>I have received the impression, both in my formal education and during my autodidactic journey through philosophy, that Emerson is not taken especially seriously except by self-help fans and scholars of nineteenth century America, which seems like a pretty glaring mistake to me. There is probably an argument to be made that he’s a little derivative of the German Romantics, but he has certain (I am sorely tempted to say American) virtues that they lack.
I went into this at one point and came to the straightforward conclusion that his seriousness was one of the general casualties of the self-immolation of the American WASPs (along with many others like William James, A. N. Whitehead, and Carl Jung). Emerson was extremely influential on Nietzsche, not subtly (though Nietzsche rarely names those he most admired outside of his journals), and he definitely deserves more attention, but the current elect of the academies have trouble with engaging, understanding, and digesting older-style sincerity... for powerful political reasons that a close reader of Strauss won't be ignorant of. Iirc Nietzsche agreed explicitly that those American virtues of Emerson's were important additions and complements to Romanticism.
>I have received the impression, both in my formal education and during my autodidactic journey through philosophy, that Emerson is not taken especially seriously except by self-help fans and scholars of nineteenth century America, which seems like a pretty glaring mistake to me. There is probably an argument to be made that he’s a little derivative of the German Romantics, but he has certain (I am sorely tempted to say American) virtues that they lack.
I went into this at one point and came to the straightforward conclusion that his seriousness was one of the general casualties of the self-immolation of the American WASPs (along with many others like William James, A. N. Whitehead, and Carl Jung). Emerson was extremely influential on Nietzsche, not subtly (though Nietzsche rarely names those he most admired outside of his journals), and he definitely deserves more attention, but the current elect of the academies have trouble with engaging, understanding, and digesting older-style sincerity... for powerful political reasons that a close reader of Strauss won't be ignorant of. Iirc Nietzsche agreed explicitly that those American virtues of Emerson's were important additions and complements to Romanticism.