Emerson: Create New Ideas

According to the Writers Almanac:  It was on this day in 1837 that Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a speech entitled “The American Scholar” to the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard University. …. (It) was the first time he explained his transcendentalist philosophy in front of a large public audience. He said that scholars had become too obsessed with ideas of the past, that they were bookworms rather than thinkers. He told the audience to break from the past, to pay attention to the present, and to create their own new, unique ideas.

Almost two centuries later, we see that Emerson’s ideas are extremely well-represented in society today; innovation is the very hallmark of our modern world.  In fact, it is our dogged attachment to old ideas that jeopardizes the entirety of humankind, in particular, our belief that we have an unlimited right to consume as much of our natural resources as we wish, regardless of the effects on posterity.

Since Emerson’s day, we’ve replaced a great number of bad, old ideas with good, new ones:  the abolition of slavery, civil rights, rule of law, international justice etc.  Now if we can just realize that we have a responsibility to future generations, we’ll be in good shape.