From what I understand, transcendentalism is a religious movement that took place during the early to mid 1800s in the United States. At the core of this movement is the belief that there is an inherent goodness in people, and that in order to find this purity we must look deep inside ourselves. Transcendentalists also believe that society and its institutions corrupt people, and that individuals who are self-reliant and independent must work to create a community in which everyone can be their own self without the evils of society.
I feel that there is a natural goodness in everyone, but I also believe that, for lack of better phrasing, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Essentially, there is also natural meanness in everyone as well. We are luckily evolved enough to realize that this nastiness is not well received by others, and therefore attempt to hide it deep inside ourselves.
This corresponds with the one big problem that I have with transcendentalism: the idea that society corrupts the individual. Individuals created society. If there is nothing but goodness and purity in individuals, society should be pure by default. In order to create an environment that is supposed to be so awful, wouldn't the people creating it have to have a bit of awfulness in themselves? Transcendentalism is a great idea, it makes us feel good to know that it's not our fault when we do something bad; that it's the environment we're in that influences our bad choices. But this is not the reality.
