For Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself,” I chose this video that focused on Section 51. The video focuses on transcendentalism which is a belief that society disrupts the process of individualism within a person. Whitman talks about contradictions and how it is okay. In society, people tend to try to avoid contradicting themselves since it often disproves their own point and what they are trying to say. In fact, Whitman embraces it and fully acknowledges that he does indeed contradict himself often in lines 1324 and 1325. I think that was very brave of Whitman to do especially in his time period because conformity was still an important part of the still mostly conservative time period. While society was slowly starting to become more liberal with Enlightenment thinkers and revolutions against monarchies, there were still many things that were undoubted and not spoken about. Also, a key rule in philosophy was to not contradict yourself in an argument or else you automatically lose said argument. But here, Whitman does not mind contradicting himself. This is most likely because he believes that it is okay to change your thought or your perception on something the next day or even the next minute. This goes very well with transcendentalism because transcendentalists believe that they are their greatest strength and guidance and the best person to judge and understand yourself would be yourself.

Contradiction seems to still be a no-no when making arguments. It is not taken well and shows weakness, confusion, and disorganized instead of Whitman’s view of it as being strong minded and being able to view situations in new light. Since contradictions as viewed negatively, people may not be as willing to see and understand the points made by their opponent as those who are not afraid to contradict themselves. This may lead to people being narrow minded and not willing to admit they see some truth in the opposite side’s arguments. This may be why Whitman is worried and concerned about the future.