Emerson as a non-conformist:

“Do you agree with Emerson’s test of man’s hood that who so would be a man must a non conformist?”

“God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by if it will stand by itself.”

• Emerson’s test of manhood simply states that “Man has to build his own world”, He should be a non-conformist. He should break all the lies and conventional rules and norms of society, and make his own world.
• Emerson believed that providence has gifted man with special qualities, he has infinite capabilities, he should use his insight to find his own way he should speak and act his latent conviction and the world will come to his terms and speak his words. Life/nature provide opportunities and man should avail this opportunities to build his own position in the universe.

Emerson’s comments:

                        “ All that Adam had, all that Caesar could. You have and can do….build, therefore your own work.”

• Emerson considers “imitation as suicide”. He does not want man to follow each other blindly like sheep. God had bestowed intellect to each one of us. If He wanted us to follow blindly each other, He couldn’t have wasted time so much, to build each one of us with utmost care and perfection. He could have given eyes, ears brain, and heart to the leaders and asked rest of the humanity to follow them but this is not act singly. As Emerson adds:

“Act singly, and what you have already done single will justify you now.”

• According to Emerson a man should be a non-conformist and inconsistence in speech and action. He should only care for himself and no other, if a guest is coming to his house he is not bound to please him, instead the guest should please him. Emerson adds further that:

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

• The most important thing to be non-conformist is to be courageous, to bear the scorn and sour faces of society and intellectuals. All these hardships make him more polished and refined. Emerson remarks:

“A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral.”

• A non-conformist acts to his natural instinct and impulses and shuns all other conventional traditions. He longs for originality both in action and speech he is creative and his intellect does not act as a stagnant pond. Emerson further adds in the reference:

“No law ca be sacred to me but of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. The only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong, what is against it.”

• Emerson feels ashamed for those who stick to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Emerson speaks in an open way and attacks the conformist in four places; love, relations, charity and virtues. In all these aspects he presents a view opposite to that of the conformists.
• Emerson leads the way by saying that people only preach love, they should preach the doctrine of hatred, they should be told before that, love and hatred more side by side love always bring pains like hatred. When love ends the beginning of hate is to show its cruel face. Conformists stick to love whereas non-conformists expresses there likes and dislikes instinct, they don’t feel like to meet their relations under the influence of instinct, they don’t and don’t finds explanation for it.
• They consider that charity making the beggars parasites, as when the beggars get one dollar, he longs for another they think virtue as punishments they perform their duties as an apology or extenuation of their living in this world. But Emerson as an non-conformist arises and presents a full new picture that,:

“My life prefer that it should be of a lower strain I know that for myself it makes no differences whether I do or forbear those action which are reckoned excellent.”

• Emerson further explains that man should consider that concern him, not what the people think and further the brilliance character appears when the person acts similarly in private as well public,:

“The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

• Emerson explained the conformists usually speak in the particular words they could only be identified, and this conformity makes him not false in a few particulars, authors of few lines but false in all particulars. If a person is conformist he cannot act his full force, rather it scatters his force. It loses time and blurs the impression of one’s character. So Emerson remarks that conformists are not precise men in his eyes. Emerson presents a new out look by saying,

“Do you work and I shall know you. Do your works and you shall reinforce yourself.”

• He further adds that non conformity takes our self-esteem and dignity. We are forced to praise others and laugh with them even if we do not feel at ease. But it is not easy to become a non conformist it is rightly a test of manhood if one dislikes the running conventions then he also bear in mind that this adventure might lead to a hard test of nerves, the society reacts furiously towards those who does not refuse to treat it like a trifle.

Emerson wants perfect man to speak with out consistency:

            “Speak what you think now in hard work and tomorrow speak what tomorrow think in hard words again. Though it contradicts everything you said today.”

Conclusion:

            Emerson has put a hard test of manhood but this test of non-conformity should only be taken in some cases as in case of society, relationship and so on. It opens the mind and makes one brave by making him trust in one’s self, the subject of self-reliance is the basic lesson. Emerson wants to preach self-reliance leads to non-conformist attitude that then opens the channel to insight, to visualize once action and deeds and makes him choose the best.  It makes man to throw the shell of cowardness and be himself different tacts of life to make him more powerful and courageous. It let him speak his “latent conviction and it will be the universal sense.”

So, I agree with Emerson’s test of manhood that who so would be a man must a “non-conformist.”