The reward of commercial civilization is the ability to consume a never-ending array of products.There are limits beyond which commodities cannot be multiplied without preventing their consumers from affirming themselves through the exercise of their personal freedom.When market dependence reaches a certain threshold it deprives people of their power to live creatively and to act autonomously. And precisely because this new impotence is so deeply experienced, it is expressed with difficulty.
Interpretation
Emerson critiques consumerism, highlighting its limits on personal freedom and creativity.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the drawbacks of commercial civilization, arguing that an excess of consumer goods can actually restrict individuals' freedoms and their ability to express creativity. He suggests that while a wide variety of products is available, there comes a point where this abundance can stifle personal autonomy and ultimately lead to a sense of impotence among consumers. Emerson warns that this experience of loss can be difficult to articulate, but it is a significant concern in a society overly focused on material consumption.
In practice
Using this quote during a discussion about the impact of consumer culture on well-being.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.
I believe there is a reason such as autism, severe manic-depression, and schizophrenia remain in our gene pool even though there is much suffering as a result.
Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life's possibilities.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
We are 6.6 billion people now. We can only feed 4 billion. I don't see 2 billion volunteers to disappear.
[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.
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