Scott Nearing
Encyclopedia
Scott Nearing was an American
radical
economist
, educator, writer
, political activist, and advocate of simple living
.
, the heart of the state's coal
country. Nearing's grandfather, Winfield Scott Nearing, had arrived in Tioga County with his family in 1864, at the age of 35, when he accepted a job as a civil
and mining engineer. Before the end of the year he had assumed full control of mining operations as the superintendent of the Morris Run Coal Company, a position of authority which he held for the remainder of his working life. An intense, driven man, Scott Nearing's grandfather studied science and nature, practiced gardening and carpentry, and regularly received crates of books from New York City, amassing a large personal library. In his memoirs written late in his life, Scott Nearing would recall his grandfather as one of the four most influential figures in his life. Nearing's upbringing was that of a young bourgeois
, his mother employing a part-time tutor and two Polish
servants to clean the gleaming white house atop a hill overlooking the town. Scott's brother recalled that the citizens of Morris Run had treated the handsome and intelligent Scott "the way they would treat the heir to the nobleman.... They all treated him with awe."
Nearing's father was a small businessman and stockbroker, his mother a vigorous, energetic, and idealistic woman who Nearing later credited for providing an appreciation of the higher things in life — nature, books, and the arts. Despite an upbringing in a life of privilege made possible at some level by the harsh anti-union politics of his patriarchal grandfather, young Scott Nearing nevertheless developed a social conscience, which one of his biographers describes as "a burr under his skin that none of his relatives acquired and that no interpretation satisfactorily explains." Scott Nearing's radical worldview would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Nearing graduated from high school in 1901 and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania Law School, "where corporate bias so violated his idealism that after one year he quit." Instead he studied oratory at Temple University
in Philadelphia and enrolled in the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania, where he immersed himself in the emerging science of economics. At the Wharton School, Nearing was deeply influenced by Simon Nelson Patten
, an innovative and unconventional educator and founding father of the American Economic Association
. Nearing distinguished himself as a "Wharton man" for the current progressive era, one of the proverbial "best and brightest" trained in practical economics to be readied for a place as a responsible leader of the community. In the words of another of his students, Patten taught innovative thinking — "making use of creative intelligence to master new situations irrespective of received dogma." Nearing seems to have found these new intellectual tools for potential social change to be exciting and liberating. He completed his undergraduate program in just three years, while simultaneously engaging in campus politics and competitive debate.
Nearing received his BS degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1905 and his PhD in Economics in 1909. From 1905 to 1907, he served as the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Child Labor Committee, a volunteer society working to solve the child labor problem in the state. From 1908 until 1915 while living in Arden, Delaware
, Nearing himself taught economics and sociology at the Wharton School and Swarthmore College, authoring a stream of books on the economics and social problems. Nearing was a staunch advocate of a "new economics" which insisted
Much as Karl Marx
drew radical implications from the ideas of the conservative Hegel, Nearing took the economic logic of his department head, Simon Patten, and made radical inferences about wealth and the distribution of income that his mentor had himself hesitated to draw. He believed that unfettered wealth stifled initiative and impeded economic advancement, and hoped that progressive thinkers among the ownership class itself would come to realize the negative impact of economic parasitism and accept their civic duty of enlightened leadership. Nearing instead outlined an economic republicanism based upon "four basic democratic concepts — equality of opportunity, civic obligation, popular government, and human rights."
Nearing's aggressive social activism in the classroom and through the printed word brought him into conflict with his own employers at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, resulting in his dismissal and his emergence as a cause célèbre
of the American radical movement for the next decade. On the morning of June 16, 1915, Nearing's secretary telephoned him to report that a letter from the Provost
had arrived, which noted that "as the term of your appointment as assistant professor of economics for 1914-1915 is about to expire, I am directed by the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania to inform you that it will not be renewed." The Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania was heavily stacked with bankers, corporation lawyers, financiers, and corporation executives, and Nearing's writing had not gone unnoticed. Nearing's tenuous situation had been exacerbated by an open letter to The North American in which he challenged the right wing evangelist Billy Sunday
to apply the Gospel to the conditions of industrial capitalism, including "the railroad interests... the traction company... the manufacturers... the vested interests." Reaction to Nearing's dismissal from the academy was swift, with department head Patten and others issuing statements condemning the decision. Progressives in the Wharton School quickly compiled a summary of the facts of the case and sent it to 1500 newspapers, journals, and academics around the country. Even conservatives in the faculty were deeply troubled since, as one Wharton professor observed, "the moment Nearing went, any conservative statement became but the spoken word of a 'kept' professor." Conversely, some radicals were satisfied for being validated in their belief of the conservative nature of the American academy. Socialist writer Upton Sinclair
told Nearing in no uncertain terms in an open letter that "You do not belong in a university. You belong with us Socialists and free lances.... Instead of addressing small numbers of college boys, you will be able to address large audiences of men." Retrospectively called by one historian "the most famous breach of academic freedom" of the era, the University of Pennsylvania's action had the effect of making Scott Nearing into a public figure and fueled a long-running discussion about the proper role and rights of the teacher.
from 1915 through 1917. The intense nationalistic feeling that swept the country now that America was embroiled at last in the war in Europe
spelled the end of Nearing's Toledo days, as he later recalled in his memoirs:
Nearing packed up his things and moved to New York City
, where he became a founding member of the People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace
, a national pacifist organization established at the First American Conference for Peace and Democracy, held May 30–31, 1917. He assumed the chairmanship of that organization that fall. On July 1, 1917, Nearing joined the Socialist Party and began a new job, working for the next six years as a lecturer in Economics and Sociology at the Socialist Party's Rand School of Social Science
.
Nearing was a prolific public speaker during this time, estimating that he had given approximately 200 speeches a year during the war years. Nearing authored a series of pamphlets, published by the Rand School, one of which, The Great Madness: A Victory for the American Plutocracy, resulted in his indictment under the Espionage Act for alleged "obstruction to the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States." This indictment came down in April 1918, but it was not until February 1919 — that is, several months after the war in Europe had actually ended — that the trial against Nearing and the Rand School actually commenced.
The prosecution attempted to show that Nearing, by writing against militarism, had illegally interfered with the ability of the United States government to recruit and conscript troops for its military activities in Europe. It spent its effort making Nearing admit that he had written and spoken against militarism and the war in Europe — which he was quite willing to do. But at the end of the trial, Nearing addressed the jury and made a key point:
Nearing noted the evil implications of the government's attempt to illegalize written dissent:
The judge in the case, Julius M. Mayer, dismissed the first two counts of the indictment, alleging conspiracy, without sending them to the jury. Following deliberation, the jury found Scott Nearing not guilty but the American Socialist Society guilty on the third and fourth counts of the indictment. On March 21, 1919, sentence was passed and the American Socialist Society was fined $3,000 (short of the maximum fine of $10,000), a sum which was ultimately collected through small donations from Socialists, labor groups, and civil libertarians in New York City.
split in the summer of 1919, with a factionalized Communist movement leaving to forge an underground existence in the years after the Palmer Raids
. A significant organized "left wing" inspired by the Communist International remained in the party through 1921. Scott Nearing does not seem to have participated in the factional politics of these years, although his sympathies may well have rested with the former Socialists now building the various Communist Parties. As an employee of the Socialist Party-affiliated Rand School of Social Science, Nearling remained in the Socialist Party until the end of 1923.
The dramatic decline of the size and strength of the Socialist Party in the first years of the 1920s took its toll on Nearing. The plummeting membership of the SPA — down below the 13,500 member mark for 1921 — stood in marked contrast to the new and rapidly-growing "Legal Political Party" of the Communists, the Workers Party of America
(WPA), which passed the Socialist Party in size after only a few months of existence in 1922. Nearing searched his soul in a lecture delivered in January 1923 at the Rand School, later published in the Socialist press, posing the question "What Can the Radical Do?" Nearing argued that the function of the radical was not administrative, but that of external critic.
It was the radical's additional function to get in touch with like-minded people in the unions, cooperatives, and in the sphere of political propaganda, Nearing added. In the unions, it was the Communist Party's Trade Union Educational League
that was currently "the liveliest thing in the trade unionism of the Middle West," attempting at "boring from within" to radicalize the American Federation of Labor
. Outside the AF of L, on the "extreme left" was the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), attempting to found revolutionary industrial unions. Cooperators were, by the nature of their task, localized and conservative in their makeup, in Nearing's view. Publishing was in disarray, with Charles H. Kerr & Co. disorganized by wartime repression and the nature of the economics of publishing such that the production of low cost books a veritable impossibility. With regard to political action, Nearing produced concrete figures to show that since 1912, membership in the Socialist Party had "steadily declined." Nearing drew an explosive conclusion from this situation:
Despite these misgivings, the potential of the growing organization appealed to Nearing over the malaise of the fading organization. Nearing finally applied for membership in the WPA in December 1924; he was, however, initially rejected from membership, living for the next two years as a non-party fellow traveler of the organization. He finally gained admission to the Workers (Communist) Party only in 1927. Nearing went to work on the staff of the CP's daily newspaper, The Daily Worker, on May 9, 1928, remaining in that position until resigning in January 1930 to publish a study on imperialism
which failed to meet the ideological scrutiny of the organization. According to at least one historian, Nearing was formally expelled from the CPUSA in 1930 in connection with this decision.
In 1925, Nearing spent two months in the Soviet Union
visiting schools and talking with educational authorities. "It was a fascinating experience to visit this important educational laboratory in its opening experimental stages," he later recalled, noting that theories were then being actively tested with regards to subject matter, method of instruction, and social organization of students and teachers alike. The result of this visit was one of the first serious studies of the nascent Soviet educational system, a book entitled Education in Soviet Russia.
In 1927, Nearing made his first trip to Asia, traveling to China by ship for a three month stay. En route, the Kuomintang
Party split, with forces loyal to Chiang Kai Shek attacking and summarily executing their former Communist
allies. As Nearing later recalled
While there Nearing rather boldly gave a speech at Yenching University on his book, The American Empire, in a room darkened so that audience members could not be later identified and denounced. Upon his return to the United States, Nearing authored a book offering his views on the Chinese situation, entitled Whither China?
Nearing remained a prominent figure of the American Left
throughout the decade of the 1920s, producing a seemingly ceaseless series of pamphlets on various radical political themes. He was also engaged professionally on the lecture circuit, making use of an agent to arrange speaking tours for about 20 years. These speaking tours continued into the early 1930s, by which time public interest in attending live speeches and debates on political themes had waned and ill health forced Nearing's agent into retirement.
, where they had purchased a rather large forest tract for $2200 and a moderate sized farm for $2500. Nearing and Helen Knothe, who married in 1947, lived a largely ascetic and self-reliant life, growing much of their own food and putting up nine stone buildings over the course of two decades there. Cash was earned from producing maple syrup and maple sugar from the trees on their land and from Scott Nearing's occasional paid lectures.
Feeling a sense of dignity in the common man, and wanting to serve, Nearing wrote and self-published many pamphlets on topics such as low income, peace
throughout the world, feminism
, and different environmental causes.
Nearing and his first wife, Nellie Marguerite Seeds Nearing, were the parents of John Scott
, who wrote a participant's account of having worked in industry in the Soviet Union
during the 1930s.
throughout the conflict. In 1943 he was fired by the Federated Press
for his anti-war position, which Managing Editor Carl Haessler
criticized as "childish.". Nearing was particularly shocked by the nuclear bombing of Japan, writing to President Harry S. Truman
on August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima
, that "your government is no longer mine."
. The book, in which war, famine, and poverty were discussed, described a nineteen-year "back to the land experiment", and also advocated a modern day "homesteading".
In the winter of 1956-57, Scott and Helen Nearing toured Canada, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, generating a book about their experiences called Socialists Around the World. The following winter, with their passports issued in 1956 nearing expiration, Scott and Helen Nearing embarked upon a trip through the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China
. They returned home to Maine to write a book of their experiences, entitled The Brave New World. The pair visited Leningrad
, Moscow
, Stalingrad, Baku
, Taskent
, and Irkutsk
, touring schools and universities, apartment buildings in the process of construction, factories, and collective farms in the course of their trip. In China they saw Peking (Beijing), Wuhan
and Nanking. The two countries were characterized in the Nearings' travelogue as "peaceful socialist giants":
In the wake of their travels to the USSR and China, Scott Nearing seems to have drawn somewhat closer once again to the Communist Party, whose official publishing house, New Century Publishers, produced Nearing pamphlets on Eastern Europe and Cuba in 1962 and 1963.
took center stage in the mid-1960s, and as a large back-to-the-land movement developed in the U.S., a renewed interest in Nearing's work and ideas occurred. Hundreds of anti-war believers flocked to Nearing's home in Maine to learn homesteading
practical-living skills, some also to hear a master radical's anti-war message.
In 1968, Nearing signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
In 1973, the University of Pennsylvania formally reversed its dismissal of Nearing in 1915 by awarding him the title of Honorary Emeritus Professor of Economics. Nearing praised Albania during this time and described its people as "rested, secure, hopeful, cheerful" along with "they are building solidly and fundamentally for a better future."
Nearing appears in the film Reds (1981), as one of the many documentary "witnesses," telling stories of his friend John Reed and of the heady days leading up to the Russian Revolution.
Through the years, his writings on foreign affairs were distributed via several different channels. In 1921 Nearing was, along with his colleague Louis Lochner, a co-founder of a forerunner of the Federated Press
, a news service
which sent out domestic and international news releases and picture mats five days a week to the labor and radical press in America. Nearing remained a regular contributor to the Federated Press (controlled by the Communist Party for most of its existence) until 1943, when he was fired for his anti-war position, which Federated Press editor Carl Haessler
characterized as "childish." Nearing then began to contribute to an obscure monthly newsletter from Florida, World Events.
Shortly after its founding in 1949, Nearing began contributing a monthly "World Events" column to the independent theoretical monthly, Monthly Review
, established by dissident Marxist economists Paul Sweezy
and Leo Huberman
. Nearing tellingly characterized the objective of this publication as "the dissemination of a true understanding of society and the reporting of dependable news of the movement toward a socialist society which is steadily spreading over the face of the globe." Through the decades, Nearing wrote thousands of pages of news and commentary on these themes, retiring from this activity only in 1970, at the age of 87.
Half a century later, writing in his 1972 autobiography, The Making of a Radical, Scott Nearing described himself as a pacifist
, a socialist
, and a vegetarian
. In his autobiography he says "I became a vegetarian because I was persuaded that life is as valid for other creatures as it is for humans. I do not need dead animal bodies to keep me alive, strong and healthy. Therefore, I will not kill for food". Nearing listed his four most influential teachers as Leo Tolstoy
, Simon Nelson Patten
, his grandfather and mother. Other influences he acknowledged in his memoirs included Socrates
, Gautama Buddha
, Lao Tzu, Mahatma Gandhi
, Jesus
, Confucius
, Henry David Thoreau
, Charles Otis Whitman
, Karl Marx
, Friedrich Engels
, Vladimir Lenin
, Victor Hugo
, Edward Bellamy
, Olive Schreiner
, Richard Maurice Bucke, and Romain Rolland
's Jean-Christophe
.
Scott Nearing's journey over a century was neatly (albeit perhaps facilely) described by one biographer as follows:
This view, that Nearing chose to "drop out" of politics and society itself and live life as a rugged agrarian individualist at one with nature, is a common interpretation — and certainly one with some merit. Another possible reading of Nearing's motivations and decision-making lies in his own writing. Nearing repeatedly drew inspiration from the life story of Count Leo Tolstoi, whose life Nearing clearly saw as analogous to his own:
The tension between the dissident individual and the group was an unenviable one, Nearing believed. In the conflict between the solitary individual and the community, Nearing saw only three possible outcomes:
Nearing’s chosen lifestyle of "Tolstoian," ascetic, rural self-sufficiency may be reasonably interpreted as the attempt of a self-aware dissident individual to avoid inevitably negative participation in the internal life of the group (be it government or political party), while retaining a keen and almost obsessive interest in the dynamics of society and the world as a whole.
Allen Ginsberg
, the Beat Generation
poet, referred to Nearing as a "grand old man, a real mensch" in his poem America
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
radical
Political radicalism
The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...
economist
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, educator, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, political activist, and advocate of simple living
Simple living
Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want...
.
The early years
Nearing was born in Morris Run, Tioga County, PennsylvaniaTioga County, Pennsylvania
Tioga County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,981. Tioga County was created on March 26, 1804, from part of Lycoming County and named for the Tioga River. Its county seat is Wellsboro....
, the heart of the state's coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
country. Nearing's grandfather, Winfield Scott Nearing, had arrived in Tioga County with his family in 1864, at the age of 35, when he accepted a job as a civil
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
and mining engineer. Before the end of the year he had assumed full control of mining operations as the superintendent of the Morris Run Coal Company, a position of authority which he held for the remainder of his working life. An intense, driven man, Scott Nearing's grandfather studied science and nature, practiced gardening and carpentry, and regularly received crates of books from New York City, amassing a large personal library. In his memoirs written late in his life, Scott Nearing would recall his grandfather as one of the four most influential figures in his life. Nearing's upbringing was that of a young bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, his mother employing a part-time tutor and two Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
servants to clean the gleaming white house atop a hill overlooking the town. Scott's brother recalled that the citizens of Morris Run had treated the handsome and intelligent Scott "the way they would treat the heir to the nobleman.... They all treated him with awe."
Nearing's father was a small businessman and stockbroker, his mother a vigorous, energetic, and idealistic woman who Nearing later credited for providing an appreciation of the higher things in life — nature, books, and the arts. Despite an upbringing in a life of privilege made possible at some level by the harsh anti-union politics of his patriarchal grandfather, young Scott Nearing nevertheless developed a social conscience, which one of his biographers describes as "a burr under his skin that none of his relatives acquired and that no interpretation satisfactorily explains." Scott Nearing's radical worldview would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Nearing graduated from high school in 1901 and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania Law School, "where corporate bias so violated his idealism that after one year he quit." Instead he studied oratory at Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
in Philadelphia and enrolled in the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania, where he immersed himself in the emerging science of economics. At the Wharton School, Nearing was deeply influenced by Simon Nelson Patten
Simon Patten
Simon Nelson Patten was an influential economist and the chair of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania...
, an innovative and unconventional educator and founding father of the American Economic Association
American Economic Association
The American Economic Association, or AEA, is a learned society in the field of economics, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. It publishes one of the most prestigious academic journals in economics: the American Economic Review...
. Nearing distinguished himself as a "Wharton man" for the current progressive era, one of the proverbial "best and brightest" trained in practical economics to be readied for a place as a responsible leader of the community. In the words of another of his students, Patten taught innovative thinking — "making use of creative intelligence to master new situations irrespective of received dogma." Nearing seems to have found these new intellectual tools for potential social change to be exciting and liberating. He completed his undergraduate program in just three years, while simultaneously engaging in campus politics and competitive debate.
Nearing received his BS degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1905 and his PhD in Economics in 1909. From 1905 to 1907, he served as the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Child Labor Committee, a volunteer society working to solve the child labor problem in the state. From 1908 until 1915 while living in Arden, Delaware
Arden, Delaware
Arden is a village and art colony in New Castle County, Delaware, in the United States, founded in 1900 as a radical Georgist single-tax community by sculptor Frank Stephens and architect Will Price. The village occupies about 160 acres, with half kept as open land. According to the 2010 Census,...
, Nearing himself taught economics and sociology at the Wharton School and Swarthmore College, authoring a stream of books on the economics and social problems. Nearing was a staunch advocate of a "new economics" which insisted
"that the economists part company with the ominous pictures of an overpopulated, starving world, prostrate before the throne of 'competition,' 'individual initiative,' 'private property,' or some other pseudo-god, and tell men in simple, straightforward language how they may combine, re-shape, or overcome the laws and utilize them as a blessing instead of enduring them as a burden and a curse."
Much as Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
drew radical implications from the ideas of the conservative Hegel, Nearing took the economic logic of his department head, Simon Patten, and made radical inferences about wealth and the distribution of income that his mentor had himself hesitated to draw. He believed that unfettered wealth stifled initiative and impeded economic advancement, and hoped that progressive thinkers among the ownership class itself would come to realize the negative impact of economic parasitism and accept their civic duty of enlightened leadership. Nearing instead outlined an economic republicanism based upon "four basic democratic concepts — equality of opportunity, civic obligation, popular government, and human rights."
Nearing's aggressive social activism in the classroom and through the printed word brought him into conflict with his own employers at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, resulting in his dismissal and his emergence as a cause célèbre
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
of the American radical movement for the next decade. On the morning of June 16, 1915, Nearing's secretary telephoned him to report that a letter from the Provost
Provost (education)
A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....
had arrived, which noted that "as the term of your appointment as assistant professor of economics for 1914-1915 is about to expire, I am directed by the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania to inform you that it will not be renewed." The Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania was heavily stacked with bankers, corporation lawyers, financiers, and corporation executives, and Nearing's writing had not gone unnoticed. Nearing's tenuous situation had been exacerbated by an open letter to The North American in which he challenged the right wing evangelist Billy Sunday
Billy Sunday
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday was an American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s, became the most celebrated and influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.Born into poverty in Iowa, Sunday spent some...
to apply the Gospel to the conditions of industrial capitalism, including "the railroad interests... the traction company... the manufacturers... the vested interests." Reaction to Nearing's dismissal from the academy was swift, with department head Patten and others issuing statements condemning the decision. Progressives in the Wharton School quickly compiled a summary of the facts of the case and sent it to 1500 newspapers, journals, and academics around the country. Even conservatives in the faculty were deeply troubled since, as one Wharton professor observed, "the moment Nearing went, any conservative statement became but the spoken word of a 'kept' professor." Conversely, some radicals were satisfied for being validated in their belief of the conservative nature of the American academy. Socialist writer Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
told Nearing in no uncertain terms in an open letter that "You do not belong in a university. You belong with us Socialists and free lances.... Instead of addressing small numbers of college boys, you will be able to address large audiences of men." Retrospectively called by one historian "the most famous breach of academic freedom" of the era, the University of Pennsylvania's action had the effect of making Scott Nearing into a public figure and fueled a long-running discussion about the proper role and rights of the teacher.
The years of the First World War
From the Fall of 1915, Scott Nearing was established as a radical "public man." He joined the American Union Against Militarism in 1916 and delivered a series of speeches condemning the "Preparedness" campaign then being promoted by Woodrow Wilson and the nation's political elite. He also remained a university professor, teaching Social Science at city-owned Toledo UniversityUniversity of Toledo
The University of Toledo is a public university in Toledo, Ohio, United States. The Carnegie Foundation classified the university as "Doctoral/Research Extensive."-National recognition:...
from 1915 through 1917. The intense nationalistic feeling that swept the country now that America was embroiled at last in the war in Europe
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
spelled the end of Nearing's Toledo days, as he later recalled in his memoirs:
"Al Miller, Chairman of the Toledo Forum, asked me to come to his office. He greeted me pleasantly and then said, 'As you know, I am attorney for the Toledo Chamber of Commerce, on a permanent retainer. I am their legal spokesman; they are among my clients. They have directed me to introduce a resolution at the next meeting of the Toledo university trustees, ending your connection with the institution.' He waited a moment for this announcement to sink in.
'Of Course,' I said quietly. 'That is one of the symptoms of war fever. Those who tell the truth or try to tell the truth are among the first victims of any war.'
Al hurried on, 'You understand, there is nothing personal about this. You and I have worked together on the Forum and other projects with never a real disagreement, certainly never a fight.'
'That is true,' I said, 'and I think our joint efforts have helped to make some real advances here in Toledo.'
'True,' said Al. 'It is also true that I have enjoyed every minute of our cooperation.' Then he added: 'At this point I guess we part company. I hope we part as friends, on two sides of the war barrier that separates us. Please remember that there is nothing personal about this,' he repeated. 'I respect your stand and wish you well. My duty lies elsewhere.' We shook hands and I never saw him again."
Nearing packed up his things and moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he became a founding member of the People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace
People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace
The People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace, commonly known as the "People's Council," was an American pacifist political organization established in New York City in May 1917...
, a national pacifist organization established at the First American Conference for Peace and Democracy, held May 30–31, 1917. He assumed the chairmanship of that organization that fall. On July 1, 1917, Nearing joined the Socialist Party and began a new job, working for the next six years as a lecturer in Economics and Sociology at the Socialist Party's Rand School of Social Science
Rand School of Social Science
The Rand School of Social Science was formed in New York City by adherents of the Socialist Party of America in 1906. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness, and additionally served as a research bureau, a publisher, and the operator...
.
Nearing was a prolific public speaker during this time, estimating that he had given approximately 200 speeches a year during the war years. Nearing authored a series of pamphlets, published by the Rand School, one of which, The Great Madness: A Victory for the American Plutocracy, resulted in his indictment under the Espionage Act for alleged "obstruction to the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States." This indictment came down in April 1918, but it was not until February 1919 — that is, several months after the war in Europe had actually ended — that the trial against Nearing and the Rand School actually commenced.
The prosecution attempted to show that Nearing, by writing against militarism, had illegally interfered with the ability of the United States government to recruit and conscript troops for its military activities in Europe. It spent its effort making Nearing admit that he had written and spoken against militarism and the war in Europe — which he was quite willing to do. But at the end of the trial, Nearing addressed the jury and made a key point:
"The prosecution has not been able to show a single instance in which recruiting was obstructed. They have not been able to show a single instance in which insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal to duty was caused."
Nearing noted the evil implications of the government's attempt to illegalize written dissent:
"The only way to have intelligent public opinion is to have discussion, and the moment you check discussion you destroy democracy....
"The Constitution does not guarantee us only the right to be correct, we have a right to be honest and in error. And the views that I have expressed in this pamphlet I expressed honestly. I believe they were right. The future will show whether or not I was correct, but under the laws, as I understand it, and under the Constitution, as I understand it, every citizen in this country has the right to express himself...on public questions."
The judge in the case, Julius M. Mayer, dismissed the first two counts of the indictment, alleging conspiracy, without sending them to the jury. Following deliberation, the jury found Scott Nearing not guilty but the American Socialist Society guilty on the third and fourth counts of the indictment. On March 21, 1919, sentence was passed and the American Socialist Society was fined $3,000 (short of the maximum fine of $10,000), a sum which was ultimately collected through small donations from Socialists, labor groups, and civil libertarians in New York City.
From Socialism to Communism
The Socialist Party of AmericaSocialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
split in the summer of 1919, with a factionalized Communist movement leaving to forge an underground existence in the years after the Palmer Raids
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer...
. A significant organized "left wing" inspired by the Communist International remained in the party through 1921. Scott Nearing does not seem to have participated in the factional politics of these years, although his sympathies may well have rested with the former Socialists now building the various Communist Parties. As an employee of the Socialist Party-affiliated Rand School of Social Science, Nearling remained in the Socialist Party until the end of 1923.
The dramatic decline of the size and strength of the Socialist Party in the first years of the 1920s took its toll on Nearing. The plummeting membership of the SPA — down below the 13,500 member mark for 1921 — stood in marked contrast to the new and rapidly-growing "Legal Political Party" of the Communists, the Workers Party of America
Workers Party of America
The Workers Party of America was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from the last days of 1921 until the middle of 1929. As a legal political party the Workers Party accepted affiliation from independent socialist groups such as the African Blood Brotherhood,...
(WPA), which passed the Socialist Party in size after only a few months of existence in 1922. Nearing searched his soul in a lecture delivered in January 1923 at the Rand School, later published in the Socialist press, posing the question "What Can the Radical Do?" Nearing argued that the function of the radical was not administrative, but that of external critic.
"The Communist radical of today will be the administrator of tomorrow, and the Communist Society will need the radical as badly as the capitalist society needs him now. It will then be the business of the radical, as it is now, not to take an appointment as justice of the Supreme Court, not to perform any particular function as a part of the established order, but to stand apart and speak his mind about the established order.... A radical who wishes to continue being a radical cannot do so if he is an essential part of the existing order, for then he owes a certain fealty to his position. I have seen Socialists elected to office; they become, not critical functionaries, but administrators, and one cannot be both at the same time."
It was the radical's additional function to get in touch with like-minded people in the unions, cooperatives, and in the sphere of political propaganda, Nearing added. In the unions, it was the Communist Party's Trade Union Educational League
Trade Union Educational League
The Trade Union Educational League was established by William Z. Foster in 1920 as a means of uniting radicals within various trade unions for a common plan of action. The group was subsidized by the Communist International via the Communist Party of America from 1922...
that was currently "the liveliest thing in the trade unionism of the Middle West," attempting at "boring from within" to radicalize the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
. Outside the AF of L, on the "extreme left" was the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW), attempting to found revolutionary industrial unions. Cooperators were, by the nature of their task, localized and conservative in their makeup, in Nearing's view. Publishing was in disarray, with Charles H. Kerr & Co. disorganized by wartime repression and the nature of the economics of publishing such that the production of low cost books a veritable impossibility. With regard to political action, Nearing produced concrete figures to show that since 1912, membership in the Socialist Party had "steadily declined." Nearing drew an explosive conclusion from this situation:
"That means, if it means anything, that in the United States as it is at present organized, the radical political movements are short-lived. And if that is true, then the Socialist Party has had its day. Through the Middle West recently I found the Socialist Party almost extinct. Since 1920 it has had first the Communist Party and then the Workers Party as rivals....
"The Workers Party has fallen heir to the present radical political situation in the United States. Is it built to represent the American worker? So far the radical movement has represented the European worker in the United States. The opportunities for a radical political party are as great as, or greater than, ever before; the important problem before the Workers Party is to get radical ideas before the workers. Its second and more serious problem is to establish proper relations with Moscow. Moscow is strong; the Workers Party is weak; Moscow can dominate without any trouble."
Despite these misgivings, the potential of the growing organization appealed to Nearing over the malaise of the fading organization. Nearing finally applied for membership in the WPA in December 1924; he was, however, initially rejected from membership, living for the next two years as a non-party fellow traveler of the organization. He finally gained admission to the Workers (Communist) Party only in 1927. Nearing went to work on the staff of the CP's daily newspaper, The Daily Worker, on May 9, 1928, remaining in that position until resigning in January 1930 to publish a study on imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
which failed to meet the ideological scrutiny of the organization. According to at least one historian, Nearing was formally expelled from the CPUSA in 1930 in connection with this decision.
In 1925, Nearing spent two months in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
visiting schools and talking with educational authorities. "It was a fascinating experience to visit this important educational laboratory in its opening experimental stages," he later recalled, noting that theories were then being actively tested with regards to subject matter, method of instruction, and social organization of students and teachers alike. The result of this visit was one of the first serious studies of the nascent Soviet educational system, a book entitled Education in Soviet Russia.
In 1927, Nearing made his first trip to Asia, traveling to China by ship for a three month stay. En route, the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
Party split, with forces loyal to Chiang Kai Shek attacking and summarily executing their former Communist
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
allies. As Nearing later recalled
"Leftists were liquidated on sight. The procedure was summary. When one was captured by Chiang's forces, his arms were held by two Chiang soldiers while a third, with a sword, hacked off his head. The remains were left lying as a warning to other Leftists to follow Chiang or perish. I saw some heads mounted on poles."
While there Nearing rather boldly gave a speech at Yenching University on his book, The American Empire, in a room darkened so that audience members could not be later identified and denounced. Upon his return to the United States, Nearing authored a book offering his views on the Chinese situation, entitled Whither China?
Nearing remained a prominent figure of the American Left
American Left
The American Left consists of individuals and groups, including socialists, communists and anarchists, that have sought fundamental change in the economic, political and cultural institutions of the United States. Although left-wing ideologies came to the United States in the 19th century, there...
throughout the decade of the 1920s, producing a seemingly ceaseless series of pamphlets on various radical political themes. He was also engaged professionally on the lecture circuit, making use of an agent to arrange speaking tours for about 20 years. These speaking tours continued into the early 1930s, by which time public interest in attending live speeches and debates on political themes had waned and ill health forced Nearing's agent into retirement.
The Great Depression years
In the 1930s and 1940s, Nearing and his eventual second wife, Helen Knothe, lived in Winhall in rural VermontVermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, where they had purchased a rather large forest tract for $2200 and a moderate sized farm for $2500. Nearing and Helen Knothe, who married in 1947, lived a largely ascetic and self-reliant life, growing much of their own food and putting up nine stone buildings over the course of two decades there. Cash was earned from producing maple syrup and maple sugar from the trees on their land and from Scott Nearing's occasional paid lectures.
Feeling a sense of dignity in the common man, and wanting to serve, Nearing wrote and self-published many pamphlets on topics such as low income, peace
Peace
Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the...
throughout the world, feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, and different environmental causes.
Nearing and his first wife, Nellie Marguerite Seeds Nearing, were the parents of John Scott
John Scott (writer)
John Scott , was an American writer who worked in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. The OSS was the predecessor organization to the Central Intelligence Agency...
, who wrote a participant's account of having worked in industry in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
during the 1930s.
The years of the Second World War
A consistent pacifist, Nearing opposed American participation in World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
throughout the conflict. In 1943 he was fired by the Federated Press
Federated Press
The Federated Press was a left wing news service established in 1920 that provided daily content to the radical and labor press in America.-History:...
for his anti-war position, which Managing Editor Carl Haessler
Carl Haessler
Carl Haessler was an American political activist, conscription resister, newspaper editor, and trade union organizer. He is best remembered as an imprisoned conscientious objector during World War I and as the longtime head of the Federated Press, a left wing news service which supplied content to...
criticized as "childish.". Nearing was particularly shocked by the nuclear bombing of Japan, writing to President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
on August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
, that "your government is no longer mine."
Nearing in the Cold War period
In 1954 he co-authored Living the Good Life: How to Live Simply and Sanely in a Troubled World with his second wife HelenHelen and Scott Nearing
Helen Knothe Nearing and Scott Nearing were well-known American back-to-the-landers who wrote extensively about their experience living what they termed "the good life".- Philosophy :...
. The book, in which war, famine, and poverty were discussed, described a nineteen-year "back to the land experiment", and also advocated a modern day "homesteading".
In the winter of 1956-57, Scott and Helen Nearing toured Canada, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, generating a book about their experiences called Socialists Around the World. The following winter, with their passports issued in 1956 nearing expiration, Scott and Helen Nearing embarked upon a trip through the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. They returned home to Maine to write a book of their experiences, entitled The Brave New World. The pair visited Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Stalingrad, Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
, Taskent
Taskent
Taşkent, formerly Pirlerkondu, is a town and district of Konya Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. According to 2000 census, population of the district is 46,396 of which 10,779 live in the town of Taşkent.-External links:* *...
, and Irkutsk
Irkutsk
Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...
, touring schools and universities, apartment buildings in the process of construction, factories, and collective farms in the course of their trip. In China they saw Peking (Beijing), Wuhan
Wuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...
and Nanking. The two countries were characterized in the Nearings' travelogue as "peaceful socialist giants":
"The pro-peace attitude of the people of the Soviet Union and People's China is not based on fear of war but on confidence in their theory and way of life. One Soviet trade unionist put the matter to us in this way. 'We are not afraid of war. We have been through it and survived its cruelties and horrors. We know that we can take it. Just because we have been through it and suffered from it, we know how terrible war is. It wastes materials, but worse than that, it squanders human idealism, energy, wealth and life. Still worse, those of us who are trying to build a socialst society are diverted and preoccupied by war. We know from bitter experience that if we are to engage in socialist construction we cannot fight wars. War is a full-time occupation.'"
In the wake of their travels to the USSR and China, Scott Nearing seems to have drawn somewhat closer once again to the Communist Party, whose official publishing house, New Century Publishers, produced Nearing pamphlets on Eastern Europe and Cuba in 1962 and 1963.
The Vietnam Years and after
As the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
took center stage in the mid-1960s, and as a large back-to-the-land movement developed in the U.S., a renewed interest in Nearing's work and ideas occurred. Hundreds of anti-war believers flocked to Nearing's home in Maine to learn homesteading
Homesteading
Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency.-Current practice:The term may apply to anyone who follows the back-to-the-land movement by adopting a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading...
practical-living skills, some also to hear a master radical's anti-war message.
In 1968, Nearing signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
In 1973, the University of Pennsylvania formally reversed its dismissal of Nearing in 1915 by awarding him the title of Honorary Emeritus Professor of Economics. Nearing praised Albania during this time and described its people as "rested, secure, hopeful, cheerful" along with "they are building solidly and fundamentally for a better future."
Nearing appears in the film Reds (1981), as one of the many documentary "witnesses," telling stories of his friend John Reed and of the heady days leading up to the Russian Revolution.
Nearing as a Foreign Policy Analyst
In addition to working variously as a teacher, paid public speaker, and author, throughout his life Scott Nearing was a regular contributor of commentary on foreign affairs. As an octogenarian summing up his life, Nearing recalled
"I have spent 70 years of study and travel in order to equip myself with information that would enable me to speak and write with authority on the course of world affairs. The authority I have sought is not in any sense political. It is the authority that results from collecting and classifying information on a scientific level and interpreting facts as I have found them. Since I do not speak with political authority I have no means of communicating my conclusions except by putting them in print myself and distributing them in the most advantageous way that is available to a private citizen."
Through the years, his writings on foreign affairs were distributed via several different channels. In 1921 Nearing was, along with his colleague Louis Lochner, a co-founder of a forerunner of the Federated Press
Federated Press
The Federated Press was a left wing news service established in 1920 that provided daily content to the radical and labor press in America.-History:...
, a news service
News agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
which sent out domestic and international news releases and picture mats five days a week to the labor and radical press in America. Nearing remained a regular contributor to the Federated Press (controlled by the Communist Party for most of its existence) until 1943, when he was fired for his anti-war position, which Federated Press editor Carl Haessler
Carl Haessler
Carl Haessler was an American political activist, conscription resister, newspaper editor, and trade union organizer. He is best remembered as an imprisoned conscientious objector during World War I and as the longtime head of the Federated Press, a left wing news service which supplied content to...
characterized as "childish." Nearing then began to contribute to an obscure monthly newsletter from Florida, World Events.
Shortly after its founding in 1949, Nearing began contributing a monthly "World Events" column to the independent theoretical monthly, Monthly Review
Monthly Review
Monthly Review is an independent Marxist journal published 11 times per year in New York City.-History:The publication was founded by Harvard University economics instructor Paul Sweezy, who became the first editor...
, established by dissident Marxist economists Paul Sweezy
Paul Sweezy
Paul Marlor Sweezy was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review...
and Leo Huberman
Leo Huberman
Leo Huberman was an American socialist writer. In 1949 he founded and co-edited Monthly Review with Paul Sweezy.-Works:* Cuba: A revolution revisited* Vietnam: The Endless War* Socialism in Cuba...
. Nearing tellingly characterized the objective of this publication as "the dissemination of a true understanding of society and the reporting of dependable news of the movement toward a socialist society which is steadily spreading over the face of the globe." Through the decades, Nearing wrote thousands of pages of news and commentary on these themes, retiring from this activity only in 1970, at the age of 87.
Death
Scott Nearing died on August 24, 1983, just eighteen days after his 100th birthday. His death was a conscious leaving of life brought about by fasting, a decision and experience described in his wife Helen Nearing's memoir, Loving and Leaving the Good Life.Philosophical ideas
During his 1919 trial for allegedly obstructing American military recruitment during World War I, at which he testified in his own defense, the prosecution asked Scott Nearing whether he was a "pacifist socialist." Nearing's reply was illuminating — he replied that he was a "pacifist" and left it at that. Prosecutor Earl B. Barnes was taken aback and asked for clarification:
Q: You are a pacifist even to class struggles?
[Nearing]: I am a pacifist in that I believe that no man has a right to do violence to any other man.
Q: Even in the class struggle?
[Nearing]: Under no circumstances.
Half a century later, writing in his 1972 autobiography, The Making of a Radical, Scott Nearing described himself as a pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
, a socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, and a vegetarian
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
. In his autobiography he says "I became a vegetarian because I was persuaded that life is as valid for other creatures as it is for humans. I do not need dead animal bodies to keep me alive, strong and healthy. Therefore, I will not kill for food". Nearing listed his four most influential teachers as Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, Simon Nelson Patten
Simon Patten
Simon Nelson Patten was an influential economist and the chair of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania...
, his grandfather and mother. Other influences he acknowledged in his memoirs included Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
, Lao Tzu, Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
, Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
, Charles Otis Whitman
Charles Otis Whitman
-External links:***-Notes:...
, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
, Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy was an American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, set in the year 2000. He was a very influential writer during the Gilded Age of United States history.-Early life:...
, Olive Schreiner
Olive Schreiner
Olive Schreiner was a South African author, anti-war campaigner and intellectual. She is best remembered today for her novel The Story of an African Farm which has been highly acclaimed ever since its first publication in 1883 for the bold manner in which it dealt with some of the burning issues...
, Richard Maurice Bucke, and Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...
's Jean-Christophe
Jean-Christophe
Jean-Christophe is the novel in ten volumes by Romain Rolland for which he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915. It was translated into English by Gilbert Cannan....
.
Scott Nearing's journey over a century was neatly (albeit perhaps facilely) described by one biographer as follows:
"Nearing's intellectual development followed a path of increasing awareness of the intransigence of the dominant classes of capitalist culture to adopt reforms that would spread the enlightenment and opportunities of the leisure classes to society as a whole. From the time of his firing from the University of Pennsylvania in 1915 through the aftermath of World War I, he experienced the limits of permissible questioning of conventional wisdom. His long, difficult journey from an orthodox reformer of the ruling class from within to a complete secessionist from capitalist cultural hegemony led him by 1932 to choose homesteading — an experiment Nearing called 'living the good life.'
"In that spirit, Nearing moved through a series of secessions — from Christianity, from politics, and finally from American society itself. He voyaged to the wilderness as if on a pilgrimage to a sacred place. His experience, along with a deeper understanding of American culture, led to the inescapable consciousness that capitalist cultural dominance was too strong to eliminate and therefore too powerful to control or mold to liberal purposes. The secessions in his life were progressive repudiations of American canons of moral conduct as well as indications of Nearing's perception of the fragmented, segmented, discontinuous nature of American society. Only in the isolated private sphere provided by homesteading could a radical resistance and constructive challenge to capitalist culture be nurtured.
"In his devotion to conscientious self-reliance, Nearing emerged as a twentieth-century colleague of Emerson and Thoreau."
This view, that Nearing chose to "drop out" of politics and society itself and live life as a rugged agrarian individualist at one with nature, is a common interpretation — and certainly one with some merit. Another possible reading of Nearing's motivations and decision-making lies in his own writing. Nearing repeatedly drew inspiration from the life story of Count Leo Tolstoi, whose life Nearing clearly saw as analogous to his own:
"Count Leo Tolstoi is a classic example of an individual in potential and actual conflict with his group. He was talented and had immense vitality. Until young manhood he accepted his place in the Tsarist social pattern and generally conformed to it. After some drastic experiences and much soul searching, Leo Tolstoi challenged the social system under which he lived to mortal combat. From that point until the day he left home and died in a railway station in his final attempt to win out against group pressures, his life consisted of combats with members of his family, with members of the neighboring nobility, with the army, with the Tsarist autocracy and with the established church."
The tension between the dissident individual and the group was an unenviable one, Nearing believed. In the conflict between the solitary individual and the community, Nearing saw only three possible outcomes:
"(1) The individual may win out and impose himself and his ideas upon the group. The normal consequence of such an outcome is a personal dictatorship or the imposition upon the community of an oligarchyOligarchyOligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
in which the dissident individual or individuals play a prominent role. (2) The division of the community into factions, one of which upholds the dissident individual, with a stalemate leading to feuding, rebellion, civil war. (3) The group wins out, imposes its will and eliminates the non-conformist. Such conflict sequences have occurred repeatedly in contemporary and in earlier history."
Nearing’s chosen lifestyle of "Tolstoian," ascetic, rural self-sufficiency may be reasonably interpreted as the attempt of a self-aware dissident individual to avoid inevitably negative participation in the internal life of the group (be it government or political party), while retaining a keen and almost obsessive interest in the dynamics of society and the world as a whole.
Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, the Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
poet, referred to Nearing as a "grand old man, a real mensch" in his poem America
America (poem)
"America" is a poem by Allen Ginsberg, written in 1956. It appears in his collection Howl and Other Poems.The poem is in the first person and reads much like a monologue...
.
Titles published through 1915
- Economics. (with Frank D. Watson) New York: Macmillan, 1908.
- Social Religion: A Discussion of the Place of Social Welfare in a Religious Program. Philadelphia: Friends Conference, 1910.
- Social Adjustment. New York: Macmillan, 1911.
- The Solution of the Child Labor Problem. New York: Moffatt, Yard & Co., 1911.
- Elements of Economics, with Special Reference to American Conditions: For the Use of High Schools. (with Henry Reed Burch) New York: Macmillan, 1912.
- The Super Race: An American Problem. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1912.
- Woman and Social Progress: A Discussion of the Biologic, Domestic, Industrial and Social Possibilities of American Women. (with Nellie M. S. Nearing) New York: Macmillan, 1912.
- Financing the Wage Earner's Family: A Survey of the Facts Bearing on Income and Expenditures in the Families of American Wage-Earners. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1913.
- Social Sanity: A Preface to the Book of Social Progress. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co., 1913.
- Reducing the Cost of Living. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs, 1914.
- Wages in the United States, 1908-1910: A survey of the Facts Bearing on Income and Expenditures in the Families of American Wage-Earners. New York: Macmillan, 1914.
- Anthracite: An Instance of a Natural Resources Monopoly. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1915.
- Income: An Examination of the Returns for Services Rendered and from Property Owned in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1915.
- The New Education: A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day. Chicago: Row, Peterson & Co., 1915.
- Women in American Industry. Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1915.
Titles published during Nearing's Socialist Party Period (1916-1923)
- Community Civics. (with Jessie Field) New York: Macmillan, 1916.
- The Germs of War: A Study in Preparedness. St. Louis: National Rip-Saw Publishing Co., 1916.
- Poverty and Riches: A Study of the Industrial Regime. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1916.
- Should Socialism Prevail? A Debate Held October 21, 1915, Brooklyn, New York, Under the Auspices of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Subject: - Resolved, That Socialism Ought to Prevail in the United States. Affirmative: Professor Scott Nearing, Mr. Morris Hillquit; Negative: Rev. Dr. John L. Belford, Professor Frederick M. Davenport; J. Herbert Lowe, Chairman. New York: The Rand School of Social Science, 1916.
- Social Religion: An Interpretation of Christianity in Terms of Modern Life. New York: Macmillan, 1916.
- The Great Madness: A Victory for the American Plutocracy. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1917.
- The Menace of Militarism: An Analysis, a Criticism, a Protest and a Demand. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1917.
- An Open Letter to Profiteers: An Arraignment of Big Business in Its Relation to the World War. New York: People's Council of America, 1917.
- Will Democracy Cure the Social Ills of the World?: Debate. (with Clarence Darrow) Chicago: John F. Higgins, 1917.
- Work and Pay. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1917.
- Scott Nearing's Address to the Jury. New York: Rand School of Social Science, n.d. [1918].
- The Coal Question: Some Reasons Why It is Pressing and Some Suggestions for Solving It. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1918.
- The Debs Decision. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1919.
- Before the Court: Nearing — Debs: 1. Nearing's Summing-Up Speech; 2. Debs' Statement to the Court. (with Eugene V. DebsEugene V. DebsEugene Victor Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World , and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States...
) New York: People's Print, n.d. [1919]. - Violence or Solidarity? or, Will Guns Settle It? New York: People's Printer, n.d. [1919].
- Labor and the League of Nations: With the Full Text of the Revised Covenant of the League of Nations. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1919.
- The Trial of Scott Nearing and the American Socialist Society: United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, New York City, February 5 to 19th, 1919. (Introduction by Morris Hillquit.) New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1919.
- The Human Element in Economics: Twelve Lessons. New York: Rand School of Social Science, Correspondence Dept., n.d. [1919].
- Europe and the Next World War. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1920.
- Europe in Revolution: A Letter from Scott Nearing. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1920.
- A Nation Divided, or, Plutocracy versus Democracy. Chicago: Socialist Party of the United States, 1920.
- The New Slavery. Chicago: Socialist Party of the United States, 1920.
- The One Big Union of Business. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1920.
- Would the Practice of Christ's Teachng Make for Social Progress? Debate Between Scott Nearing and Percy Ward. Girard, KS: Appeal to Reason, 1920.
- The American Empire. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1921.
- Rationalism versus Socialism. Debate Between Scott Nearing and Percy Ward. Chicago: Kimball Hall, 1921.
- A Public Debate: Capitalism vs. Socialism. (with Edwin R.A. Seligman) New York: The Fine Arts Guild, 1921. -- reissued in 1924 as a Haldeman-Julius "Little Blue Book"
- Can the Church Be Radical? Debate Held at the Lexington Theatre, Sunday Afternoon, February 12, 1922: Affirmative, John Haynes Holmes, Minister of the Community Church; Negative, Scott Nearing, Lecturer in the Rand School. (with John Haynes Holmes) New York: Hanford Press, 1922.
- The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation. Ridgewood, NJ: Nellie Seeds Nearing, 1922.
- Irrepressible America. New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1922.
- Oil and the Germs of War. Ridgewood, NJ: Nellie Seeds Nearing, 1923.
Titles published during Nearing's Communist Period (1924-1929)
- Bolshevism and the West. Debate Between Scott Nearing and Bertrand Russell. New York: The League for Public Discussion, 1924.
- Soviet Form of Government: Its Application to Western Civilization. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Co., 1924.
- Dollar Diplomacy : a Study in American Imperialism. (with Joseph Freeman) New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1925.
- Educational Frontiers: A book about Simon Nelson Patten and Other Teachers. New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1925.
- Has Propaganda Any Value in Education? Debate Between Scott Nearing and Alexis Fern. New York: Rand School of Social Science, 1925.
- Education in Soviet Russia. New York: International Publishers, 1926.
- Glimpses of the Soviet Republic. New York: Social Science Publishers, 1926.
- Russia Turns East. New York: Social Science Publishers, 1926.
- British Labor Bids for Power: The Historic Scarboro Conference of the Trades Union Congress. New York: Social Science Publishers, 1926.
- Stopping a War: the Fight of the French Workers Against the Moroccan Campaign of 1925. New York: Social Science Publishers, 1926.
- The Law of Social Revolution. A Co-Operative Study By the Labor Research Study Group. New York: Social Science Publishers, 1926.
- World Labor Unity. New York: Social Science Publishers, 1926.
- The British General Strike: An Economic Interpretation of its Background and its Significance. New York: Vanguard PressVanguard PressThe Vanguard Press was a United States publishing house established with a $100,000 grant from the left wing American Fund for Public Service, better known as the Garland Fund. Throughout the 1920s, Vanguard Press issued an array of books on radical topics, including studies of the Soviet Union,...
, 1927. - The Economic Organization of the Soviet Union. (with Jack Hardy) New York: Vanguard Press, 1927.
- Where is Civilization Going? New York: Vanguard Press, 1927.
- The Future of Capitalism and Socialism in America. (with Sam Adolph Lewisohn, Malcolm Churchill Rorty, and Morris Hillquit.) New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1927.
- Whither China? An Economic Interpretation of Recent Events in the Far East. New York: International Publishers, 1927.
- Black America. New York: Vanguard Press, 1929.
Independent Radicalism from The Depression through World War II (1930-1945)
- The Twighlight of Empire: An Economic Interpretation of Imperialist Cycles. New York: Vanguard Press, 1930.
- Why Hard Times?: A Study of the Economic and Social Forces That Are Sweeping Away Capitalist Imperialism. New York: Urquhart Press, n.d. [1931].
- The Decisive Year, 1931: Capitalism, Imperialism, Sovietism Before the Bar of History. New York: Rand School of Social Science, n.d. [1931].
- A Warless World: Is a Warless World Possible? New York: Vanguard Press, 1931.
- War: Organized Destruction and Mass Murder by Civilized Nations. New York: Vanguard Press, 1931.
- The One Way Out. New York: Vanguard Press, 1932.
- Must We Starve? New York: Vanguard Press, 1932.
- Which Offers More for the Future? Communism: Scott Nearing; Socialism: Norman Thomas; Capitalism: Don D. Lescohier. Chicago: Popular Interest Series Publishing Co., 1932.
- Fascism. n.c. [Ridgewood, NJ]: Scott Nearing, n.d. [1933].
- Europe — West and East. Ridgewood, NJ: Scott Nearing, n.d. [1934].
- An ABC of Communism. Ridgewood, NJ: Scott Nearing, n.d. [1935].
- The European Civil War: The First Twenty Years, 1917-1936. Baltimore: Christian Social Justice Fund, 1936.
- The Rise and Decline of Christian Civilization. Ridgewood, NJ: Scott Nearing, n.d. [1940].
- United World. Mays Landing, NJ: Open Road Press, 1944.
- Democracy is Not Enough. New York: Island Press, 1945.
- The Soviet Union as a World Power. New York: Island Press, 1945.
- The Tragedy of Empire. New York: Island Press, 1945.
Independent Radicalism After World War II (1946-1979)
- The Revolution of Our Time. New York: Island Press, 1947.
- The Illusion of Free Enterprise. Boston: Boston Community Church, 1948.
- Why I Believe in Socialism. Washington, D. C.: World Events Committee, 1949.
- The Maple Sugar Book: Being a Plain Practical Account of the Art of Sugaring Designed to Promote an Acquaintance with the Ancient As Well As the Modern. (with Helen Nearing) New York: John Day Co., 1950.
- Cooperation and Peace or Competition and War. East Palatka, FL: World Events Committee, 1951.
- Economics for the Power Age. East Palatka, FL: World Events Committee, 1952.
- Man's Search for the Good Life. Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, 1954.
- To Promote The General Welfare. Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, 1954.
- USA Today: Reporting Extensive Journeys and First-Hand Observations, Commenting on Their Meaning and Offering Conclusions Regarding Present-Day Trends in the Domestic and International Affairs of the United States. (with Helen Nearing) Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, 1955.
- Our Right to Travel. (with Helen Nearing) Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, 1956.
- Socialists Around the World. (with Helen Nearing) New York: Monthly Review Press, 1958.
- The Brave New World. (with Helen Nearing) Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, 1958.
- Soviet Education: What Does It Offer America? An Illustrated Eyewitness Report. Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, n.d. [1958].
- Freedom: Promise and Menace: A Critique on the Cult of Freedom. Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, 1961.
- Socialism in Practice: Transformation of East Europe. New York: New Century Publishers, 1962.
- Cuba and Latin America: Eyewitness Report on the Continental Congress for Solidarity with Cuba. New York: New Century Publishers, 1963.
- The Conscience of a Radical. Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, 1965.
- Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World. New York: Schocken Books, 1970.
- The Making of a Radical: A Political Autobiography. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.
- Civilization and Beyond: Learning From History. Harborside, ME: Social Science Institute, 1975.
- Building and Using Our Sun-Heated Greenhouse: Grow Vegetables All Year Round. (with Helen Nearing) Charlotte, VT: Garden Way Publishing, 1978.
- Continuing the Good Life: Half a Century of Homesteading. New York: Schocken Books, 1979.
Further reading
- Saltmarsh, John A., Scott Nearing: An Intellectual Biography. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.
- Whitfield, Stephen J., Scott Nearing: Apostle of American Radicalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.
External links
- The Good Life Center -- Non-profit group responsible for perpetuating the philosophy promoted by Helen and Scott Nearing.