West on Emerson

A. Power (and Tradition)

1. Emerson's conception of power ("rapacious individualism, relentless expansionism")

• multi-leveled (encompasses powers of the nation, the economy, the person, tradition. and language)
• celebrates the possession, use and expansion of certain kinds of power
• relates a mythic self with the land of America

2. Emerson's obsession with sight and vision (the "transparent eyeball")

• promotes separateness, detachment, individuality, over solidarity, association, and collective action
• disassociates vision from politics, sociality and materiality

3. Emerson's version of the "myth of the frontier"

• cuts geographical and cultural discourse into two: metropolis/ civilization, wilderness/ savagery

• associates progress in America with emigration out from metropolis, BECAUSE the frontier's open, pure, abundant spaces will have a transformative effect

4. Emerson's guilt about inactivity

• his nature as a solitary, contemplative person
• he wanted the best of two worlds: bourgeois prestige and solitary contemplation; blinded to misery of working people, like Irish
• His mysticism is missing key to lack of activism

---

Back (West's Chapter on Emerson)