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<\/a>One hundred, seventy years ago on this day, Ralph Waldo Emerson presented a paper to the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard College. It was a very important and at the same time flawed presentation.<\/p>\nOliver Wendel Holmes would designate it \u201cAmerica\u2019s intellectual declaration of independence.\u201d Which is probably not overstating the matter by a great deal. Up until this time, roughly, American intellectuals looked to Europe for inspiration.<\/p>\n
Here Emerson outlined some central themes of the Transcendentalist position, a philosophical and spiritual perspective flowering within New England\u2019s Unitarian communities. In some ways Transcendentalism could be seen as a first \u201cworld philosophical perspective,\u201d as it followed closely upon the first English language publication of various spiritual texts from Asian sources, primarily Hindu and Buddhist<\/a>.<\/p>\n Unfortunately in the essay Emerson used \u201cwomen\u201d as a category against which he presented his \u201cman thinking.\u201d This more than unfortunate usage mars the work.<\/p>\n But if we can forgive time and place and the fact no human is ever right on in every regard, particularly in the harsh light of historical perspective, Emerson\u2019s essay was something important.<\/p>\n