Wrong Audience....

The ideas that Emerson puts forth in his speech "The Divinity School Address" are very radical yet intriguing at the same time. In my personal opinion his thoughts are very correct. The way that we as a society think sometimes is almost scary. We live by a set of rules. I am not saying that there should be no laws at all, i am just saying that there needs to be the opportunity for people to think their own thoughts and create their own ideas. As Emerson explains to the graduating class there are infinite possibles in this world and so we need to use them. Growth is always a good thing and you always learn from everything, including your mistakes. Everything in life is a growing opportunity. Emerson also states that Jesus realized that every human being on the planet has the potential to go great lengths. Also, it was said that Christ was just like any other person just with a higher level of divinity.

When Emerson first made this speech in front of an audience of Harvard Divinity School Students he was banned from ever speaking again to the school for thirty years. Now when we look back at the speech he made, it is hard for us in modern day times to see why this had such a large impact. From what I can get from this piece of writing is that Emerson was a brilliant man with many great ideas, but that he just began his career with the wrong audience. I am sure that although all views of people in that time were different from what they are now, there would still be a group that would be interested in Emerson's blunt way of speech and outright ideas. The most probable reason that the speech made such a negative impact on these students and that school was because his thoughts went directly against what they had just sat in school and learned for four or more years. I mean think about it. If someone came to our school and was like everything we are doing is wrong, all these years were useless, then I bet we would all react in a similar way. Also Emerson was not very famous yet when he delivered this address so the students had not much respect when it came to listening to some guy who was supposed to inspire them and instead totally said all of his views which fully contradicted all of their past teachings.