As evidenced by its continued appearance in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James, the language of finance has been a particularly useful source of examples and of terminology to help those who the authors convey the important elements of their respective messages. For Emerson, economic terminology is used to negatively describe unfavorable aspects of the ordinary physical world that humans inhabit in order to compare it to a higher spiritual plane of existence, as well as to denounce the mentalities that lead people to focus on insignificant matters and not on the larger and more significant aspects of the universe. In contrast, James uses metaphors of cash and credit to provide tangible examples for his audience to clarify and expound his abstract pragmatist theories. His use of the imagery of money and exchange has no negative connotations; rather, they are particularly useful literary devices that allow him to convey his message to the reader in other words. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay One of Emerson's most important uses of financial language is found in “Self-Reliance,” where he writes that “ the company is a joint stock company. in which the members agree, to better guarantee each shareholder his bread, to renounce the freedom and culture of the eater” (Emerson, “Self-Reliance” 212). In this particular comparison, the corporation is compared to a very particular kind of economic or corporate institution, the joint stock company, which is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "a body of persons combined or constituted for a common object, or for a common goal. the execution or joint performance of anything. Using this particular form of economic model, Emerson creates the image that civilization is a kind of contractual agreement entered into by human beings in which their individual resources are pooled or amalgamated in exchange for a part of that whole larger. “Shareholder” is the term used to describe the role of the individual in society, a word which, in most cases, is devoid of any positive or negative connotation: it is simply the name given to an individual who holds a stake in some sort of organization. However, in this case the word seems to have a troubling connotation based on what follows it in the passage: namely that one of the expectations that comes with entering the role of "shareholder" is "abandonment of the freedom and culture of the eater”. » (Emerson, “Self-Reliance” 212). Emerson is bothered by these restrictive or conforming rules that are necessary for admission into the social order because they impose what would be favorable to the group as a whole and not necessarily what would be the ideal solution for the individual. For example, the joint stock company he speaks of exists for the storage of bread by a group of people -- although a problem arises when a concern affecting the broader mass of shareholders -- in this case, the safety of the bread -- - threatens to limit what each particular contributor is capable of doing with their own bread. This particular type of business serves as an example to highlight the lack of power that the individual holds in relation to the group, the result of such an imbalance being that each member of society is forced into conformity by the greater pressure exerted on him. by the majority. He even goes so far as to affirm that "the most demanded virtue" in this type of social order is "conformism", which ultimately indicates that this particular societal form is not only designed to meet the needs of the many at the expense of the few, but that by entering into this type of business the individual is actively consenting to sublimate one's own interests in order to pursue projects deemed best by the group (Emerson, "Self-Reliance" 212).Business language is also used to negative effect in "Circles." In this case, it is Emerson who denounces a fictional "broker" for his obsession with the ultimately meaningless concept of money and financial gain. Contrasts are used in this particular passage to create a dichotomy between him and this imaginary figure: while for the broker "there is no other principle than arithmetic", Emerson values ​​"love, faith and truth of character”; while the broker can "detach one task... from all other tasks and concentrate [his] forces mechanically on the payment of sums", Emerson is not capable of ignoring his other (but unmentioned) responsibilities (Emerson , “Circles” 179). . As a result of this process of contrast or "otherness", Emerson creates a straw man version of the Money Man, one who appears to lack basic human principles such as love or faith and who, at the instead, is greedily obsessed with acquiring even more wealth. . He then demolishes this figure in the next paragraph by claiming a morally high path, arguing that "although slower, the progress of my character will enable all these debts to be liquidated without injustice to higher claims" -- the implication here being that the broker's way of settling such claims would be in contradiction with these divine laws, and living like Emerson is the only way to repay the debts one possesses on a spiritual level. A fixation on money is dangerous because it keeps a man focused on earthly or societal debts, as evidenced by Emerson's rhetorical question: "If a man were to devote himself to paying the notes, would it not be a injustice? Does he have no debt but money? (Emerson, “Circles” 180). Although he does not specify what these other debts specifically consist of, he most certainly considers them to be more important than the financial debts, based on his final rhetorical question: "Should all claims against him be carried forward by a owner or by a banker? (Emerson, “Circles” 180). Once again, he invites the reader to answer his question in the negative: this fictitious broker will not be judged by any power with interests, such as land ownership or the banking sector, which sympathize with his own. According to Emerson, to focus solely on monetary or material gain is to obsess over a minor and trivial area of ​​human experience that ignores larger, more aesthetic issues such as love, truth, or character. he mentions in this passage. At best, the pursuit of money is a distraction from the search for deeper truths; in the worst cases, it causes men to abandon all their principles that hinder their ability to increase their wealth. Emerson's adoption of a corporate metaphor in "The Transcendentalist" allows him to comment on the fundamental uncertainty and lack of knowledge at the heart of all of humanity's endeavors. He makes this point by referring to a "robust capitalist" who, despite his efforts to build a structurally sound bank - a bank based on the "depth and squareness" of the blocks of "Quincy granite" that constitute the "foundation of its “house or exchange” banking system – is ultimately at the mercy of a vast and uncontrollable universe (Emerson, “Transcendentalist” 109). Although he strives to plan the design of his building in an architecturally sound manner, this diligence is counterbalanced, if not completely irrelevant, by the fact that the Earth is nothing more than a "mass of unknown materials and solidity, heated to red. or white hot... which rounds to an almost perfect sphericity” (Emerson, “Transcendentalist” 109). This contrast between the image of the shape most conducive to sound construction, a “cube corresponding to the angles of its structure”, and the spherical shape of the planet is a perfect example of the inherent powerlessness of the banker over his world: he doesn't get what he wants or needs to build the bank, and instead has to make do with what the universe has made available. Action verbs are used to create a feeling of lack of control in his metaphor. For example, the planet on which the building is located "goes in circles", which takes "bank and banker with it at a speed of thousands of kilometers an hour, he knows not where"; likewise, he refers to a “wild ball” as a symbol of “his whole state and faculty” (Emerson, “Transcendentalist” 109). But what exactly is this particular state? The adjective "robust" is particularly interesting, as it refers to something solidly constructed or constituted and is, in most contexts, linked to the construction of buildings and not human beings. Such usage is striking given that Emerson's metaphor also includes assembling a structure – which would more naturally fit an adjective such as "robust", making his decision to label the banker with this term particular all the more significant. By identifying him with a label that would better fit that of the bank, Emerson deliberately associates the capitalist with his own ill-conceived enterprise aimed at creating some kind of solid foundation in a world that is nothing more than a " small cubic space at the edge of space.” an abyss of unimaginable emptiness” (Emerson, “Transcendentalist” 109). Like banking, it does not exist in a field perfectly suited to its construction or personality; he wants to live in an environment that accommodates his principles and beliefs, just as he wants a square plot of land on which to build his square building. However, just as the unfortunate truth is that the planet is spherical and therefore not ideal for an angular building, his particular mentality is not ideal for realizing the vast and unimaginable nature of the universe in which he resides. In this particular passage, Emerson refers to the capitalist and his bank as examples of a kind of bad thinking, a kind of thinking that fails to take into account the larger picture: this man places more value on building a paltry bank as the awareness that the planet rotates through a cosmos of unimaginable extent. Once again, money and finance are agents of distraction, two interests that lead those involved into systems of thought that are unaware of how the universe actually works. Finally, Emerson uses the language of commerce - the acts of buying and selling - to indicate the value he places on causes relating to welfare issues. Departing from his use of financial terms and institutions to negatively describe ideas and concepts that he feels are in opposition to his own, he admits here that he places a certain value on money and does not like spending it on people with whom he cannot identify, remarking that "I resent the dollar, the penny, the penny that I give to such men who do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong not” (Buell, 213-214). A first reading of thisline seems to complicate Emerson's view against money and finance because they distract men from the pursuit of higher absolute truths. However, upon closer examination, the issue is not so much the giving of part of one's earthly wealth, but rather the requirement or compulsion placed on him by society to help others towards whom he does not feels no responsibility. Money here is not the important thing; it is rather the expectation: “don't tell me,” he exclaims, “to put all the poor in good situations... are they my poor? (Emerson, “Self-Reliance” 213). Whether it is a gift of money, time, or even a useless item that he is not interested in, Emerson would be against helping others, on the principle that it is not his obligation to help those who do not interest him; his only duty is to help those he truly cares about. Here he introduces another financial term to describe this group of people, writing that “there is a class of people to whom, by spiritual affinity, I am bought and sold; for them, I will go to prison if necessary” (Emerson, “Self-Reliance” 213). In this line, his affection is the commodity to be sold, while the terms "buy" and "sell", opposed in the economic sense, are used here synonymously: these are two methods of transferring his concerns from himself to a deserving party . This last piece of economic terminology is used differently from other expressions of this type in that it does not have a negative side: it does not actively use the expression "bought and sold" to attack what it considers to be the misplaced priorities of those interested in the economy. earn money as he does with other sentences and in other passages; rather, it seems to be an uncharged metaphor. It is simply a way of succinctly symbolizing one's commitments to a certain group of individuals in a clearer form. Unlike its use by Emerson, who used financial language to describe principles and ways of thinking that were contrary to his own views, William James's phrase pragmatist works incorporate corporate terms to provide concrete, relevant examples that convey the most aesthetic points present in his lectures. One of his most frequent such expressions is the phrase “monetary value,” a phrase he uses to describe the actual practical value of an experience (James, Pragmatism 41). Just as real monetary value is the amount of money that equals the theoretical value of an object or service, James's version of the phrase is the "group of attributes" under which "every substance here is known as” and which is “in all cases disclosed”. through them” (James, Pragmatism 41). For example, the particular monetary value of matter, he writes, is simply a set of individual and bodily sensations such as "color, shape, hardness, etc." » which are combined to create a broader and more aesthetic term (James, Pragmatism 43). Unlike credit or writing a check, which use money in an abstract or theoretical sense (in the sense that no physical currency is exchanged, only a representation of it in which all parties involved agree to assign value), cash has tangible physical meaning. . It is worth distilling down to the most basic and absolute form. He himself has value. Therefore, it is particularly appropriate that James uses the financial example of hard currencies to represent his similarly reduced representation of human existence. Another aspect of this term is its belief that the monetary value of a word, aprinciple or concept is not immediately accessible: followers of pragmatism must be prepared to do their own distillation to reveal it. “You must bring out from each word its practical value,” he praises his readers, because to deduce the truth about an idea, you must break it down into its simplest, if not most obvious, elements (James, Pragmatism 28 ). He then uses the phrase "implement it as part of your experiment" to describe how he wants the idea of ​​monetary value to be used - that is, to use it to identify and discern the real fundamental attributes that constitute monetary value. an individual concept or object (James, Pragmatism 28). James uses the idea of ​​cash – the actual currency in which value is placed – as an example of what to look for, because he wants his readers to locate the parts of their own lives of similar value, from which are the basic elements of all other experiences. and designs are created. The surest way to determine whether an idea is meaningful or not, James notes, is to assess what difference it makes in a person's life if that particular idea is true. One of the key ingredients, if not the only one, that constitutes his version of the "Absolute" – the personified representation of universal and objective ideas – is "the great difference in our particular experiences that its being true makes ”, which ultimately is “its monetary value when interpreted pragmatically” (James, Pragmatism 37). It is the difference that results from a particular concept being true rather than false that complicates James's earlier definition of his concept of monetary value. Value here is not simply the meaning of a word or concept reduced to its absolute form, but it now also arises from how much difference this term makes in life by being true. This redefines the entire system of assigning meaning to terms, moving away from assigning importance based on a stand-alone, universal definition and basing value on personal, individual experiences. Unlike the tangible, physical value of money that James associates with his refined conception of sensory experience, he uses the more abstract system of credit to address the need for truth to be collectively embraced and accepted. “The truth,” he writes, “rests largely on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs “pass” as long as nothing challenges them, just as bank notes pass as long as no one rejects them” (James, Pragmatism 91). Just as the value of a dollar bill depends on both the seller's and the buyer's adherence to the idea that this meaningless strip of paper actually has a designated value that allows it to be valued. exchange for another commodity, truth requires recognition of its value. accuracy by multiple parties to make it valuable. Just like in a financial system, "we trade on each other's truths," James notes, and through this process of mutual exchange, a system of shared ideas is created that depends entirely on the accuracy of the truths exchanged (James , Pragmatism 91). For the whole thing to work properly, it is necessary that “you accept my verification of one thing, I yours of another” (James, Pragmatism 91). However, just as the key piece of information upon which all markets are based is the assumption that there is real value behind the dollar amounts being talked about, the absolutely vital requirement for a society based on acceptance of the truths of others is that these truths are all in fact true. James compares truth without a system of "direct face-to-face verification" to.