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?
In countries where there are no racial differences or no religious differences, people find other reasons to set aside one certain group of people and generally spit in their direction.
The problem of pornography is that it does not reveal too much of a woman but too little.
I see nothing but Becoming. Be not deceived! It is the fault of your limited outlook and not the fault of the essence of things if you believe that you see firm land anywhere in the ocean of Becoming and Passing. You need names for things, just as if they had a rigid permanence, but the very river in which you bathe a second time is no longer the same one which you entered before
Whether on'e special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.
Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.
Eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period.
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