Thoreau's "Resistance to a Civil Government"

        So far Thoreau seems a bit more clear cut than Emerson, and his views are portrayed in such a way that it isn't overly difficult to read. His most basic stance on civil government is that the best kind is nothing; he believed that the pinnacle of a government is having the least amount of interference as possible in the lives of the citizens. He was virtually an anarchist. However, Thoreau was smart enough to know not to try to push for a radical anarchist shift in the government. He knew that the country just was not ready for it yet.
        Also, the other primary point that I saw as I looked over this was his opinion on your responsibility as an American. He actually summed up the common American quite accurately; He said that unless we are sure of being a part of the majority, we will not express out opinions about certain matters. The example that he used was with the American voting system. He basically stated that Americans will not vote for a belief of theirs as long as they feel that they will be defeated. They won't leave their feeling of security. At this moment, these are the only two primary ideas that I see, If there are some that I'm missing, just let me know in the comments

Emerson's "American Scholar" 10/17/10

        I'm oging to do kind of a mixture of a question/opinion blog. So opinion first. I think I've got the first half of this thing down; I'm good with pretty much everything that we talked about in class. The influences are good, and I understand the matter of action being both an influence and a responsibility pretty well. So that just leaves the end of he speech. I find it to be, if I understand it correctly, the most interesting part of the speech.
        Emerson says, "Man is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far." This idea is a bit profound. I think Emerson is saying "look dimwits, you need to openyour eyes and realize that what you need to be working on is right in front of your face. Stop overthinking things. You can see your destiny right on your doorstep." Perhaps a bit more eloquently from his lips than mine of course, but that's the general idea. i think this is the first time that he has actually addressed the scholar on what they should be doing, aside from the responsibilities of course. Now, at the end of his speech, Emerson makes his point known.
        There is another quote that I find interesting though that I don't quite understand. "Is it so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would we be blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and drink truth dry?" I seems a significant passage, but I would appreciate it if we could go over it in class tomorrow.

Emerson's "American Scholar" 10/15/10

So in class we discussed the first of the two responsibities, which in many ways, is like the last of the three influences. While action is an influence on scholars, it is also a reponsibilty for them to take seriously. A scholar cannot sit around and just look at what others are doing, and can likewise he cannot be content to "parrot" the work of others. He must be willing to produce his own work, and trailblaze ahead for the rest of manhind. By sitting on his butt, the scholar is really just a completee waste to the human species, for it is his responsibility as a scholar to be the Man Thinking, and lead the rest of the world to its full potential.

Emerson's "The American Scholar" 10/13/10

Yesterday in class, the whole goal was to delve a a bit deeper into the "influences" that Emerson discusses in regards to the American scholar, and what the stand for. The firs two are pretty simple. Nature is all around us. Everything that humans work toward, all the sciences that humans treasure so much, can all be classified in terms of nature. It really represents all of the world around us, an obvious influence on scholars. The minds of the past is the second great influence on the American scholar. Those who came before us all worked towards the enlightenment of our species, and they left their legacy in the hands of generations to come later: that would be us. The third influence is the hardest and most difficult to understand. It's action. Action as an influence can be most easily described as the expectation of other great minds around you to  add to the wealth of knowledge of the human species. Just about the worst type of person to Emerson was one who, though completely capable, sat there and didn't contribute to society.

Emerson's "The American Scholar" 10/11/10

     Today in class you had us read over the first couple paragraphs of this essay by Emerson, and though the process was slow going, and it took a little bit of work outside of class to understand what in the world he was talking about. But alas, this is what I've got. Emerson is delivering a speech to a large group of scholars at a college. His start by telling a story, a "fable" he calls it, about how, at one point in time, all of humanity had been able to work together, all contributing to the greater good. However, when different people limit their focus and do only what they do (i.e. farmer, mechanic, etc.), they limit the capabilities of humanity as a whole. He points out the very scholars in front of him as the "man thinking," a state where the scholars can make true progress, and not just "parrot" the conclusions of others.
     The part from I to II is a bit more difficult. It seems to stress the importance of nature to the scholars. And how nature can be used by the scholars to make true progress in the world. Emerson lists certain examples of this, such as how he use of geometry in the aspect of nature can reveal the measure of planetary motion. Without a clear grasp on nature and what it means in the world of science, scholars are really nothing important, for they can make no more progress than what has been discovered before them. Now nature isn't the only important thing, but it is significant to say that Emerson specifically decided to use it first.

Oh the poor Indians

It seems to me that Indians had a terrible life, and the white men were horrible, horrible people. However, it seems to me that Apess and Occom have some different outlooks on the matter. Apess takes a strong defiant stand. Two quotes that really jumped out at me were "I'll venture to say, these very characters who hold the skin to be such a barrier in the way, would be the first to cry out, injustice!  awful injustice!" and "And you know as well as I that you are not indebted to a principle beneath a white skin for your religious services, but to a colored one." The first of these I found significant because it is the most blatant, straightforward punch to the white man's dignity that I could find in this essay. I almost envision that little kid who always complains about the other kid cheating at a game when he clearly isn't, and then cheating himself to try to win, but still failing to the other non-cheating kid and pitching a temper tantrum. The second was interesting because it was basically a slap to the face of the white man. The idea that Jesus, who they claim that they are doing everything for, wasn't white either, but a colored man. The sheer hypocrisy of the whites makes you a bit queasy. Occum, however, was different. I see Occum as being that annoying little nerd in the school yard who always got pushed around, never caring to put up a fight, and then told people how much he was going to beat up his tormentors the next time he saw them, but of course not. His writing is not as angry as Apess's by any stretch of the imagination, but it still succeeds in proving the whites to be selfish, self-righteous jerks. They pushed him around for all of Occum's life, and never until the end did Occum complain about how whites doing the exact same job as he were getting paid ten times more, and how he had to spend his whoe life living off of all his own work, and how no one would give him a break. Boo hoo. He was such a pushover. Regardless, his writing still manages to very successfully prove the same flaws of the white men as outlined in Apess's work.