The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson Essay Example For Students

The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson Essay The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson In the essay the American Scholar, Emerson portrays the scholar as a person who learns from three main things. These things by which a scholar is educated are by nature, by books the past and by action. Emerson uses nature as a comparison to the human mind where he states, There is never a beginning, there is never an end to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.296 The human mind is an object that is boundless and can be full of so much beauty and intellect such as nature can be. Emerson continues to explain how classification begins among the young minds. To the young mind, every thing is individual, stands by itself. We will write a custom essay on The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Emerson presents this idea as a negative effect on the scholar because they seem to continue to break things down trying to find simple answers to complex questions. Man is then convinced that he and it nature proceed from one root; one is leaf and one is flower.296 This thinking of man is the opposite from the truth of the relationship between nature and himself. He shall see that nature is the opposite of the soulà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Its laws are the laws of his own mind.296 According to Emerson, the next influence on the scholar is the mind of the past, where he uses books to convey his ideas. Books are the best things, well used; abused, among the worst.297 Books were originally intended for good. The scholar of the first age, received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again.297 According to Emerson, books can have a negative effect on the way the scholar should think. Instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. 297 Emerson feels that the scholar should learn things for themselves and not easily accept the views and opinions presented by a writer in their books. He further on continues to state how books They look backward and not forward. But genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hind head.298 Emerson thus believes that all men have the capacity of being a genius. Man hopes. Genius creates.298 But, Emerson does not encourage people to be genius because the Genius is always the sufficiently enemy of the genius by over-influence.298 Emerson believes that books are for the scholars idle times298 and the only subjects that he should learn from reading are history and exact science. The action of the scholar is important to Emerson. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet manà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind.299 Emerson wants the scholar to learn but question everything. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power.300 Emerson also places a value on action. The final value  of actionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦is, that it is a resource.301 Through action man has transformed himself into Man Thinking. The mind now thinks; now acts; and each fit reproduces the otherà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦he has always the resource to live.

Free Essays on Jay Leno

Jay Leno, known by many as the king of late night television. But little do they know of the ridiculous steps and missteps that took him to the top. In Jay Leno’s autobiography, Leading With My Chin, Jay analyzes his journey to fame and fortune. He begins with his childhood and the situations that sparked his love for comedy. After reading his book I found myself a bit disappointed. The book was very funny, but it did not contain that â€Å"cut and dry† sense of humor he is known for. It consists mainly of short, humorous episodes about how he works his way up through the ranks as a stand-up comedian. He spends a lot of time conversing about childhood and college mishaps. This bothered me, seeing that mostly adults were reading his book, I don’t think the readers would be interested in his childhood problems or college pranks. Furthermore, he does not convey many personal feelings, does not gossip or put anyone down like Howard Stern. Also, he does not elaborate on his sexual exploits (a few of which he mentions). These are just some of the things I would like to know more about. But he has paid his dues, and deserves to be where he is today. It was a twenty-year struggle to the top, a struggle most people would have given up. Although Jay Leno is probably hands-down one of the funniest comedians in showbiz, I did not think as highly about his book. Yes, there were some parts worth reading about, but there is so much more he could have told us. There is so much more that people wanted to know about. Such as the controversial falling-out with his agent/producer, or his feelings concerning Johnny Carson. If you ask me, this book was not worth the thirteen dollars I paid for it. But the odd thing is that after reading his book, I do not feel any different about him, or his work, and I will continue to watch his show. I guess the visual portion of entertainment had a stronger influence than the text did.... Free Essays on Jay Leno Free Essays on Jay Leno Jay Leno, known by many as the king of late night television. But little do they know of the ridiculous steps and missteps that took him to the top. In Jay Leno’s autobiography, Leading With My Chin, Jay analyzes his journey to fame and fortune. He begins with his childhood and the situations that sparked his love for comedy. After reading his book I found myself a bit disappointed. The book was very funny, but it did not contain that â€Å"cut and dry† sense of humor he is known for. It consists mainly of short, humorous episodes about how he works his way up through the ranks as a stand-up comedian. He spends a lot of time conversing about childhood and college mishaps. This bothered me, seeing that mostly adults were reading his book, I don’t think the readers would be interested in his childhood problems or college pranks. Furthermore, he does not convey many personal feelings, does not gossip or put anyone down like Howard Stern. Also, he does not elaborate on his sexual exploits (a few of which he mentions). These are just some of the things I would like to know more about. But he has paid his dues, and deserves to be where he is today. It was a twenty-year struggle to the top, a struggle most people would have given up. Although Jay Leno is probably hands-down one of the funniest comedians in showbiz, I did not think as highly about his book. Yes, there were some parts worth reading about, but there is so much more he could have told us. There is so much more that people wanted to know about. Such as the controversial falling-out with his agent/producer, or his feelings concerning Johnny Carson. If you ask me, this book was not worth the thirteen dollars I paid for it. But the odd thing is that after reading his book, I do not feel any different about him, or his work, and I will continue to watch his show. I guess the visual portion of entertainment had a stronger influence than the text did....

Can we still refer to the public sphere Use examples to suggest how Essay

Can we still refer to the public sphere Use examples to suggest how realistic or idealistic this notion is with regards to jour - Essay Example It becomes a focal point of our yearning for the good society, the institutional sites where popular political will should take form and citizens should be able to comprise themselves as active agents in the political process. democratic character and consequently in a sense the most instantly visible indicator of our admittedly flawed democracies (Hallin, Daniel C, 1994). The notion of the public sphere can be used in a very general as well as common-sense manner, as, for instance, a synonym for the processes of public view or for the news media themselves. In its more ambitious appearance, however, as it was developed by Jurgen Habermas (1993), the public sphere ought to be understood as an analytic class, a conceptual device which, while pointing to a definite social occurrence can also help us in analyzing and researching the experience. For Habermas, the idea of the bourgeois public sphere indicates a specific social space, which arose under the development of capitalism in West ern Europe. As an analytic category, the bourgeois public sphere comprises a vibrant nexus which links various actors, factors as well as contexts together in a consistent theoretic framework. So why should we listen to a philosopher, even one so distinguished as Richard Rorty, who still believes in a democratic role for journalism— at least, why should we listen in any frame of mind other than one of ironic knowingness about the fate of philosophy in the real world? (Hall, 1982) â€Å"I think that contemporary liberal society already contains the institutions for its own improvement,† Rorty wrote in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. â€Å"Indeed, my hunch is that Western social and political thought may have had the last conceptual revolution it needs. s private lives alone and preventing suffering† while â€Å"discoveries about who is being made to suffer can be left to the workings of a free press, free universities, and enlightened public opinion. t we di smiss in an especially derisive tone of ironic knowingness any such vision of intellectual history at its end? Rorty, it turns out, has anticipated and subverted our irony with irony of his own. An ultimate ironist, according to Rorty, knows that even if liberal democracy has had the last conceptual revolution it needs, it has not had the last revolution possible. That is because a world in which democracy is fully realized is a world constituted and maintained by a particular language—a language that enables its citizens to articulate their loathing of injustice as well as their love of liberty. The ultimate ironist also knows that such a world can never be entirely secure because its language is a contingent rather than necessary development in human history. Anything, including both suffering and freedom, can be â€Å"made to look good or bad, important or unimportant, useful or useless, by being re-described.† Thus the ultimate ironist lives with the terrible reali zation that, whenever language hostile to justice or liberty is spoken by the adversaries of democratic values, no ultimate philosophical weapon—no knowledge of what is fundamentally real and no vision of what is truly human—is available to the defenders of democratic values. The defenders can only exercise, and strive to enhance, the descriptive and persuasive powers of their moral language (Glasser, 1998). S position on the