Stanley Cavell: Emersonian Individualist

Ralph Waldo Emerson was Cavell’s most significant intellectual mentor. He claimed that Emerson made a singular contribution to the history of American thought with a clarion call to humanity to become who we are. Emerson sought to revolutionize moral thought by making self realization as central to that enterprise as the Kantian concern for duty or the Utilitarian calculus of what will best serve the greatest number. Cavell situates Emerson’s perfectionism at the heart of his genre theories, and of his account of what “The Good of Film” really amounts to. The chapterl illustrates Cavell’s notion of this Emersonian paragon by discussing Steven Spielberg’s recent treatment of the ascendency of Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), as she takes the reins at The Post and decides it should publish the Pentagon papers despite the legal ban on doing so.