Philosophy
Scott was a trained economist and former college professor (he had lost his position due to his socialist and pacifist beliefs, and his anti-war activism during World War I). He continued to tread the path of a social and political theorist. Helen had grown up in an economically comfortable family of Theosophists, and as a young woman had a romantic relationship with Jiddu Krishnamurti. She was trained as a musician, and also had some brief experience in the factory work world before moving into the agrarian life with Scott.
During the Vietnam War, the Nearings joined more than 400 other writers in signing a statement, published as a full page ad in the New York Post, declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the war.
Read more about this topic: Helen And Scott Nearing
Famous quotes containing the word philosophy:
“Mr. Alcott seems to have sat down for the winter. He has got Plato and other books to read. He is as large-featured and hospitable to traveling thoughts and thinkers as ever; but with the same Connecticut philosophy as ever, mingled with what is better. If he would only stand upright and toe the line!—though he were to put off several degrees of largeness, and put on a considerable degree of littleness. After all, I think we must call him particularly your man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This philosophy of hate, of religious and racial intolerance, with its passionate urge toward war, is loose in the world. It is the enemy of democracy; it is the enemy of all the fruitful and spiritual sides of life. It is our responsibility, as individuals and organizations, to resist this.”
—Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966)
“The new statement will comprise the skepticisms, as well as the faiths of society, and out of unbeliefs a creed shall be formed. For, skepticisms are not gratuitous or lawless, but are limitations of the affirmative statement, and the new philosophy must take them in, and make affirmations outside of them, just as much as must include the oldest beliefs.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)