Entry 15: The American Ideal

"We will walk on our own feet;
we will work with our own hands;
we will speak with our own minds."

Think about this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. How does it reflect the American ideal? Does it have any meaning in your own society or culture? How does it reflect or differ from your own personal ideals? If you were to re-write the quote to reflect your own ideals, what would it say?

• The quote above from Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects some of the most important characteristics of the American ideal. It reflects self-reliance, independence, hard work, and effort. In both my society and culture, all of these characteristics are what the society and the public expect from you, or, to state this in another way, all these characteristics are the qualities that you will need to succeed in the real and cruel world. These characteristics reflect my own ideas almost completely. I want to succeed in the world outside of school, so in order to be able to do so, I have to put in a lot of effort and work hard by being independent. So you see, everything relates together. If I was told to rewrite the quote, I would find it very difficult to do. All I can do is to change the wording of Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote. Doing anything else other than this would be hard because my ideas are basically the same as his ideas. I believe that from his quote there is another characteristic, though it is stated indirectly: cooperation. The "we" within the quote helps us identify the feeling of collaboration. And I also agree that this characteristic is reflected both in my society and culture and also reflect my own personal ideals.