“In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.” (Emerson)

This statement is very interesting because it reminds me of Rousseau’s idea of children being born innocent without knowledge, but are influenced by the teachings of the people around them. He was saying that kids are taught what the elders teach them and what they see is what they think is right. So that can be related to this statement made my Emerson because he says a person can be influenced so much by society that he doesn’t even think anymore instead he thinks what the society thinks and he doesn’t have his own ideas or thinking anymore. When kids are born they don’t know anything, but as they grow they learn from people, what they see and their own experiences, but then again their thinking is highly influenced by their society so they really aren’t even really “thinking”. This also can be related to back to Bach’s idea because he says school isn’t important or necessary because of the system as it’s not able to measure the smartness of one person. The students who want to drop out are influenced by a society that has established that school is very important. So they thinking is influenced by society making them stay back in school and they are controlled in a way that they will only think how the schools or society wants them to think because of a very strong influence.