Anyway, Emerson's speech was well written and had many intelligent, thought provoking ideas. Personally I could relate and understand where Emerson was coming from when he talked about religion in terms of, in shorter words, "going the wrong direction".
Yes, there were some rebellious words spoken, but the real problem with Emerson's speech, and the reason he was banned, was due largely to his audience. If he had written this speech and said it anywhere else, it may have raised some buzz, but he decided to preform it for the graduation of the HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL! First of all, Divinity school is ALL about religion, it is not only expected of people, but it is the entire basis of the school. Students of this school eat, breath and sleep religion in order for them to be able to become preachers or whatnot.
After a student spends two, four, eight or however many years learning all about how religion is everything and how important God is, for some crazy guy to barge in and, in one speech, discredit everything they have been taught, and were planning to teach to the public, seems ridiculous.
Emerson says of Christianity and Jesus "...we become very sensible of the first defect of historical Christianity. Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion." He goes on to list more problems with today's Christianity and why its teachings are false. He even has the nerve to state that the preachers talk as if "God were dead." and that preachers profane the souls who listen to their vulgar words. He says the the Sabbath has lost its greatness and even sitting in the pews is not as it should be. He tells the students that the Miracles that they had learned about are really monsters. Again and again Emerson bashes the exact ideals that the new graduates were moments away from sharing with others for the rest of their lives.
He also takes this time to insert his favorite idea of Nature into the speech. You find it imbedded into the speech with words such as ..."lost the splendor of nature." and other sayings that show his view of nature is more important than any church sermon.
Personally, if I just completed divinity school and then had to listen to this random (well sort of) guy ramble on about how everything I just learned is false and wrong, I would be very pissed off. I can understand why the headmaster banished Emerson. Yet more than this, I wonder how Emerson could not have had any inkling that this venue was not the appropriate place for this speech. Or maybe he did and went for it anyway, who knows.
Nina,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! With regards to your first question, I think that audiences of the day were much more accustomed to sitting through 'long' lectures and addresses (and I don't think this one would have struck them as particularly long-winded).
As for the appropriateness of the venue, you raise a good point. But I wonder: if someone wants to make a case against something--if one wants to offer some words that he or she thinks might serve as a corrective to a wrong-headed policy or practice--isn't it better to speak to a "hostile" audience? In other words, how effective would this speech have been if he'd delivered it to an audience composed exclusively of those who shared his views? (Wouldn't he have (literally) been 'preaching to the choir?).