Emerson and Ecstatic Self-Denial

I'm starting Emerson in my classes next week, so I've just spent the last few minutes re-reading the introduction to Emerson in the Norton Anthology, and I was struck by this line:

So poorly clothed that the two brothers had to make do at times with one coat, the boys were encouraged by a brilliant eccentric aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, to regard deprivation as ecstatic self-denial.

I think we might wonder about the idea of voluntary poverty as a ethical or moral (or even religious) act. At what point do we choose to be poor (or at least, not rich), and at what point to we come to understand something about the political statement made by poverty (or at least, not wealthiness) because it has been thrust upon us?

The decision to teach is, among other things, a decision not to be wealthy. During a special assembly at the Academy yesterday, our Headmaster was talking to our student body about their goals for the future and, more specifically, about the sorts of lifestyles they might be aspiring to. Many of them, he said, were probably aspiring to live the sorts of lives that would require incomes in excess of a hundred thousand dollars. A minute later, he listed some of the professions that they might enter, among them engineering and law and professional sports--and teaching.

Of course, I turned to a friend who was standing next to me and remarked that the teacher does not make $100k. Hardly. And although I'm tempted, I won't turn this entry into a rant about how little society values teachers. Or about how much society expects from teachers. Or about...wait, I said I wasn't going to do that.

What I'm interested about here is this: And at what level is choosing a profession that does not pay well a political act? Clearly, Emerson didn't choose poverty as a child, but Thoreau seems to have done so as an adult, at least during some periods of his life. Is there a way in which the decision to teach a form of "ecstatic self-denial"?

Disclaimer for future posts. You should probably consider this post as a warning of sorts: I'll be thinking a lot about Emerson in the near future, as we'll be reading "Self-Reliance" and "History" in my regular classes over the next four weeks. The honors class will read those two, plus "The Divinity School Address" and "The Over-soul." So you can expect what I have to say here (and elsewhere) to take on (more of) an Emersonian bent, or at least an engagement with those ways of thinking.