Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sam Harris - An Essay by Badri Tulsiram
Sam Harris and Ralph Waldo Emerson are two thinkers from entirely different eras. They both represent spheres of thought likable by people who may call themselves atheist, nonreligious, or secular. The Harris perspective, unlike the Emerson perspective, has no belief in God, although both thinkers seek to make changes to how one perceives Him. Emerson, rather than making any claims of God not existing, seeks to redefine God to the masses who seem to understand God only from the perspective of the Bible. The two agree in saying that religious texts are of no benefit for a progressive people. In this essay, I seek to identify and analyze the similarities and differences in the thoughts and theories laid forth by these two influential thinkers by comparing and contrasting their language ideologies, epistemologies and ontologies.
In Emerson’s Divinity School Address we get a brief understanding of his ontological views on the nature of things. Emerson delivered his Divinity School Address to the Senior Class at Cambridge. Emerson is in no way an atheist, however, he shares the distaste in the ways of the Church, and advocates new revelation. He says that the way in which preachers preach the Gospel is as if God had spoken, and died. They speak of God as if he was here a long time ago, and is no longer here. Emerson has a strong foundation of moral sentiment based on intuition and insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul, laws that execute themselves. Emerson says that every action has an equal reaction. Thus, if you do a good deed, a good deed may be done upon you. “He who puts off impurity, thereby puts on purity.” Emerson believes in the effectiveness of good intentions. In a broad sense, summarizing his main points into one phrase; your perception is your reality. Each and every one of us is a soul. He closes his address saying, he “shall see the world to mirror the soul; shall see the identity of the law of gravitation with purity of heart; and shall show that the Ought, that Duty, is one thing with Science, with Beauty, and with Joy.” In other words, our souls are not separate from our world, but by only illusion. Gravity is, as our hearts beat. Our purpose is one with Science, Beauty, and Joy. Based on this summary of his address, we can assume a few things about Emerson; 1)he believes that we are each individual souls 2)he dislikes antique practices 3)we have a purpose.
Harris, at first glance, proves to be a little more difficult to tackle in understanding his ontology and beliefs on the nature of things. For the most part, Harris subscribes to the notions of modern science. As far as having a strong foundation for fundamental beliefs, as Emerson does, Harris seems to be on his way-- and this progression can be seen in tracing his early work to his newer work where he begins to open up to changing his adamant views. When reading Harris’s earlier work, such as his Letter to A Christian Nation (2006) and The End of Faith (2004), you can sense a sort of anger or resentment towards large populations of people for their belief systems that are different than his own. Emerson does not do this; he may point out the flaws in existing systems, but he does not downplay or criticize them in the way that Harris does. In Harris’s later work, however, such as Waking Up (2014), Harris proves to have grown considerably in many areas, spirituality in particular. So much so that he spends much of chapter one explaining spirituality in a context that may be friendly to his atheist readers who would dismiss anything “spiritual” as being mere nonsense. Harris does this by redefining “spiritual” in the atheistic context as having to do with “breath” as its Latin roots imply.
One of Harris’s main arguments in his work is that “there is a sacred dimension to our existence,” but it does not require superstitious beliefs. In The End of Faith, Harris argues that words like “God” and “Allah” must go the way of “Apollo” or “Baal.” He says that belief is what puts meaning to these words, and belief is like a lever; when pulled, moves almost everything else in a person’s life. This may be true, but my only criticism is that it is slightly hypocritical when considering it being written by someone who believes themselves to be an atheist. Harris argues that these are “mere words, until you believe them.” Given these notions about belief, and the faith put into words, we can begin to understand Harris’s language ideology, that is, his ideas and ideals associated with the way he uses language. To put it into binary terms, things are either 1 or they are 0. On a spectrum, for Harris’s ideology, subjects he supports are often as far left on the side of 1 as they can be, to denote what he would define as “true” and; subjects that he does not support, such as religion, and words like God-- fall as far right on the 0 side. The distance between these two is a lot greater, than say, the distance between Emerson’s opposites--which are as close as possible when thinking of his language ideology in this way. When thinking in this abstract way, Emerson makes it clear, whereas for Harris, one must seek to look past the obvious. For example, Emerson in his essay The Over-Soul, says the soul knows only the soul. The soul requires purity, but purity is not it. If you replace what he says with numeric values, you get something like this: 1=1, from 0 to 1, but 0 does not equal 1. One is for the soul, zero is for purity.
Emerson’s epistemological views are much more refined and developed than Harris’s. This may be because Emerson’s lifetime has come and passed, while Harris is still fairly young, and may have more books to be written. Emerson’s tone is also much more poetic, which is why I think it is so much more favorable than Harris’s heavily critical tone at times. In The Over-Soul, Emerson says, “Supreme critic of errors past & present and any prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-Soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with all other” (p.262, Complete Works). Notice the poetic tendencies. We are also introduced to his ontological view of the Over-Soul, which is some sort of “higher self” or God, that is the unity of the individual soul to this Supreme “Over-Soul.” A point that Emerson makes, that Harris may agree with, is that faith that stands on authority is not faith. That is to say that if you are basing your faith off the authority of a book or a religious majority, then that is not really faith. Emerson states that the reliance on authority leads to the decline of religion and ultimately the withdrawal of the soul. Emerson also states that in a conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made to a third party, a common nature, which is not a social, but an impersonal God. It seems to me as if with Harris, this conversation is ongoing-- a dialogue between himself, based on reason and rational discourse, and a Bible-believing faith fanatic. The tacit third party is not quite as obvious, and I believe that in Waking Up, we begin to work towards that through the idea of “spiritual but not religious.” Emerson further states that “We know truth when we see it.” This is another Emerson statement that Harris may agree with. Emerson also says, “infallible index of true progress is found in the tone the man takes.” I have noted that Emerson’s tone is individualist, and more personal to man; while, on the contrary, Harris writes with a societal, communal lens (that community being modern atheists or skeptics), addressing that group. Emerson is speaking to an individual, while Harris is speaking to a people. Here are some important quotes from Emerson: “The heart in thee, is the heart in all,” “the source of nature is in his own mind,” and “he must greatly listen to himself.” Given Emerson’s conception of the Over-Soul and the soul, the last statement on listening to oneself, one must consider this self to be the soul, and in relation to the Over-Soul, so that one is listening to that transcendent self that is not limited by conforming beliefs. That Over-Soul present in the heart of the enemy, is the same as that Over-Soul present in his own heart. I say this because when listening to an Atheist speak at events, I get this notion that he is judging religious people in an unfair and close-minded way. Unfair, because he places on them his learned beliefs of what they must believe because of what he has discovered in his research of their books. Rather than respecting other people’s beliefs, an Atheist has a tendency to show what is wrong, and poke at the elements that may be outdated, to formulate an argument which at its core is claiming an entire people’s faith to be wrong. This in itself is wrong, but it is important to mention that this happens on both ends, as religious people do this just as often. Just as Harris claims that we put meaning to words, we must hold this to be true in analysis of these faiths--that is to say that we put meaning on these religions and atheisms. This perspective is based off of my reaction to his public Q & A video, where Atheists and Deepak Chopra go back and forth, and the Atheists don’t really hear or understand Chopra’s perspective, as they think of his beliefs as being vastly different.
In Chapter 1 of his book, Waking Up, Harris opens with a story of his experiences with meditation and spirituality. He tells us of a story in his past when he had done MDMA (Ecstasy) with his best friend in the late 80s and had realized an immense feeling of unconditional love, where his friend’s happiness was his happiness. Harris makes an important distinction between spirituality and religion. He says that any dogma or superstition associated with the term spirituality is ill-advised as the meaning had been distorted at an earlier point in history. The real meaning of the term has Latin and Greek roots for the word meaning breath. Harris makes the point that the feeling we call “I” is an illusion. That we are not the small person sitting behind the eyes, at the control panel of our brain operating our functions-- that concept or perception is an illusion we create. In this work, Harris finds religion to not be entirely fallacious, as compared to his earlier work. He says that there is some profundity to be found beneath the rubble of what is left of these belief systems, in what has been said by Jesus and the Buddha about compassion and empathy.
In Emerson’s essay entitled Circles, he notes that St. Augustine “described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere.” Harris believes we should do away with such words like God. Harris makes the argument in The End of Faith, that religion is a cause for much violence and provides many examples of wars on the basis of religion (26). Harris shares, as Emerson does, a notion that there is more to our existence than it seems. Harris says that as the basis of our spirituality, the range of possible human experiences far exceeds the ordinary limits of our subjectivity. Some experiences can utterly transform a person’s vision of the world. The feeling we call “I” separates us from the universe. Harris, actually indeed does share with Emerson a notion similar to the Over-Soul, in that once this feeling of “I” is removed, we can be connected to ourselves and the rest of the universe. Harris remarks that religious ideas have grown around this idea, and spiritual experiences like these are as dangerous as they are remarkable.
Harris’s main goals for The End of Faith, are noted on page 43: “(1) Our religious traditions attest to a range of spiritual experiences that are real and significant and entirely worthy of our investigation, both personally and scientifically. (2) Many of the beliefs that have grown up around these experiences now threaten to destroy us.” Given this, we get a clear concise perspective from Harris, and his ontology. One of Harris’s main driving points is that spirituality can be-- and must be-- deeply rational. In Self-Reliance, Emerson states that the youth make the seniors unnecessary. He states that a man must be a nonconformist, and “blind man’s bluff, is this game of conformity.” Nothing is sacred except your own mind. Society is in conspiracy to its members, and reliance on the self is the way to avert society’s conspiracy. This is similar to Harris’s methods of removing the belief of “I” to learn more about yourself, and begins to change how we may have previously defined Atheism as being a pessimistic view about God, to a personal exploration of the self. It takes the focus away from these conforming thoughts and beliefs and helps the individual become an individual again.
In Sam Harris’s Waking Up, we begin to see how meditation and spirituality can help benefit the individual and to receive this benefit, one needs not the belief in God or superstition. Through understanding the intellect, one’s mind, by meditation, one can become aware of their spirituality. Harris advocated the practice of mindfulness in this book, and even provides many methods in which the individual can begin a mindfulness meditation practice. Harris has a newfound interest in Buddhism and it helps him learn about this concept of mindfulness and awakens him to his spirituality, while still maintaining his rational discourse.
Harris discusses stages in self-development in which one becomes more aware of their spirituality in a sense. He says that in Buddhism, by beginning to see things as they are, we see things as usual. Suffering often is in the mind, and it is from ego and created. In his conclusion, he brings up a simple question that his three year old daughter had asked him and his wife about the origins of gravity, to which he did not know the answer, so instead of saying from God or some other faith-based answer, he honestly replied that he does not know. He relates this to how people create religions. Further in his conclusion, he reinstates the importance of mindfulness and the mind as our greatest faculty for understanding the world. Harris wants all to open their eyes, and see.
Harris and Emerson seem to have more in common in their beliefs than different. Apart from being born in different eras, a hundred and fifty years apart, they actually have a lot in common. They both believe that the mind is man’s most important faculty for understanding the universe. They both agree, that we create our suffering and our success. They both agree that conformist religious institutions do not help individuals in understanding their spirituality or Soul. Religious sacred texts only allow for people to misinterpret and create false boundaries of separation between one another and are out-dated and though may preach Love, they also preach the stoning and killing of other people-- which is not beneficial to a peaceful society. They both agree that God is not a man with a beard somewhere hurling plagues at his people. Emerson has an esoteric understanding of God as a being of profound Unity. Harris has a notion of spirituality, which is his understanding of the profound Unity. The two men also agree that people need to constantly be making progress in their thinking. Subscribing to antique beliefs and thought-processes because the majority is doing so, or that is what your parents have done and their parents have done before them won’t cut it. One must seek their answers from within, and use their mind, as it is the most powerful faculty in realizing one’s individual place and position in this world. Atheism does not have to be about hatred and disagreement, and neither does religion. We are all individuals having spiritual experiences, and it is important to ultimately think for yourself, and not give in to conformity.
