Individualism is a common stereotype of American philosophy as is, paradoxically, the priority of the community and pro-social action. John Stuhr asserts that “for the classical American philosophers, existence is social in a deeper, ontologically more important sense as well: the individual is intrinsically constituted by and in his or her social relations; the self is fundamentally a social self” (Stuhr 10-11). I will examine the degree to which the community and the individual, which are often in tension, are central to the American philosophers Anne Bradstreet and Ralph Waldo Emerson respectively. I argue that Bradstreet’s emphasis on the community as the center of moral goals reflects her position as a woman and mother, whereas Emerson’s white male privilege and racist theories about who personhood includes allows him to prioritize the individual above all else. 

 

Anne Bradstreet imbues the feminine and the maternal in “Meditations Divine and Moral,” a work dedicated to Simon Bradstreet, one of her six children (Bradstreet 37). Bradstreet acknowledges that “parents perpetuate their lives in their posterity and in their manners,” which is especially true for women as moral leaders of the house (37), and this feminine reality is foundational interpreting her work (37). In her “aphoristic essay,” Bradstreet focuses on pragmatic virtues using scenes of daily life like the home and the hearth, underscoring a simple, pious life (35, 41). Human relationships are also central themes and subjects of imagery in her work, whether they be aiding another when sick, recognizing the danger of slander, or upholding the necessity of loyalty in the town community (49, 44, 40). This sense of the individual acting for the benefit of others parallels Bradstreet’s maternal perspective as caretaker and mediator of the family community. Her meditations often explicitly focus on the importance of attentive and pluralistic parenting; for instance, “diverse children have their different natures [...] Those parents are wise that can fit their nurture according to their nature” (39). The upbringing of a child as the ultimate moral model signifies the extent to which our pro-social action is key to Bradstreet’s conception of ethical citizenship and wisdom. 

 

For Bradstreet, the individual’s subordination to the community reflects an ethical obligation. The individual’s ethical responsibility is “judged in terms of a community of action, each individual contributing what each especially has in accordance with the concrete needs of that chosen community” (Bradstreet 34). The best illustration of our obligations to others is encapsulated by Meditation 77:

God hath by his providence so ordered that no one country hath all commodities within itself, but what it wants another shall supply that so there may be a mutual commerce through the world. As it is with countries so it is with men; there was never yet any one man that had all excellences, let his parts natural and acquired, spiritual and moral, been ever so large, yet he stands in need of something which another man hath (perhaps meaner than himself) which shows us perfection is not below, as also that God will have us beholden one to another. (Bradstreet, “Meditations,” 57)

Each individual is imperfect and is thus in dire need of the support of others to refine his or her spiritual and moral abilities. This recognition of diverse individual talents and God-given abilities mimics Bradstreet’s understanding of her maternal role, which involves owning land, social capital, and material items due to her husband’s position as a man. Further, her role as moral instructor for the children leads her to believe that the improvement and development of a child’s morality must be directly under the guidance of someone wiser, which is herself in this example.

 

In some cases, Bradstreet speaks of individual responsibility without direct reference to the good of the community. However, the community as a whole is still more ethically fundamental than the individual. Bradstreet claims, “he that walks among briars and thorns will be very careful where he sets his foot, and he that passes through the wilderness of this world had need ponder all his steps” (42). Also, “There is no object that we see, no action that we do, no good that we enjoy, no evil that we feel or fear, but we may make some spiritual advantage of all; and he that makes such an improvement is wise as well as pious” (38). From these meditations, it is clear that the individual has an ethical responsibility, imploring him or her to make careful decisions and transform all that he or she experiences into ethical growth. Bradstreet’s recognition of the power of the individual to improve their condition and ethical nature is not at odds with her conception of the community as central to morality. Each community member has moral obligations to himself for the greater purpose of sustaining and improving the entire group.

 

Unlike Bradstreet, the individual for Ralph Waldo Emerson is beholden only to himself. Emerson frames individuality as central to obtaining accurate knowledge and living a good life through his principles of self-reliance and self-trust. In “Self-Reliance,” Emerson proclaims that individuals must strive for authentic lives through the hard work of continuously “trust[ing] thyself” (3). He states, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost” (2). In order to attain knowledge, one only needs himself and a dedication to his thoughts at all times (19). According to Emerson, “a man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages,” and recognize that new perceptions frequently arise in one’s mind; thus, he must always disregard the old for the new (2, 14). By letting his thoughts come into his mind, man brings himself inner peace, for “nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles” (26). Emerson’s philosophy about relying on the self is critical to living a good life.

 

The individual is central to Emerson because of how he thinks acquiring knowledge works, which is through the “primary wisdom” of perception and intuition (12). Intuition “is the fountain of action and of thought. [..] We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams” (12). Because the divine imbues individuals with the infallible, “fatal” power to perceive, he can intuit perfect knowledge; Emerson states “the relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure” (13). This perceived knowledge without any further confirmation is so potent and clear and trustworthy that a “perception of it is as much a fact as the sun” (13). Intuiting knowledge requires concentration on individual perception, requiring solitude even amidst a crowd (6). In fact, all communities in society inspire conformity to false ideas, undermining the individual’s integral mind, liberty, and culture (7, 4).

 

Unlike Bradstreet, Emerson thinks the individual is the best moral and intellectual educator of his or herself. The Emersonian virtue of honor is venerated, “because it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person” (10). Notably, “God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm [..] Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary” (3). If youth are powerful without any aid at all, not even that of parents, and they are to “to[ss] the laws, the books, idolatries, and customs out of the window” then there is no need for Bradstreet’s maternal wisdom, centrality of community, and outward looking virtue (19). Rather than crying to a friend for company, the way to educate others for Emerson is to “pu[t] them once more in communication with their own reason” (20). Bradstreet is not opposed entirely to the idea of self-trust when it comes to the moral, for she too claims that there is a link between the divine and the soul through the conscience, “for, if our conscience condemn us, he also who is greater than our conscience will do it much more, but he that would have boldness to go to the throne of grace to be accepted there must be sure to carry a certificate from the court of conscience that he stands right there” (52). For Bradstreet, relying on the self is a factor in moral judgments, but the object is to look outward and help others, also significantly relying on their guidance to obtain moral abilities. Unlike Emerson’s views, the bid to “hold fast the form of sound doctrine” is fundamental for Bradstreet (47).

 

Emerson’s self-reliance expresses a coldness for others, hinting at the privileged white male status underlying his philosophy. For instance, Emerson questions, “Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood” (16). Here, taking on responsibility for others is unnecessary from his perspective. The family values of Bradstreet evaporate in Emerson’s presence, for the needs of others are “emphatic trifles,” whereas for Bradstreet, her familial obligations as a wife and mother are crucial to the success of her family (16). Emerson adds, “Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, — 'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act” (16). Although for Emerson, “No man can come near me but through my act,” this is unrealistic for people like women and people of color, who must remain cognizant of the role of others and how it affects their status and own social role and freedom. For Emerson, it is necessary and feasible that the individual shuns others that do not fit with his “new” and “unprecedented way” that the individual must act in order to be him or herself, casting them aside as extraneous and harmful to the “eternal law” of self-reliance (17). Yet, casting others aside is much easier for a white male than it is for other less privileged community members.

 

While Emerson is not concerned with community, he is concerned with elevating America on the world stage, which parasitically “listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe” (“American Scholar” 23; West 13). Emerson’s “indi­vidualism pertains not simply to discrete individuals but, more important, to a normative and exhortative conception of the individual as America” (12-13). Thus, self-reliant intellectuals gaining wisdom in America, refusing to be complacent with the old ways replaces the images of the “timid, imitative, tame” American scholar with an “exceptional individuals qua America can overcome all obstacles, solve all problems, go beyond all limitations” (16; “American Scholar” 23; West 14). Now America, “He is the world's eye. He is the world's heart” (“American Scholar” 19). Rather than a genuine concern for the community, Emerson is concerned with the reputation of America, which is hypocritical as he admonishes individuals to pay no concern to the opinions and affairs of society. He only cares for satisfying a “postcolonial yet imperialist America's need for collective self-defini­tion [that] prompted his own civil religion of self-reliance and self-trust” (West 38). The American scholar has special responsibility as a dedicated intellectual to elevate America (“American Scholar” 13).

 

Emerson’s plea for American individualism confirms that his philosophy is for a niche audience: the white, North Atlantic, “educated middle classes and enlightened business elites of his day” (West 40). Members of this group are “the individual” in possession of “individual conscience” (28, 40). Emerson is first and foremost concerned with people who possess a certain socioeconomic privilege in order to partake in all necessary actions to get the “richest return of wisdom” (“American Scholar” 17). Cornel West argues that the concept of the American individual “cannot but be shot through with certain xenophobic sensibilities and racist perceptions of the time” beyond the fact that Emerson was racist (West 30). Emerson’s perception of who an individual person is depends on his views about race (28):

Emerson's conception of the worth and dignity of human personality is racially circumscribed; that race is central to his understanding of the historical circumstances which shape human personality; and that this understanding can easily serve as a defense of Anglo-Saxon imperialist domination of non-European lands and peoples. In this way, Emerson's reflections on race are neither ex­traneous nor superfluous in his thought. (West, The American Evasion of Philosophy, 34)

Emerson “acknowledg[es] that there are immutable constraints on the human powers of individuals,” such as race, which limits his conception of the “capacities and potentialities of individual consciousness and will” of non-white people (West 31, 33). While this idea that people of different races possess the same thinking capacity is of course incorrect, poor circumstances due to racial prejudice and oppression have historically and presently harm the ability of people of color to contribute to intellectual discourse. However, for Emerson, if the individual does not need nurture from others in order to thrive intellectually, then all great men were simply dedicated scholars uninfluenced by external factors rather than products of their socioeconomic experience. Non-white people and women cannot dismiss the pleas of their friends and families as “emphatic trifles” as Emerson can in order to self-rely in solitude.

 

Stuhr’s contention that “the self is fundamentally a social self” is not at all true for Emerson, who thinks the individual is born ready to intellectually and morally educate himself without help from anyone (10-11). Bradstreet recognizes the conscience and moral agency of the individual in light of what he or she can do for the community. For her, the most compelling virtues involve serving others and learning from them. Emerson’s position about the individual being supreme to all else is a product of his status as a white man free to ignore the plight of other races and genders. Bradstreet’s attention to community values is inseparable from her position as a woman and a mother who does not possess the Emersonian privilege to ignore the significance of her human relationships.