Self-Reliance, an Aversion to Conformity by Susana

Life is about choices. We choose our friends, our clothes, our cars, our houses, our careers, and our religion. But do we really make our choices or does society chooses for us? According to Ralph Waldo Emerson in one of his works, “Self Reliance” We let society influence our lives and choose for us, burying ourselves and our identity in a deep hole of conformism. Emerson criticized traditions, organized religions, mediocrity, and people who lacked originality because these behaviors mirror a conformist society. As Emerson thinks, “Our house keeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religions we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us” (1175). In other words, one of the things we conform to is religion which is not a choice, but an imposition.
Religions are passed from generations to generations as children who are born without religion are obligated to follow their parent’s religion. Although Emerson was not an atheist, he had a problem with organized religion. The preaching of ideas and interpretations from the Bible that were introduced into people’s minds, did not appeal to him. “I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching” (1173). The peacefulness a person can feel in a silent church allows him or her to be with their own thoughts as opposed to acquiring or accepting somebody else’s religious beliefs or ideals.
The rejection of doctrines; ideals that forced people to follow and believe, might have cost him some infamy and criticism from individuals who did not shared his point of view. Among the beliefs he discarded is the doctrine of original sin, a Puritan belief in which all humankind is born guilty of a sin they did not commit. Emerson believed that we are responsible for our own faults, not somebody else’s. “Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our heart, or are said to have the same blood?” (1173). This thought reflects the idea that people do not have to conform to what one person’s interpretation of truth is.
Believing somebody else’s truths or adopting other’s perspectives and ideas is like being nobody. Emerson states that by following others, we make ourselves invisible comparing us to a shadow that has no soul, “He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall” (1168). In today’s society, we still see many ways and things to which people conform to. A good example is fashion among men or women. The media bombards us with pictures and images of super models who are beautiful and many of them seem abnormally thin. Fashion parades across the world, depict slim women. Usually, the female protagonist of a movie is thin and beautiful. The media instills that slim is beauty. Many young females have accepted this idea. Therefore, they sacrifice themselves through bulimia or anorexia in order to be like the women portrayed in the media, denying their own selves, rejecting originality and conforming to what fashion dictates as having a perfect body. Emerson calls us to rely on our own ideas. He calls us to find our own truths and to be ourselves.





BIBLIOGRAPHY
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance.” The Norton Anthology American Literature.
Ed. Nina Baym. 7th ed. Vol. B. New York: Norton, 2007. 1168-1175.