Monthly Archives: February 2019

Back To Nature

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Humanity has an internal struggle of wanting more and becoming better but with this upwards struggle to attain “greatness”, we as a society have drifted apart from each other and our own selves. Looking at this dilemma historically, the mirror was a huge discovery that turned our world upside down. Imagine a world where you have no idea what you look like. Now imagine the first time you looked at a mirror and saw yourself. The mirror created a separation within ourselves, an inner versus outer self. The outer was for the world to see while the inner was something that was heavily altered by the thoughts and opinions of others. Mirrors heavily changed our relationship within ourselves but also created a society of image obsessed individuals. The reason I brought up mirrors while in discussion of “Nature” by R.W Emerson is because I believe that the problem that Emerson wants to fix is our society and how lost we have become.

R.W Emerson argues that we should not learn from books or from others but rather LOOK and learn for ourselves. “…We, through their eyes” we are taught by others but in the end we are shown only what they want us to see. Books are written by people and they are certain biases that can be added and there can be a lot of information left out. Emerson alludes to the idea that we should all retreat back to nature. “In the woods, is perpetual youth…In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. Nature is our escape from the world of others and others ideas of ourselves. Even though this piece was written in the late 1800s, the idea of returning to nature is still valid in this time period. We are obsessed with other people’s opinions and thoughts and all we care about is how we are looked at by others. We are all narcissists that only see what we wanna see and learn what others put in front of us. Nature is where it all began, it is the most peaceful and untouched place there is. Emerson in a way is warning us of a future of mindless people with no original thoughts or ideas. Emerson questions books and ideas by asking, “why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?” Emerson in my opinion wants us to look back of how things were before too much human interruptions and see the beauty and tranquility of nature. Seeing is believing and we have look into nature for help.

Nature V. Human

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There are many people don’t realize the most precious creation that has been given to them. Nature. Nature is wonderful and most importantly beautiful in many ways. In R.W. Emerson’s Nature he discusses how people live their lives away from nature. While being away from nature we absorb everything that society says is correct and completely miss the best thing that is just outside of the door and we lose sight to what created most of the things that we use today. Where does the paper that has many stories on come from? From the trees, Nature. As humans we make assumptions on how nature affects us, but since we don’t open our eyes fully, we can see the true beauty of nature. If we open our eyes to what nature has to offer us, we can see that as Du Bois expresses, “Nature never wears a mean appearance.” If one truly opens their eyes without thinking about what society says about nature, we can fully capture what beautiful creation that is right in front of us.
In Du bois’ The Souls of Black Folks, Du Bois discusses the way black and white men are seen. As a little boy, Dubois doesn’t see color but as Du bois becomes older, he notices the way that black men are treated compared to white men. Now that Du Bois understands the differences between the two colors of men, Du Bois questions God, “Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?”. At this point Du Bois doesn’t even feel as home where home is. Du Bois now sees everything around him with new eyes, the eyes of the people and not the eyes of purity.

Both R.W. Emerson’s Nature and W.E.B Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk have no relation but we can clearly see that both texts are discussing the same topic, Creation. Emeron and Du Bois both discuss the views that we as humans have on creation. Although there are many reasons why we view creation a certain way, one of the many reasons why we see creation a certain way is because of the corruption of society. When looking back to both of these text, if we don’t listen to the way everyone else around us think, our view on the true creation will always be pure. Emerson expresses “We must trust perfection of the creation so far…”, although both texts are different they are similar in which creation is made to perfection and we must trust in creation for society does not create who we are or what nature is.

Black Dreams Through White Tinted Glasses 

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The fight for true freedom for black Americans, as seen in W.E.B. Du Bois’s collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, runs as deep as the “bois,” or the forest. Du Bois’s essay, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” shows that the milestones that African Americans believed would end prejudice and make them successful were based on the rights and lives of white American men. The Souls of Black Folk argues that black Americans will achieve the most success by combining their freedom from bonds, political power, and education. The essay limits itself by drawing on this point and not focusing on strategies that black Americans can take to be successful in ways that the white male race never has, and to enrich the country with what their community has to offer.  

Du Bois argues in his essay that African Americans error of ways is ultimately their ignorance, because they believed all prejudice faced only came from one source. In their stride for a better life, they sought to achieve the same standing as white men, and looked no further than that. Du Bois writes: 

the American Negro… thought… slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies… sorrow, the root of all prejudice… the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land… As the time flew, however, he began to grasp…The idea of liberty… Had not votes made war and emancipated millions? Had not votes made war and emancipated millions? Had not votes enfranchised the freedmen? Was anything impossible to a power that had done all this (5-6)? 

African Americans based their idea of happiness on the rights that were not afforded to them, but afforded to white men. African Americans were let down by a lack of equality and happiness after emancipation. Post emancipation, they engulfed themselves in the idea of liberty – a right which only white men had at the time. Black Americans became enticed by the power that white men had with the vote, so pursed liberation, thinking that would fix their problems. However, as Du Bois writes, this right, nor emancipation, gave black Americans the gratification and truly free lives they deserved.  

De Bois implies that African Americans continued to think that the pursuit of happiness and the end of prejudice meant matching their lives and privileges to those of white men. After 1876, De Bois writes that, “a new vision began gradually to replace the dream of political power… the ideal of ‘book-learning’; the curiosity… to know… the power of the cabalistic letters of the white man” (6). Black Americans yearned for education, but they only defined “education” by how white men were educated and what they knew. 

Perhaps a greater issue that impedes African Americans from succeeding in this country is that from the dream of emancipation African Americans have only reached for what white men have and stopped there. While Du Bois’s essay has the power to make any black person or other minority in America feel inspired, he provides no course of action for them to follow his thesis, which argues, “Work, culture, liberty,—all these we need… together… all striving toward…fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro…in order that some day on American soil two world-races may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack” (8). But how can African Americans provide a unique contribution to their country when their idea of success and freedom is what the privileged race has already accomplished? What are the African American community’s “traits and talents,” and how does one share them with the world?  

Du Bois does not answer these questions in his essay. Andi Sauer writes in his blog post, “Emerson Calls, Du Bois Answers,” about the racial veil mentioned in the essay that blocked Du Bois throughout his life. Sauer states, “It is most clear in his writings that Du Bois is not able to gain full access to the world around him, and the freedoms it offers, from beyond this veil.” It’s possible that this racial veil is not just a physical impediment, but also obscures Du Bois and other black persons in America from the freedom to imagine how the black community can have an impact of the world and see past the goal of becoming white in their accomplishments and rights. Du Bois cannot answer these questions because he himself is veiled from their answers.  

“Of Our Spiritual Strivings” indirectly comments that African Americans have always tied their dream of true freedom, equality, and happiness to how white American men live; Du Bois does not tell his reader how the community can overcome this impediment and combine their privileges to benefit themselves and the country. Du Bois lays a foreground for ending prejudice that will never be actualized if it is impossible to remove the racial veil and years of prejudice which blocks him and others from seeing the distinct impact that African Americans can make. To follow Du Bois’s plan to reach equality one must remove the veil. To remove the veil one must end the inequality that causes the racial veil to exist. It’s unclear how the country can ever racially progress when the steps to equality form a circle instead of a straight line.

Identity

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Tahra Jirari

 

   In both pieces of writings by R.W Emerson and Zora Neale Hurston, in their own way they both touch on their own ideas of identity and what does and does not contribute to it. However in order to be able to understand these separate pieces of writings and compare them, we must first understand the writings of Emerson that derive from a white man who has most likely experienced a life of privilege, and the story that Hurston tells as a female minority.

 

 Hurston begins her story with the strong statement that we may believe will outline the entirety of the article with “I AM COLORED ME” yet juxtaposes a negative conjunction right after to almost stimulate the statement itself. These capitalizations continue as she tells her story of being a ‘negro’ in a ‘negro town’, but develop into “BUT I AM NOT”  to “SOMETIMES IT IS” to conclude with “AT CERTAIN TIMES”. This portrays character development where she follows her last statement with “I have no race, I am me”. Zora has lived a life where she longs to be nothing but Zora and undoubtedly thought she was just that until she was thrown in a world with those with a  lighter shade of skin are able to live a completely different life than her for that same exact reason. Hurston realizes however that her race does not define her and should never limit the endless possibilities she may be able to contain, the mere physicalities of her skin compare to nothing when she finds herself in her element and music. She belongs to nothing and should not have to identify or categorize as anything that will diminish this cosmic state of mind.

 

  Emerson in Nature once he has become so completely engulfed in nature finds that there is no bounty able to class him. Racism, sexism or any classist feature of society can outwardly affect him, he has created his new identity, that can fit any humanly nature. “The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances,—master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance.” The simple  mundane attributes of life are now one of no importance, he believes to have been promoted to a self that is no longer human but one that can be labeled as the “transparent eye”. This is something we have all touched on as children having not yet been affected by the trivial aspects of life that affect us as an adult, to finally achieve now, knowing what truly matters, a greater sense of the soul that only nature can grant.This higher sense of power is relatable to the one Hurston enjoys when she becomes embraced with music, despite these authors physical differences, once they have both reached a point where they find inner peace within themselves, they feel able to break all of the restrictions that society forces down on them and place themselves within no category.

Reality v. Nature

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Both of these texts are in no relation to each other and one would wonder where exactly the connection is here but it’s to look at each differently and understand that both authors aren’t exploring the same topic directly.

For Du Bois in “The Souls of Black Folk”, he seems to get straight to the point with his views and is very direct about it, his message addresses issues that he feels were very relevant to black people and the effects of the experiences they endured. Throughout the text Du Bois emphasises the experience of being black in a nation that is partitioned by colour, he elaborated this by touching on what it means to live with two conflicting identities that are unable to unite, instead one has to give way to the other, he coined this “Double consciousness”. He further touched on the experience of the black identity whereby the double consciousness works with “the veil” to conceal the African American identity and forces them to live behind a veil. Describing how life behind the veil is and the thought that it isn’t expected for white people to truly grasp the struggles of the black folks and just to dare imagine or explore what they might have endured during slavery and after. For Du Bois the experiences are overwhelming and the moments are repetitive, he describes trying to escape the reality and he is reminded and restricted by the veil.

The feeling of freedom which Emmerson describes in “Nature” doesn’t exactly match neither does it correlate to Du Bois’s explanation or idea of reality for the black people, it is important to mention both texts aren’t direct replies to the other, they are simply analysed together to explore different experiences and understanding. In “Nature” Emmerson praises individualism and is all for the idea that every man is in charge of himself and makes the connection between spirit of nature and that of man, suggesting that man is in charge of his mind and should be able to differentiate its components when necessary. Emmerson’s idea of wholeness and belief that with nature all is better seems to be a temporary feeling if compared to Du Bois’s. There isn’t a place to lodge the idea of entangling with nature and becoming free for the black people in Du Bois’s text, it is difficult to imagine when exactly it would be possible for the black people that are already enduring the struggles of living a double life and having to be conscious of how the world views them compared to how they view themselves, to consider a break from all of that in order to embrace an unrealistic freedom from nature, I’ll think that would sound rather complicated. Their situation is their reality so the thought of nature and the freedom merging together wouldn’t exactly be realistic, I struggle to place it. For Emmerson that belief would be perfectly fine and relevant but relating it or suggesting the relevance to people who are trying to find ways to escape their reality, I would believe that argument seems quite unequal.