A Law unto Yourself By Br. Simon Teller, O.P. on December 7, 2020 “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” Ralph Waldo Emerson makes this bold—but perhaps diabolical—assertion in his essay, “Self-Reliance.” For Emerson, you cannot let your actions be shaped by someone else’s idea of the truth. You cannot submit yourself to external standards, rules, and traditions. For life only has meaning when it is lived from within, according to one’s own personal insights and convictions. The conclusion: the only ones who are truly alive are the nonconformists. An old churchman once challenged Emerson on this point: “How do you know that your own impulses are not from heaven above, but from below?” Emerson responded: “They do not seem to be to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil. No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.” Emerson’s words are, ironically, perhaps truer than his rhetoric suggests. He did not invent the idea of self-re...
