Self-Reliance, by Emerson, has always been a favorite essay of mine ever since I first read it as an adolescent; the man's prolific body of work is a great example of how education, in its true sense, can manifest in someone who takes seriously the role of acquiring a complete education. I recently started reading a collection of essays and poems from Emerson, and curiosity hit me that was somewhat unrelated to what the man of letters of was trying to get at. This is said to be common occurrence and may in fact be an active part of critically sustained reading, where ideas come to light only after engaging with what someone else has expressed.
From roughly the 19th century till the better part of the 20th century, it seems to me that wholesome literary output and those who had something to say in an objective, disinterested, and more importantly healthy style, came to its inevitable peak; everything which has subsequently followed has felt overly academic and pedantic with only a few gems to be found here and there. The vast majority of published material is all about sucking up to the intelligentsia and their beneficiaries. Literature along with broad area of writing became aligned with it's institutional representations found in schools and "places of higher learning". What happened to the essays, belles lettres, and other healthy forms of writing from someone like Voltaire, Montaigne, or a Goethe who made this field a respectable art in itself?
I think a big contributing factor has been the ever increasing mechanization of society affecting nearly every aspect of humanity. When people think of mechanics they think solely about the uses of technology but it's much broader than that. Yes, technology has advanced drastically in the last couple hundred of years reaching an exponential rate with information based technology; although the focus on mechanics as a general concept of relying on scientifically derived knowledge for illusory social knowledge, has changed the way people live in ways often taken for granted. Think about how all the credentials and reputations gained from some institution have conditioned society to only take seriously things which have been validated from some authority.
The main mode of this philosophy, at least why it's held up, can be stated in one word—conformity. Conformity toward keeping things stagnant and familiar as it's easier to deal with, instead of trying to chart your own course, letting yourself be diverted and willing to be adapted to the moment. Rebelling against this prevailing doctrine means going against how social structures are arranged and in essence creating or doing works of art as an independent minded person; just like how much the classical works were inaugurated in their own times. Blogging in many ways is bringing us back to those times, as self-expression feels natural and effortless to many who engage in this relatively new medium of communication.
