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:
“The philosopher’s conception of things will, above all, be truer than other men’s, and his philosophy will subordinate all the circumstances of life. To live like a philosopher is to live, not foolishly, like other men, but wisely and according to universal laws.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“When a bachelor of philosophy from the Antilles refuses to apply for certification as a teacher on the grounds of his color I say that philosophy has never saved anyone. When someone else strives and strains to prove to me that black men are as intelligent as white men I say that intelligence has never saved anyone: and that is true, for, if philosophy and intelligence are invoked to proclaim the equality of men, they have also been employed to justify the extermination of men.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)