Nearing, Scott (1883–1983)

A PEACE ACTIVIST, conservationist, and writer, Scott Nearing was a leading American social critic whose career spanned most of the 20th century. Born in [Page 325]Morris Run, Pennsylvania, in 1883, Nearing earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1909. He taught at Pennsylvania until 1915, but was dismissed by university trustees for his vocal opposition to child labor. At the time, a number of trustees were wealthy industrialists whose factories employed children. Nearing's dismissal led to a nationwide letter campaign and a lengthy debate over academic freedom, however, Nearing was not reinstated. In 1916, he moved to the University of Toledo, but was again fired in 1917 for his public denunciations of America's entry into World War I.

Essentially blacklisted from higher education, in 1917 Nearing joined the staff of the Rand School of Social Sciences in New York, where he wrote an important anti-war pamphlet entitled The Great Madness. In 1918, Nearing unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Socialist Party candidate against Fiorello LaGuardia. During the campaign, Nearing was under indictment for espionage for publishing The Great Madness, but defended himself in court and was acquitted of the charges in 1919. He was the only major World War Iera pacifist to escape prison.

From 1917 to 1922, Nearing was a member of the Socialist Party but quit when the party officially denounced the Soviet Union. (Nearing was a friend and colleague of John Reed and appeared in the 1981 film Reds depicting Reed's life). In 1927, Nearing joined the Communist Party, but left in 1930 when it refused to publish his book Twilight of Empire because it did not conform to Leninist theory.

In 1932, Nearing moved with his wife Helen to a small farm near Stratton Mountain, Vermont, where he embarked on a second career as a maple sugar producer. In Vermont, Nearing became a pronounced conservationist and proponent of self-reliant living. He and Helen grew their own food, practiced fasting, and abstained from habit-forming substances. They also devised a scheme for dividing the day's hours: one-third for “bread work” (livelihood), one-third for “head work” (intellectual endeavors), and one-third for “service to the world community.” Feeling somewhat overwhelmed by their sugar business, in 1951 the Nearings moved to Harborside, Maine, where they built their own house and practiced subsistence farming.

In 1954, the Nearings wrote Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World. Initially self-published, Living the Good Life was reissued in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War. The book was hugely popular and helped initiate a back-to-the-land movement among thousands of young Americans who wished to establish their own homesteads and live ecofriendly, ascetic lives. Sales from Living the Good Life, around 10,000 copies in the 1950s, climbed to 200,000 copies in the 1970s. The Nearings used the profits to publish Scott's other works on political and economic philosophy. Overall, Nearing published some 50 books and monographs and over 100 essays, including a “World Events” column, which appeared from 1953 to 1972 in the Monthly Review.

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