Solitude and Leadership

William Deresiewicz’s “Solitude and Leadership” draws upon an earlier essay, “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education,” in which he critiqued Ivy League universities. Both works were published in the Phi Beta Kappa quarterly magazine, The American Scholar. The magazine’s title comes from a speech of the same name by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and several of Emerson’s transcendentalist ideals are mirrored in Deresiewicz’s work. Flourishing in the mid-19th century, Transcendentalism was a school of thought that emphasized the freedom of the individual and the creative powers of the human mind. On this view, one can discover truth not primarily by studying the ideas of others but by cultivating one’s intuition and insight.

The most notable of these concepts is self-reliance. Emerson’s “The American Scholar” advocates for the development of a distinctly American intellectual culture, independent of the nation’s European heritage. He stresses the importance of intellectual self-reliance and resisting the popular or commonly accepted path. This emphasis, which is explored in many of Emerson’s writings, parallels Deresiewicz’s insistence on thinking independently and questioning conventional wisdom. Emerson’s speech also highlights the dangers of over-specialization, a warning echoed in Deresiewicz’s criticism of technocrats within a