Their ideas may seem very appealing, yet just how realistic is it to expect to achieve the state of ultimate individuality? The quaint, idealistic notions of Emerson and Thoreau were nothing more than quaint, idealistic notions. Their argument is incomplete as a whole on account that their audience was, for the most part, white male landowners and businessmen and they failed to realize or even address the unattainability of the transcendentalist goals for the majority of the American public. The severe personal, societal, and humanitarian consequences that occur when their philosophy is applied to the lower and middle class majority demonstrate this deficiency. .
The middle and lower class majority cannot afford, neither economically nor socially, to be non-conformists as Emerson and Thoreau prescribe. For Emerson, "The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist"(21). Here he argues against allowing society to force the individual to conform to its norms and regularities. Inherent in this attitude lies the idea that the individual has definite control of him/herself at all times, without regard to pressures and influences from differing elements in society, for example, friends, family and co-workers. Man is a social animal, and as such has a natural inclination to follow the behavior of his neighbors. In opposition to Emerson's belief of conformity as negative, that the conformist will be "clapped into jail by his own consciousness" (21), conformity is a necessary characteristic of man developed to avoid very real dangers. Emerson does admit the difficulty inherent in being a non-conformist, remarking, "This rule [nonconformity], equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it" (23).
