Beliefs+of+Transcendentalists+and+Idealists+vs+Materialists

The idealist and materialist models offer different explanations of the human condition. For example, the materialist might state "sexual jealousy is the result of selection in favor of genes for controlling one's mate." The idealist would say "sexual jealousy is the result of the ego's identification with the object of its desire." To the idealist, the genes are not the ultimate cause of the complete organism; what they provide is the potential for the emergence of the highly organized living being, the ultimate cause of which is at a higher level.

Transcendentalism was the name of a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that advocates that there is an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends' the physical and empirical and is only realized through a knowledgeable intuitive awareness that is conditional upon the individual. The concept emerged in New England in the early-to mid-nineteenth century. It is sometimes called "American Transcendentalism" to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental. Transcendentalists believe that material items aren't important. Things such as cell-phones and computers and other material items arent important and ultimately will not make you happy.