In part, I want to give voice to all of those things that I write that are not going in to the dissertation, or that I don't really see how they fit yet, but which I can't stop writing (today's post is one of those) until they are somewhat finished. In part, I want to get a place to try out a few things and see what they look like somewhere other than just on my laptop. In part, I want some accountability for writing something, at least. And, in part, I'm overly-aggrandizing my own position and hoping that someone somewhere might find this interesting and worth reading.
On my refrigerator I have a number of magnets—a double-decker bus magnet brought back from England by Heather, a magnet that my son loves because it lists the local pizza place’s number and specials, a large magnet reminding everyone who enters my kitchen to be nice or leave, and a magnet with a quotation about success attributed to Emerson.
I'm sure you've encountered the Emerson "quotation" before. Here it is--or here is one version of it (for there are many):
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
This Emerson magnet is special for a number of reasons. It reminds me how quotable Emerson is, and how easily we extract his sentences from their contexts, often missing their actual meaning in the excerption. Emerson quotations appear often like fragments of poetry found on papyrus--devoid of associations, standing alone, full of questions and assumed meanings.
I also happen to rather like this quotation; the single parent in me particularly loves the part about how success comes from winning the affection of children. So I like both something specific to me in this quotation and something general about Emerson’s quotations, but I like this magnet not least because the quotation attributed to Emerson is not his. And we have known that it is not his for decades now. Oh, how stubbornly we hold on to "truths" that just aren't true. I bought the magnet in April of 2010 after it made me smile and laugh when I saw both the magnet and a notecard bearing the quotation for sale in the grocery store.
The debunking of this quotation is almost something of an repetitive industry, reminding me of nothing so much as when the same joke is "written" a few years apart by about a dozen different comedians. In March of 2009, the New York Times "Freakonomics Blog" "traced" the origins of the quotation using the Yale Book of Quotations, finding out that it wasn't written by Emerson but by Bessie Anderson Stanley in 1904. Almost a decade earlier, in 2000, Joel Myerson debunked the attribution in The Emerson Society Papers, repeating the story told another decade earlier, in 1992, by Dear Abby when she had to publish a retraction after attributing the quotation to Emerson in a column in 1990. As the Emerson Society link above shows, the story probably comes down to an "eyeskip." Emerson's name on one side of the page; Stanley's quotation on the other.
But I want to suggest that there is something very Emersonian in having a quotation mis-identified as Emerson's, repeatedly for over a hundred years until it has all but become "Emerson's" (he may as well have said it, at this point--with apologies to the Stanleys) and then having that mistaken attribution reproduced on magnets, coffee mugs, gift cards, and every sort of tchotcke imaginable, and all of that done DESPITE the fact that the attribution has been debunked in Dear Abby, in the New York Times, and in the Emerson Society Papers. It is as if the Emerson in our minds must take on certain roles; he has specific parts to play. And one of them is to be the paragon prophet of success, and so if there is a quotation, vaguely poetic and memorable, about "success," then, by necessity, it must be Emerson's.
This is additionally ironic because Emerson did write quite a lot about success, but it would not be entirely comforting to our ears today to hear what he did in fact say. In 1870 in his last major book, Society and Solitude, Emerson included an essay entitled "Success," based on a lecture that he frequently gave over the many years before. The essay is vintage late Emerson with its share of echoed wisdoms from his past work: Writing about the success that is part of being a love, he writes, "What was on his lips to say is uttered by his friend," echoing the classic line from "Self-Reliance" about how we see our own "rejected thoughts" in every "work of genius." And it includes the late Emerson's praise of power and of the common man ("Every man has a history worth knowing, if he could tell it, or if we could draw it from him."
But it also includes a number of things that would make us uncomfortable to hear today, if we were to attribute them to the paragon prophet of success. Emerson writes, "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship, or the sale of goods through pretending that they sell, or power through making believe you are powerful, or through a packed jury or caucus, bribery and "repeating" votes, or wealth by fraud." In many ways, that's an indictment of the contemporary political and cultural situation of the 1870s. In many ways, it is still an indictment of the contemporary political and cultural situation. Not as easy to read as the truism about being kind to children, small animals, and other things that aren't entirely all that demanding.
Oh, don't get me wrong. There is still the classic easy to read, easy to quote Emerson here. For instance, he tells us, rather predictably, that self-reliance is the meaning of success: "Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that, if you are here, the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful."
But this returns me to a point I made earlier, about how Emerson is so quotable because we take him out of context and treat the context-less quotation as some sort of oracle of truth about whatever issue or domain we have given over to Emerson. So Emerson, the careful and deliberate essayist, becomes the purveyor of pocket-sized wisdoms, safely quotable and safely cut-off from all context. All you have to do is leave the world a little bit better, and you will have succeeded. All you have to do is trust yourself, and you will have succeeded. But that isn't nearly half the story, and we would do well to heed the whole, instead of subscribing only to the part.
In "Success," Emerson works to distinguish "self-trust" from "the disease to which it is allied,--the exaggeration of the part which we can play.... He only who comes into this central intelligence, in which no egotism or exaggeration can be, comes into self-possession." This is a much harder truth to understand because it requires us to activate our own humility. Sure, they may be some part for me to play in this crazy play, but I'm not the main actor--I'm no Lincoln or Emerson, and real self-trust, real success, comes from being honest about my own insignificance. Emerson does go on to give some consolation--he prefers what he calls "sensibility" to "talent" because sensibility lets one live in harmony, while talent tends to confine us to one activity or area. Thus, living "in the happy sufficing present, and find[ing] the day and its cheap means contenting," well, that's the kind of success most of us can attain.
The essay goes on to engage with that perplexing concept of Power, but I don't want to give a full reading of the essay here. My point was simply that reading the whole essay tends to give a different flavor to the specific quotation from the essay. We probably still want to live and perform our "task strictly appointed," but we now realize that Emerson thinks most of our tasks are, well, rather humble. And the best we can do is have a good sensibility and be, well, happy with our lot in life, however meager. Rather belittling, isn't it?
Or is it? Isn't the mis-attributed quotation aiming at the same sort of modest statement about what it is that one must do to be successful? I think that it is. In other words, this isn't Emerson, isn't even close, but it seems to me closer than it might have first appeared. Of course, there is much in it that is anti-Emersonian. The quotation seems more concerned with how others view you than with how you view yourself. It's probably more truly Emersonian to say that success is earning your own respect and being affectionate towards yourself, including the past selves that you were as a child. But as far as that modesty about what it is that is appointed to you goes, this quotation speaks with a slight Emersonian accent.
And, perhaps, this is why the quotation is so committed to being misattributed--it just wants to be part of Emerson's oeuvre, no matter how many times we prove its misattribution. And so it sits on my refrigerator, reminding me how far it is from Emerson's definition of success and how close it is, even still, to his definition.
My goal is to post up pieces occasionally as I'm working on and through them, or as I finish and want someone to get a look at them. So, without any further ado, here's a few words that I think might make it into the opening chapter that I'm not writing just now but that I got caught up in this week.
_________________________________________
On my refrigerator I have a number of magnets—a double-decker bus magnet brought back from England by Heather, a magnet that my son loves because it lists the local pizza place’s number and specials, a large magnet reminding everyone who enters my kitchen to be nice or leave, and a magnet with a quotation about success attributed to Emerson.
I'm sure you've encountered the Emerson "quotation" before. Here it is--or here is one version of it (for there are many):
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
This Emerson magnet is special for a number of reasons. It reminds me how quotable Emerson is, and how easily we extract his sentences from their contexts, often missing their actual meaning in the excerption. Emerson quotations appear often like fragments of poetry found on papyrus--devoid of associations, standing alone, full of questions and assumed meanings.
I also happen to rather like this quotation; the single parent in me particularly loves the part about how success comes from winning the affection of children. So I like both something specific to me in this quotation and something general about Emerson’s quotations, but I like this magnet not least because the quotation attributed to Emerson is not his. And we have known that it is not his for decades now. Oh, how stubbornly we hold on to "truths" that just aren't true. I bought the magnet in April of 2010 after it made me smile and laugh when I saw both the magnet and a notecard bearing the quotation for sale in the grocery store.
The debunking of this quotation is almost something of an repetitive industry, reminding me of nothing so much as when the same joke is "written" a few years apart by about a dozen different comedians. In March of 2009, the New York Times "Freakonomics Blog" "traced" the origins of the quotation using the Yale Book of Quotations, finding out that it wasn't written by Emerson but by Bessie Anderson Stanley in 1904. Almost a decade earlier, in 2000, Joel Myerson debunked the attribution in The Emerson Society Papers, repeating the story told another decade earlier, in 1992, by Dear Abby when she had to publish a retraction after attributing the quotation to Emerson in a column in 1990. As the Emerson Society link above shows, the story probably comes down to an "eyeskip." Emerson's name on one side of the page; Stanley's quotation on the other.
But I want to suggest that there is something very Emersonian in having a quotation mis-identified as Emerson's, repeatedly for over a hundred years until it has all but become "Emerson's" (he may as well have said it, at this point--with apologies to the Stanleys) and then having that mistaken attribution reproduced on magnets, coffee mugs, gift cards, and every sort of tchotcke imaginable, and all of that done DESPITE the fact that the attribution has been debunked in Dear Abby, in the New York Times, and in the Emerson Society Papers. It is as if the Emerson in our minds must take on certain roles; he has specific parts to play. And one of them is to be the paragon prophet of success, and so if there is a quotation, vaguely poetic and memorable, about "success," then, by necessity, it must be Emerson's.
This is additionally ironic because Emerson did write quite a lot about success, but it would not be entirely comforting to our ears today to hear what he did in fact say. In 1870 in his last major book, Society and Solitude, Emerson included an essay entitled "Success," based on a lecture that he frequently gave over the many years before. The essay is vintage late Emerson with its share of echoed wisdoms from his past work: Writing about the success that is part of being a love, he writes, "What was on his lips to say is uttered by his friend," echoing the classic line from "Self-Reliance" about how we see our own "rejected thoughts" in every "work of genius." And it includes the late Emerson's praise of power and of the common man ("Every man has a history worth knowing, if he could tell it, or if we could draw it from him."
But it also includes a number of things that would make us uncomfortable to hear today, if we were to attribute them to the paragon prophet of success. Emerson writes, "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship, or the sale of goods through pretending that they sell, or power through making believe you are powerful, or through a packed jury or caucus, bribery and "repeating" votes, or wealth by fraud." In many ways, that's an indictment of the contemporary political and cultural situation of the 1870s. In many ways, it is still an indictment of the contemporary political and cultural situation. Not as easy to read as the truism about being kind to children, small animals, and other things that aren't entirely all that demanding.
Oh, don't get me wrong. There is still the classic easy to read, easy to quote Emerson here. For instance, he tells us, rather predictably, that self-reliance is the meaning of success: "Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that, if you are here, the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful."
But this returns me to a point I made earlier, about how Emerson is so quotable because we take him out of context and treat the context-less quotation as some sort of oracle of truth about whatever issue or domain we have given over to Emerson. So Emerson, the careful and deliberate essayist, becomes the purveyor of pocket-sized wisdoms, safely quotable and safely cut-off from all context. All you have to do is leave the world a little bit better, and you will have succeeded. All you have to do is trust yourself, and you will have succeeded. But that isn't nearly half the story, and we would do well to heed the whole, instead of subscribing only to the part.
In "Success," Emerson works to distinguish "self-trust" from "the disease to which it is allied,--the exaggeration of the part which we can play.... He only who comes into this central intelligence, in which no egotism or exaggeration can be, comes into self-possession." This is a much harder truth to understand because it requires us to activate our own humility. Sure, they may be some part for me to play in this crazy play, but I'm not the main actor--I'm no Lincoln or Emerson, and real self-trust, real success, comes from being honest about my own insignificance. Emerson does go on to give some consolation--he prefers what he calls "sensibility" to "talent" because sensibility lets one live in harmony, while talent tends to confine us to one activity or area. Thus, living "in the happy sufficing present, and find[ing] the day and its cheap means contenting," well, that's the kind of success most of us can attain.
The essay goes on to engage with that perplexing concept of Power, but I don't want to give a full reading of the essay here. My point was simply that reading the whole essay tends to give a different flavor to the specific quotation from the essay. We probably still want to live and perform our "task strictly appointed," but we now realize that Emerson thinks most of our tasks are, well, rather humble. And the best we can do is have a good sensibility and be, well, happy with our lot in life, however meager. Rather belittling, isn't it?
Or is it? Isn't the mis-attributed quotation aiming at the same sort of modest statement about what it is that one must do to be successful? I think that it is. In other words, this isn't Emerson, isn't even close, but it seems to me closer than it might have first appeared. Of course, there is much in it that is anti-Emersonian. The quotation seems more concerned with how others view you than with how you view yourself. It's probably more truly Emersonian to say that success is earning your own respect and being affectionate towards yourself, including the past selves that you were as a child. But as far as that modesty about what it is that is appointed to you goes, this quotation speaks with a slight Emersonian accent.
And, perhaps, this is why the quotation is so committed to being misattributed--it just wants to be part of Emerson's oeuvre, no matter how many times we prove its misattribution. And so it sits on my refrigerator, reminding me how far it is from Emerson's definition of success and how close it is, even still, to his definition.
Very good, Carter--I like how you link from the Emerson essay to the NYT article on plagiarism. An interesting way to think about success, coming from someone who was pretty successful himself at the time, but as the result of hard work, as Myerson documents in his Bicentennial Exhibition catalogue: Emerson paid the publisher a percentage of sales on copies of his books, rather than vice versa. And he worked as his own agent--if you wanted to book Emerson, you had to go to him personally.
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