A Call To Arms

The great 19th century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of it's members...Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." This quote portrays his strong conviction that the opinions of the majority of American society lead away from Self-Trust and into conformity.

Call me crazy, but Emerson wrote and believed those words in the 1830s and it doesn't look like anything has changed in 2009. We are a conformist, materialistic society that allows our "leaders" and television to dictate our lives to us. Where does this conformity begin? In our schools.

Look at this quote from Emerson, "Education is of value only insofar as it draws out one's own intellectual force. If education merely trains students for a career, it will lead them to despair."

Wow, somewhere along the way that quote got swept under the rug. Our schools today do exactly what Emerson warned against, they destroy any and all forms of creativity and creative energy. Creativity is destroyed by the structure of the education system. We sit at a desk and receive a brain dump from the teacher day in and day out for 18 years. We are given tests on this information that do not test our ability to understand and synthesize information, but whether or not we can memorize facts long enough to pick the right answer out on a page and then forget it all when the test is over. The only facts that stick are the ones we are forced to regurgitate repeatedly. Having to sit all day not only destroys our creative energy, it drains us of all energy. So instead of leaving school and going to exercise and be in community with others what do most students do? Go sit in front of a TV or computer somewhere.

At the end of their education, the students are robots who do what they're told to do and just spent $100,000 to learn how to do a job that they may or may not like doing. I remind you that the diploma does not even guarantee them a job! This should make you angry and sad.

Emerson saw this, he also saw the immense opportunities that were (AND STILL ARE) available to the average citizen of the United States. He saw these opportunities being squandered as the ambitions and values of every citizen were determined for them by the marketplace mentality that has come to dominate American culture. He saw then that, like today, American culture needs a change. Who can argue?

Where has our elitist, brain dead, "do as your told" culture gotten us? How about into the deepest national debt our country has ever seen? How about the most unhealthy, depressed and disease ridden state this nation has ever been in? Our poor health has been achieved by we as a people being lazy, brain dead, and willing to adopt the "pop a pill" mentality for any and all problems instead of being accountable for our own health and the way that we eat, move, and think.

According to the World Health Organization, the U. S. spends 16% of its Gross Domestic Product, or an average of $7,000 per person per year on sickness care. We have more doctors, more hospital beds, and more pills per capita than any country in the world. Where has that brought us? Try 34th out of 39 in the newest ranking of the healthiest westernized nations. Try 29th best country in infant mortality rates. Try an average of 9 prescription drugs per person and a national consumption of 25 million pills per HOUR! (Time, 2008)


It's time for a revolution, America. We as citizens need to take back our health freedoms and our brains from Big Government and Big Pharma. It has to be grassroots. They are not going to ever relinquish control on their own. How do we make this change? I bet our buddy Ralph has an idea:

"The power which is at once spring and regulator in all efforts of reform, is the conviction that there is an infinite worthiness in man which will appear at the call of worth."

In other words, Emerson thought that for social reform to be effective, it must absolutely be preceded by self-reform. He believed that self-reform was an ongoing process of self-becoming: "Every man believes that he has a greater possibility."

More evidence of his belief is seen in this quote, "A new degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits." What is the key word in that quote? "Culture." In order to change the laws of this country, we must first change our minds as citizens, and this is done through "culture", or education. Not the education system, we know that has already failed us and needs reform. The education I speak of is self-education. It is every citizen taking it upon ourselves to educate ourselves and our neighbors about what it means to live a healthy lifestyle. We mustn't become complacent once we have the knowledge, or education. That knowledge is worthless unless we apply it. We must LIVE it. By living it we become healthier and happier and people begin to take notice. They take your example and adopt it in their own lives. The light comes on. Then we band together and start using our purchasing power to demand that our government protect our health instead of the interests of Big Pharma, the FDA, the USDA, and the dairy industry.

As Emerson said, "the State must follow, not lead the character and progress of the citizen."

If we, as a nation, want to climb out of this recession and the sorry state of health that played a huge role in causing it, we must return to the self-reliance and nonconformity that this nation was founded on. We must wake up and CREATE OUR LIVES on a daily basis instead of have them dictated to us by those who do not have our health or interests in mind. We live in a time where negativity and pessimism abound in the media and therefore in our thoughts. This constant negativity crushes creativity and the human will. It's time that we the people be fed up and take it upon ourselves to make a change.

"The power of the human will comes into being precisely through its encounter with limitations, and what is true for the individual will also be true for the nation. Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead to where there is no path and leave a trail."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson




References:

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York:
Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

Dykman, Jackson. "5 Truths about Health Care in America." Time. December 1, 2008: 42-48.