Yes, Jesuit training is both elevating and energizing. Yes, "Self-Reliance will make you more self-reliant" -- and practice makes perfect (page 67).
SELF-RELIANCE FOR EVERYBODY
In his scholarly book Varieties of Transcendental Experience: A Study in Constructive Postmodernism (2000), the late Donald L. Gelpi, S.J., discusses Emerson's thought in detail (pages 87-133). Here's a passage that all of us should consider carefully:
"In a revealing entry in his diary dated October 1849, Emerson paralleled the human "big endians' whom he had described in [his 1849 book] Representative Men with "little endians' of his personal acquaintance. The passage makes clear that Emerson thought that the heroic biases [i.e., singular traits] which "representative men' exemplify find less heroic expression in the lives of smaller human lights, like himself and other New England Transcendentalists" (page 112).
Now, Buell reports that John Dewey considered Emerson to be "the Philosopher of Democracy" (page 158).
I guess this means that Self-Reliance is for everybody in a democracy.
In any event, Fr. James Martin, S.J., of the Jesuit-sponsored magazine America has made key aspects of Jesuit spirituality available to everybody who is interested in his accessible book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (2010).
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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