I’ll interrupt the McKibben book review and discussion to harken back to an earlier attempt to spell out what it means to live a-right.
I’ve read and re-read Thoreau’s Walden and the Hubbards’ Payne Hollow, as well as what Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon have had to say about living sustainably. One couple that I’ve been aware of but haven’t read have been the Nearings – Helen and Scott.
The Nearings were something akin to socialists, pacifists, distrusted the government and were leaders in a back-to-the-land movement before there was one. They are very interesting to read and read about.
In light of some of our previous conversations on Right Living, I would like to share a bit from the Nearings’ preface of their classic Living the Good Life:
When we moved to Vermont we left a society gripped by depression and unemployment, falling prey to fascism, and on the verge of another world-wide military free-for-all; and entered a pre-industrial, rural community. The society from which we moved had rejected in practice and in principle our pacifism, our vegetarianism and our collectivism. So thorough was this rejection that, holding such views, we could not teach in schools, write in the press or speak over the radio, and were thus denied our part in public education.
Under these circumstances, where could outcasts from a dying social order live frugally and decently, and at the same time have sufficient leisure and energy to assist in the speedy liquidation of the disintegrating society and to help replace it with a more workable social system?
…We decided these tasks could better be performed from a Vermont valley than from a large city or from some point outside the United States. As it turned out, we saved enough time and energy from the bread labor and the association required by our Vermont experiment to take an active though minor part in United States adult education and in the shaping of public opinion, at the same time that we were living what we regarded as a self-respecting, decent, simple life.
Although written in response to conditions in the 1930s, it sounds as cutting edge today as it did when it was published in 1954. Thoughts?
19 comments:
I am an unabashed admirer of the Nearings but before commenting in a positive way, let me point out a couple of things about them:
They were both independently quite wealthy. Their writings imply that they were not, but if you read more carefully you see that they never claimed the poverty of their Vermont or Maine farmsteads existed anywhere but on paper.
Nearing wasn't akin to a socialist, he was a card carrying communist who ran for mayer of NY against LaGuardia on the Communist ticket. To appreciate what this means, before McCarthy the Communists in the US were just another political party like the Greens and Libertarians are just different parties today. Communist wasn't a cuss word at that time.
The world did not turn out as Nearing was sure it would. The US did not collapse in the 50's or later as he avowed it would.
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Having said that, the Nearings were the genuine article. They put their considerable wealth into a trust, the Social Science Institute, and thereby traveled the globe in style on speaking tours. But their day to day food, clothing, fuel, and buildings they did themselves on a tiny shoestring of a budget.
Here is the one pearl that Nearing taught that is the crux of what I myself consider the Good Life: They advocated that everyone have two advocations, one by which they would earn their sustenance and the other that would be in service to the community. Under their system, EVERYONE would grow food, cook, clean, gather fuel, build, etc. for their own needs or else swap this labor on a one to one basis. Then they would be a musician, preacher, teacher, counselor, writer, etc. in service to the community but receive no monetary pay for it.
Failure to recognize the wisdom in this and embrace it accounts for much of what's wrong with the world.
My favorite Nearing quote is from a 1975 documentary:
"I have many doubts, many doubts, no certainties, a lot of confidence, and much enthusiasm about the possibility during this lifespan of making some sort of contribution to the expansion of our expanding universe. Now, that conribution may only consist of turning this brush into topsoil and adding it to the topsoil here rather than standing this way and watching it wash down the Penobscot River ...."
You know, of course, E, that I recognized their writing in your words as soon as I started reading. You just used the term "bread labor" recently, haven't you?
I'm glad to finally get around around to reading it. I'll probably mix in ideas and quotes from the Nearings and McKibben over the next couple of weeks.
By the way, I didn't really offer much in the way of explanation in my introduction - like Thoreau's short experiment and the Hubbard's life at Payne Hollow, Scott and Helen lived off the land divorced significantly from an economic system they perceived to be corrupt and corrupting. Or at least that's my understanding - I'm still reading the book.
They began to first live off the land in 1932, 75 years ago.
E-
Do you recall the name of that documentary?
David,
It's Living the Good Life with Helen and Scott Nearing" by Bullfrog Films.
The Social Science Institute is still going from and endowment from the Nearings and this film plus all their other considerable publications are all available from there.
Dan,
The original opus was Living the Good Life which was published in '54 just after they sold the Vermont farm and moved to Maine. In the late 70's they published the sequel Continuing the Good Life and just after Scott's death in '83 the two books were combined into The Good Life and republished.
Scott wrote and published nearly 100 books and pamphlets, most of them on economics and socialism.
To even begin to understand the Nearings, I highly recommend two other books:
The Making of a Radical by Scott Nearing which is a sort of autobiography.
The Making of a Homesteader (the title an obvious parody) by John Saltmarsh which is a detailed biography and summary of his teachings.
Thanks for the info, E. I'm currently reading an old library copy of Living the Good Life. I'll check in to the others as I have opportunity.
By the way, a group of friends have recently purchased land and are in the process of Living a Better Life. It looks pretty cool.
Hopefully, I'll have much more to write about that in the days, months and years ahead.
"The Nearings were something akin to socialists, pacifists, distrusted the government "
Is it possible to be a socialist and distrust the government? I mean, depending on the extent, socialists want the government to be involved heavily in our lives, such as health care, food, other goods and services, etc...
I believe they were Marxists of the sort that believed in common ownership or collectivism, pulling resources.
He distrusted OUR gov't (and, having been arrested for sedition for being a pacifist opposed to WWI and otherwise ostracized and marigalized, who could blame him?) at the time. I don't know that he distrusted all forms of communal decision-making.
I'll find out more as I read, I'm sure.
Nearing was tried for treason (and acquitted) for publishing a pamphlet, The Great Madness where he identified economic factors as the cause of WW1. The prosecutor asserted that the pamphlet interfered with recruiting and Nearing asked the court to produce one person who was dissuaded from joining the armed forces as a result of his writing. They couldn't, of course.
But, correct me if I'm mistook, Dan, but you seem to view Nearing as a sort of collectivist in theory, sentiment, and spirit. Fact was he was an unabashed supporter of Soviet communism and was part and party to the effort to establish same world wide, especially in the US.
He visited the Soviet Union often in the 30's and his son, John, went there to live and married a Russian woman. When confronted with the human rights abuses of the Soviets, he dismissed it as a necessary evil to establish a world order to his liking.
Just like Chance, I found his stance enigmatic. How can you idealize the homesteading lifestyle and yet advocate against private ownership of property? The question was answered when I expanded my reading about Nearing where he said given the current economic and social system of the US, homesteading was an acceptable alternative, but when the revolution was over, it would be unnecessary and not the best economic basis. Needless to say the profound extent to which I disagree with that.
But Nearing's interaction with the Communists gives us one very valuable insight on which I expounded in the latest entry on my own blog. Nearing wrote a book identifying the role imperialism had played in world history. The official Soviet Communist position was that imperialism had only begun under the Czars and so they told loyal party member Comrade Nearing that he was forbidden to publish the book.
Here it is then, the dream of collectivism is great right up until the point that the "collective" tells you that your long held fantasy to be pontificator, socially significant facilitator and coordinator, author, arteeeeeest, etc. is not in the collective's best interest and instead you are ordered to hoe potatoes or clean toilets. THEN suddenly this collectivism isn't such a good idea after all.
Nearing published his book anyway and simultaneously resigned from and was expelled from the communist party.
Happens every time.
for anyone who would hope to understand more about the Nearings, I'd recommend at least three more books -- two short and one an easy read (unlike those Eleu recommends, though I too have read them):
Meanwhile Next Door to the Good Life -- gives more insight into what life was really like.
Free Radical -- a truer story about Scott's death
and one I can't remember the name of that is about Helen's death, by the same woman who wrote Free Radical.
All of them very worth reading if you are interested in the real workings of a life instead of just what Scott and Helen wanted to portray as the life. Not that I'm saying the portrayal was a bad thing or anything.
Thanks for the extra info. My knowledge about the Nearings is spotty at the moment, thanks for the illumination.
Although I'll have to own up to finding them thus far a bit bewildering. Socialists who fear the state and pacifists who are okay with state oppression?
What were their positions towards the end of their lives, I wonder?
Also, CG, since my reading list is growing ever-longer, any chance you could give brief summaries of the books you mentioned (brief, but longer than the ones you've provided already)? What problems did the neighbors have with the Nearings? What about his death?
CG:"and one I can't remember the name of that is about Helen's death, by the same woman who wrote Free Radical."
That one is called On Light Alone.
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Much of the material about the Nearings points out contradictions in their live vs their writings. Harsher people would call it hypocrisy or lying.
You get the impression from The Good Life, the two books combined, that the Nearings did all that marvelous amount of stone masonry and hand digging a half acre pond etc. all by their elderly selves. Very much the opposite, they had scores of hanger-ons for years who did most of the work.
They decry sweets as being health wrecking yet earned their cash income in Vermont selling maple candy. They decry all animal products and yet admit eating cottage cheese and ice cream (provided by Eliot Coleman who was their neighbor). The list goes on and on.
None the less, I still say they were the genuine article in that almost all the time and in all the important aspects they lived what they taught. Identifying the economics that put people out of production of their own food as an underlying cause of social ill, they ate only what they could produce themselves or trade on a one to one basis. When Scott would be asked to speak at some do where they were serving an extensive dinner, he would show up with a couple of his own apples in his pocket and eat those instead.
He and Helen actually lived their day to day lives as they knew everyone else could live if only they would adopt their philosophical and economic basis. And for the most part they did it until they died (at the ages of 100 and 90 respectively).
My main harangue with most visionaries, from Al Gore down to some who frequent your bog, Dan, is that if we actually adopted their vision for the world, the very first thing we could not afford is they themselves. Not so with the Nearings and that's very rare.
I think Eleu hit the important points.
The books about Scott's and Helen's deaths are beautiful books. And short. Lyrical. Poetic. Especially Free Radical. I can't recommend them highly enough. But what you have to understand is that Helen told a very different story of Scott's death -- how he had rather decided to die, that sort of thing. That simply wasn't true. And that book gives a wonderful explanation why and the real story too -- that's very inspirational and not disillusioning.
There are forms of socialism that are anarchist, so, in theory, one could be socialist and fear the state. I don't see how one could be either pacifist or that kind of socialist-from-below anarchist and support Soviet style Communism and oppression, though. I don't know the Nearings, but I do know that while many of the old Left (pre-'30s) in the U.S. became disillusioned with the USSR (especially Stalinism) and worked for a more democratic socialism and/or a more anarchistic form, others managed to ignore or justify the abuses of the Soviets while they condemned the U.S. for the same kind of things. Hypocrites and those who contradicted themselves exist on every point of the political spectrum, from Far Right to Far Left and every point in between.
It's good to know that Nearing eventually repudiated communism. Many intellectuals and activists of the 20s and 30s were never willing to make that step, and have earned their affiliation with the depravities of the Soviet Union.
Ah, but he never repudiated communism. It was only the Soviet style Communist Party that he broke with ... and the American Communist Party and the American Socialist Party.
But he himself remained a staunch supporter and defender of communism as an economic model until his death ... and a vocal, even virulent, opponent of capitalism.
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