Scott Nearing

Scott Nearing (August 6, 1883 – August 24, 1983) was an American conservationist, peace activist, educator, writer and economist. Nearing is the father of John Scott.

Life

Born in Morris Run, Pennsylvania, Nearing is still viewed as a radical 20 years after his death. In 1954 he co-authored "Living the Good Life: How to Live Simply and Sanely in a Troubled World" with his wife Helen (see the entry for Helen and Scott Nearing). 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." Eugene V. Debs, the five-time Socialist presidential candidate, called Nearing the "greatest teacher in the United States," and Allen Ginsberg, the famous Beat Generation poet, referred to Nearing as a "grand old man, a real mensch" in his poem "America". Nearing's anti-war activities cost him two teaching jobs, and he was even charged under the Espionage Act for opposing the First World War.

Nearing was a noted eugenicist, authoring "The Super Race: An American Problem" in 1912. In this work, Nearing argued that "Through the establishment of negative eugenics the unfit will be restrained from mating and perpetuating their unfitness in the future." [Nearing, Scott. 1912. "The Super Race: An American Problem" New York: B.W. Huebsch. p.31] This aspect of Nearing's thought is not notably present in his 1972 autobiography, although "The Super Race" is listed in his compiled bibliography at the book's end.

Nearing was dismissed from the University of Pennsylvania in 1915 because of his public opposition to child labor. In 1973, however, the University awarded Nearing the title of Honorary Emeritus Professor of Economics.

After leaving Pennsylvania, Nearing lived a largely self-reliant life in the wooded areas of Vermont and Maine. 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 was notably critical of the U.S Government. On August 6, 1945, the day President Harry S. Truman ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, Nearing wrote a damning letter to the president, stating "your government is no longer mine."

As the Vietnam War 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 began. 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.

Nearing wrote a political autobiography titled "The Making of a Radical", published in 1972.

He appears on film in the movie "Reds" (1981), starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton. In the film, Nearing appears as one of the many "witnesses," telling stories of his friend John Reed (who was portrayed by Beatty in the film) and of the heady days leading up to the Russian Revolution.

Eighteen days after his 100th birthday Scott Nearing committed suicide by self-imposed starvation.

Principles

In his autobiography, "The Making of a Radical", Scott Nearing describes 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". (chapter 7, page 123) [ [http://www.ivu.org/history/northam20a/nearing.html Scott Nearing (1883-1983)] ]

Influences

In his autobiography (chapter 1, page 29), he describes his four most influential teachers as Leo Tolstoy, Simon Nelson Patten, his grandfather and mother. Other influences he lists are 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".

Quotes

*"War is an attempt of one group to impose its will upon another group by armed violence."
*"War drags human beings from their tasks of building and improving, and pushes them en masse into the category of destroyers and killers."
*"Your government is no longer mine."
*"Do the best that you can, wherever you are, and be kind."
*"The Greeks eliminated unfitness by the destruction of defective children; though we may deplore such a practice in the light of our modern ethical codes, we recognize the end as one essential to race progress."

Selected writings

* "Anthracite; an instance of natural resource monopoly"
* "Black America (Sourcebooks in Negro History)"
* "Bolshevism and the West"
* "Building and Using Our Sun-Heated Greenhouse: Grow Vegetables All Year-Round"
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12320 "Civilization and Beyond: Learning from History"]
* "Continuing the Good Life: Half a Century of Homesteading"
* "Free Born"
* "Freedom, Promise and Menace"
* "The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living"
* "The Great Madness"
* "Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World"
* "The Making of a Radical: A Political Autobiography"
* "Man's Search for the Good Life"
* "The Maple Sugar Book: Pioneering As a Way of Living in the Twentieth Century"
* "The New Education"
* "Oil and the Germs of War"
* "The Super Race: An American Problem"
* "The Trial of Scott Nearing and the American Socialist Society"
* "Whither China?"

ee also

* Helen and Scott Nearing

References

External links

*
* [http://www.afsc.org/pwork/0202/020219.htm Scott Nearing—Peace Activist and Practical Conservationist] Short Biography
* [http://www.goodlife.org The Good Life Center] The nonprofit group responsible for perpetuating the philosophies and lifeways promoted and exemplified by Helen and Scott Nearing.
* [http://www.archive.org/stream/superraceamerica00nearuoft] Internet Archive version of "The Super Race: An American Problem."