| Length | 59:00 |
| Licensor | Brendan Greeley |
| Producer(s) | David Miller |
| Formats | Special |
| Topics | Historical, Literature, Media |
| Produced | July, 2005 |
| Added to PRX | August 23, 2005 |
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Was Ralph Waldo Emerson thinking of the Internet when he said: Invent a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. We're taking a 21st Century walk through the American Plato's 19th Century woods.
http://www.radioopensource.org
With readings from actor Greg Steres.
English
A produced hour special, narrated by Open Source host Christopher Lydon.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s immortality in American poetry and prose has never been in doubt. It’s his vitality in the age of the Internet, two centuries after his birth, that comes as a surprise confirmation of his vision. In his philosophy of self-reliance, “The American Plato,” it is said, invented the American mind, maybe the American religion in a nation of sturdy believers. Emerson was the phrasemaker of “the shot heard round the world” and “the hobgoblin of little minds.” And he was the first patron of the individualism we were taught in high school: But doesn’t Emerson’s spirit sound stronger than ever in the expressive first-person of the blogosphere; in the idea of distributed intelligence and universal mind that we Google every day; in the electronic interactivity of conversation and culture all over the planet.
