"The American Scholar"

Emerson’s argument in “The American Scholar” about the American society still holds true today. One reason Emerson’s argument still holds true today is the idea that American’s are still taught to specialize in one section of research or one type of career. Just last week my counselor came into my class and talked about the 6 career pathways. He went on to talk about how we need to choose a pathway quickly so we could schedule the classes that fit into that pathway. From an early age we are told to pick a career and stay with it. This is the exact idea that Emerson argues in his book “The American Scholar.”

People play their roll in life like a football player plays his roll on the field. Yes this works but when a quarterback can only throw and the lineman can only block your teams going to be half way decent. If you want to be a great team you need to have Tim Tebow as your quarter back, in other words someone who is strong fast and can run well too. People need to break the habits of zeroing in on one topic or specialty. We need to open up and look out for others just as much as we look out for ourselves.