and how?
Answer: By the Cultural Revolution, Emerson means the spiritual regeneration of the American people through the revitalization of their almost passive and slumbering spirit. They have lost their strength of mind, and have been given to hero-worship, neglecting the universal spirit that runs through every man, giving every individual human being an almost equal status with every other individual. The American scholar has to materialize this revolution first by preparing himself and then by spreading the culture of One Man through the people. He should build himself as a free and brave man, put fear behind him, and face danger courageously. The reason is the basis of his self-confidence. The culture of One Man means the idea that one man comprehends the particular natures of all men. (The time for the revolution is also propitious when the dignity of the individual and the power of every man is enormous. Things that were regarded as the low and the common have assumed the proportions of the beautiful and the sublime.
The Cultural Revolution that the American Scholar is to bring about is the one that wakes men out of the false belief and motto of the past. In the past men used to worship a great man. They thought that man would do everything for them. They thought that he was a man of extraordinary power and was the only man to realize their hopes and aspirations. They regarded themselves as the “mass" or “the herd” almost identical to inert things. They were ready to sacrifice everything for that one man. But Emerson's philosophy is quite different. He thinks that every man is potentially great. He has his dignity as a man, and his work is sacred. The upbuilding of such a man is extremely necessary. If such individuals are built up, the Cultural Revolution as Emerson conceives it will happen.
The present age is propitious for the Cultural Revolution. The things which were regarded as the low and the common have assumed the proportions of the beautiful and the sublime. The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, and the meaning of household life are the topics of the day. It is a great development in the history of human society. It is a sign of vigor when the extremes are made active when the currents of warm life run into the hands and feet. The scholar need not ask for the great, the remote, and the romantic. He should embrace the common and explore the familiar and the low. There is no trifle, nothing sordid. One design unites all and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench, This idea has inspired the genius of Goldsmith, Burns, Cowper, Goethe, Wordsworth, and Carlyle. On the other hand, there is Pope, Johnson, and Gibbon whose style looks cold and pedantic. The near explains the far. The drop of water is the epitome of the sea. One man is related to all other men and all things of Nature.
This philosophy of life was advanced by Emanuel Swedenborg. He saw and showed this interconnection between all things. He showed the mysterious bond that allies moral evil with the foul material forms.
Another good sign of the time is the new importance given to the single person. Everything that insulates the individual tends to the true union between things and paves the way for greatness. According to Emerson, the scholar is that man who must take up into himself all "the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be a university of knowledge.” The world is nothing, the man is all. In man there are all the laws of nature, in him slumbers the whole of Reason.
This confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs to the American Scholar. So far the American people have listened to the thinkers of Europe. They have been timid, imitative, indolent and complaisant. The consequence is already tragic. The mind of the people taught to aim at low objects eats upon itself. The young man of Fairest promise is dying of disgust, of suicide. The remedy is: the single man should plant himself indomitably on his instincts and abide there. In that case, the huge world will come round to him. America will then become a nation of men who will exist for the first time because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.
The Cultural Revolution that Emerson aims at in this essay encompasses some stages: the American Scholar has to build himself up as an ideal man, or in other words, as the Man Thinking, or as One Man. He derives benefits from books and from Nature. From the books, he absorbs what is acceptable for his own, and rejects what is irrelevant. He derives his prime influence from nature. By studying nature he discovers the law that there is essential unity behind the apparent diversity of things and that his mind has the same laws as those of Nature because he and Nature proceed from the same source: the soul of the soul. Nature is the counterpart of his soul; he knows so much of Nature as he knows of his own soul. For him “know thyself” and “study nature” become one maxim. The Scholar is not a recluse or a valetudinarian, but a man of action. He has full confidence in himself. He is not misled by popular propaganda. He is a brave and free man. He investigates the nature of danger and controls it.
After building himself as such a man, the American Scholar should spread the idea of the culture-the idea of One Man! Such a One Man comprehends the natures of all men. He is like a central fire which, flaming out of the lips of Etna lightens the capes of Sicily. It is one light that beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates áll. Things are also favorable for such a revolution when proper dignity is being given to an individual, when things, once regarded as low and common, have assumed the proportions of the beautiful and the sublime. If the Cultural Revolution is affected, America will be an ideal nation, bearing the torch for other nations.
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