Hi All, Emerson has been quoted on this site as supportive of the principles of the MOQ. If that is so, then one should read his essay on Self-Reliance and ponder the following passage from that essay:
"Do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting- houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; the thousandfold Relief Societies;-though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar, which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold." One should not judge a person from one essay or one passage. But, when Emerson extols the virtue of individual independence, he is I think supporting the moral supremacy of the intellectual level because in the same essay he wrote: "Nothing at last is sacred but the integrity of your own mind." Regards, Platt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
