“As I might have foreseen, the visit was rather a spectacle than a conversation, of no use beyond the satisfaction of my curiosity. He was old and pre-occupied, and could not bend to a new companion and think with him.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits.
I recently acquired a first edition of Emerson’s English Traits, published in 1856. The book is a series of vignettes about people, places and culture in England that Emerson observed during his two trips to England preceding the book’s publication. I usually collect fiction, but this book was discounted by a dealer with whom I have a long, trusted history and I couldn’t resist it when I saw it advertised. As it turns out, I am pleased with the purchase. The book has reconnected me with the fascination for life that was Emerson’s and the sweetness of phrase that he used to describe his passions, and I am truly enjoying it.
Emerson first visited England in 1832. During this visit he went to visit Samuel Coleridge, who, when Emerson first arrived at 10:00 A.M., was still firmly ensconced in bed and advised Emerson, through a servant, to return at 1:00 P.M. Emerson did so, only to be treated to a diatribe by Coleridge against Unitarians and their beliefs. Emerson finally interrupted and advised Coleridge that he, in fact, was Unitarian, to which Coleridge, undeterred and undismayed by this fact, only briefly interrupted his ongoing diatribe to mutter something to the effect of “I thought so”. Emerson eventually excused himself, having become bored with the lack of dialogue. The above quotation was Emerson’s published summary of the visit.
A number of things strike me about this vignette. First, it is interesting that Emerson could simply appear and present himself to a personage of considerable note in English literature. The piece does not say whether Emerson had been given an introduction to Coleridge, but at this time he was not yet 30 and, insofar as I can tell, had yet to publish. The piece reads more as if Emerson was simply curious about Coleridge having read his work and thought, since he happened to be in England, that it might be edifying to meet the great man. It is hard to imagine the ease of access to a celebrity that this suggests might have been true in England at that time. Since other vignettes about the same trip talk of his meeting Wordsworth and other English worthies, I assume that such unexpected celebrity visits were not as actively discouraged in Emerson’s day as they would be today.
More importantly, Emerson’s description of the visit made me consider how I might appear to those considerably younger. As I wrote to my fellow blogger Eliot Mentor after reading this vignette, if I ever begin to come across in the manner in which Coleridge did to Emerson, I hereby instruct my sons to have me shot. For to fail to engage with those younger than yourself is to deny yourself the prospect of further education. While it is easy for an older person to rail constantly against the extravagance of youth and the inherent cultural changes suggested by their conduct, dress and opinions, such activity is simply akin to loudly chanting the nonsense phrase “la-la-la” while covering your ears in an attempt not to hear the recital of some unfortunate fact or opinion which renders you profoundly uncomfortable.
It is a principal role of youth to challenge the conventional wisdom of their elders. And while the young don’t enjoy a monopoly upon truth or correctness, they often possess a point of view that is heretical to long-held notions of the old and from which their elders may find it possible to learn. By engaging in a dialogue with youth, those of us who are older are forced to examine our own beliefs and consider whether they might be fallible due to our inability to step outside them and look at them anew without the prejudices acquired over a life-long journey. In this way, the fresh, challenging eyes of youth may well serve as a catalyst by which those of us who are older can challenge that which we think immutable.
I enjoy these types of exchanges for the simple reason that I wish to continue my education. For the concept of “truth” in a historical sense seems relative to the time in which it is uttered. For example, the bombing of Hiroshima seemed, to the eyes of a young man growing up in the 50’s, a necessary means of ending World War II in the Pacific in order to save many lives. This “truth” has increasingly been challenged of late by many growing up in the 80’s and 90’s as an act of gross inhumanity, approaching the sin of genocide. Which viewpoint is correct? Both have a ring of truth when viewed from the particular perspective of their adherents. But more important than the question of which of these diametrically opposing views is correct, is the possibility that there is a lesson yet to be gleaned from the ongoing debate about them – a possibility that some new form of ethical understanding or belief may yet be harvested from this dialogue which might eventually be put to mankind’s advantage.
No generation has a monopoly on truth, and the older I get the more I wonder if there is such a thing as immutable Truth, with a capital “T”. The truth seems to be that there is always more to be learned, both from the perspective of science and the history of our species. Whether, as a species, we are capable of learning to take history’s lessons to heart in such a manner as to avoid repetition of our most persistent historical errors is a matter of much concern to me, but perhaps it is true that we get a just a bit better from an ethical vantage point each time we repeat the same historical mistake. I have seen this argument recently made in print and I want to believe it, but I am not yet wholly convinced it is so. Can a species that both inflicted and suffered the Holocaust have learned anything material if it later engaged in the Rwanda genocide? Or is it fair to treat mankind as a monolithic species, such that one can argue Rwandans should have learned from the most horrific mistake of mid-twenty first century European culture?
Only a continuing dialogue between different human perspectives can move us, as a species, toward “universal truths” – for the kinds of truth we seek are those conveniences that will allow us to cohabit more comfortably upon a crowded planet, rather than some universal mathematical truth, the proof of which is demonstrably formulaic. And for these types of cultural “universal truths” to be first identified and subsequently refined, wide-spread continuing debate is required. I base this conclusion upon my perspective that, as a species, we are basically hard-wired to be aggressive and combative, and debate is the only form of overtly aggressive behavior that might allow for the emergence of such truths without bloodshed.
In this regard, I find it interesting that in the literature of science fiction we are obsessed with the concept of aggressive aliens who may eventually visit Earth with the intention of enslaving us. Has anyone ever considered the possibility that such alien life forms as exist elsewhere in the universe may well have reason to fear us as the aggressor species intent upon their enslavement? Given the near-universal history of earth-bound “advanced societies” rooting out and replacing the “first peoples” resident within their particular geography, it seems to me a far more likely scenario is that our first encounter with an alien culture will feature our spaceships as the ominously looming invaders rather than those of the aliens.
In other words, are we able to see beyond our own entrenched fears and the survival skills with which we are genetically endowed to consider the worthiness of opposing points of view? This is difficult to do, and reasoned debate seems the most likely path to discovery. And whether rational reasoning is a successful debate tactic when pitted against the muscularity of our emotions is but another ongoing philosophical debate yet to be resolved. For we are still learning the rules of debate even as we conduct one among widely diverse human cultures in a world of technologically shattered boundaries.
What I do know is that such dialogue, such debate, is important to our learning who and what we are, and who we are capable of becoming in the fullness of time. So far such debate as has occurred has been rigorous, difficult and internal to the species, but we are rapidly learning that other life forms have a stake in its outcome and will make themselves heard after their own fashion. I consider it possible, for example, that global warming is the only form of “debate” by which the Earth, if it may be considered as a living organism, may be heard. Can we listen to, and learn from, such an argument put forth in an alien, wordless medium which we have yet to translate effectively? To do so, we will have to first welcome Nature as a legitimate debate participant and expand our discussion beyond the species.
In the meantime, perhaps we can practice skills for a wider debate by learning from our young; perhaps a few of us who are older can avoid becoming a spectacle and bend to new companions and think with them. And perhaps we, as a species, can learn to do so with other forms of life as well, no matter how alien they first appear.
