Answer:
Emerson is not trying to advise everybody to be a nonconformist. He is addressing his remarks to intelligent individuals who are capable of understanding him. No doubt a lot of these individuals are already out of step with society already and feel guilty about it. A good example of a nonconformist in modern literature is Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye. He can't help being a nonconformist, but he has misgivings about being the way he is. The masses of men and women will always be conformists. In fact, if everybody was a nonconformist, wouldn't that be a kind of conformity? Some nonconformists only seem like exhibitionists (or screwballs). They wear Mohawk haircuts, ragged denims, pierce their ears and lips with metal implants, and collect ugly tattoos. It's like they are almost in uniform. But they are all being conformists in rebellion.
The principle idea of Emerson's essay, I think, is not one of non-conformity, per se, but of self-belief.
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