American Nietzsche: Emerson

Ralph Emerson(1803-1882)certainly isn’t a reference for the night reading, because is low known and his think, above all today, can be very noise, because he as Nietzsche(1844-1900), he says the truth, he describes the our behaviors and he shows our hypocrisies, and he opposed to this hypocrisy the truth of speculation, speculative examination of our conduct, he says: “Instead, I don’t desire expire but to life. The my life isn’t an apologize; it is my life. I live for myself, and no for to give the show of my existence, I prefer that it is a tenor more modest so that it is homogeneous and natural. I would it sorrowful and sweet, of dolor and joy of wealth low curing; for it would be equilibrated, and everything enclosed: charity, conquer, hygiene…”; it is the new vision of the life that evidently Emerson have to live, the imposition of rules of society that he refused. The explication to these words is in the following step: “The virtue in the popular opinion  are the exception rather than the rule…The men make the good actions for to give a proof of their courage and their charity; and it is often, as they were condemned to pay a penitence, for to expire the not daily appearance to some function…”; it is the description of hypocrisy in the society that today is valid; but it is also the concept that Nietzsche has expressed; he in the his book, So said Zarathustra, he has explained, although through the allusions the concept of superman, this is the man that is came out from the common hypocrisy and has said the truth. Other step is very indicative: “The my duty and not the common opinion of men: it is regard me…”; it is the truth that Emerson has said about the society that he has lived. The proof of this think and opinion is in the following step: “To be conform to customs that for you there aren’t, it is the motive for the dispersion of your force; you waste so your time and delete you character…”, he describes the customs that in his society were normal, and: “The man should know how the uselessness this play of conformity”. The pitiless description continues: “After this servile conformity, other motive that remove us from the faith to ourselves  ids the persistence , it is the respect for our actions and for the past our words: other men haven’t other motive, beyond the our actions, we would go desolate and disabused. But why do you bring on the shoulders a head again thinking? And why do you bring this heap of your memory, for the fair of contradict some opinion that you have said in this or other town?”; we can consider that it isn’t virtue but alone coherence, but that Emerson sees alone as a custom of his society, where the morality and the image were everything. Regard not understanding, he says: “It is so very bad not be understanding? Pythagoras not was understanding, neither Socrates, neither Jesus, neither Luther…”; may this reference to so great personages we can think that Emerson wanted refer also to herself, because this think about the morality was very strange for the 19^th century; hence an auto reference is certainly.

Alessandro Lusana