Kenneth and Elise Boulding: Friends for Peace and Betterment
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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327579196 Kenneth and Elise Boulding: Friends for Peace and Betterment Chapter · June 2018 CITATIONS READS 0 155 2 authors: J Russell Boulding Robert H. Scott, III Independent Scholar Monmouth University 87 PUBLICATIONS 166 CITATIONS 39 PUBLICATIONS 250 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Miscellaneous Pedological Investigations View project Ground Water Contamination at Coal Combustion Waste Disposal Sites View project All content following this page was uploaded by J Russell Boulding on 11 September 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. 16| Kenneth and Elise Boulding: The Quaker Foundations of their Contributions to the Social Sciences By Robert H. Scott, III and J. Russell Boulding The twentieth century produced a handful of married couples who made outstanding contributions to the social sciences–for example, Alva (1902-1986) and Gunnar (1898-1987) Myrdal, Margaret Mead (1901-1978) and Gregory Bateson (1904-1980), and the subject of this chapter, Kenneth (1910-1993) and Elise (1920-2010) Boulding. A common characteristic of these couples was that their scholarly contributions spanned multiple disciplines and were not confined to the ivory towers of academia but extended into the realms of sociopolitical activism. A distinctive aspect of Kenneth’s and Elise’s work is the extent to which it was grounded in the values they held as members of the Religious Society of Friends. They each made tremendous contributions to their academic fields and to Quakerism and Quaker scholarship. Both Kenneth and Elise were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (at different times) due to work resulting from their strong pacifist beliefs. However, to date, there exists no research that examines the many important linkages between their work as social scientists, and perhaps most interesting, how their views differed. In this chapter we identify the areas where Kenneth and Elise made significant contributions to the social sciences and explore the Quaker foundations of their work. A Biographical Overview of Kenneth and Elise Boulding Kenneth has been the subject of two biographies, Creative Tension: The Life and Thought of Kenneth Boulding (Kerman, 1974), published when he was 64 years 344 old, and Kenneth Boulding: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Scott, 2015).1 His most important autobiographical writing provides a statistical analysis of the 1019 publications written between 1932 and 1988 (Boulding, K., 1989). Elise has been the subject of one full-length biography, Elise Boulding: A Life in the Cause of Peace (Morrison, 2005) published when she was 85 years old. In Quaker circles her Pendle Hill Pamphlet, Born Remembering (Boulding, E., 1975) is considered a classic in spiritual autobiography, and her book One Small Plot of Heaven: Reflections on Family Life by a Quaker Sociologist (Boulding, E., 1989) provides the best picture of the ways in which her values as a Quaker influenced her scholarship. More recently, writings about and by Elise have been published (Boulding, J.R., 2017a-d). These volumes include new biographical material, the first complete bibliography of her publications (2017a) and selections from her unpublished journals and letters (2017d). Kenneth: Early Life and Influences Kenneth Ewart Boulding was born on January 18, 1910 in Liverpool, England. He was the only child of William and Elizabeth Boulding. William Boulding was a plumber who owned his own small shop. Elizabeth took care of the family and wrote poetry. The Bouldings were devout Methodists. William was a lay preacher at his church, where he spent considerable time teaching young people and mentoring them. William had a difficult upbringing, but rather than letting it cause him to become resentful and angry, he remained benevolent and gentle. Elizabeth provided Kenneth a creative atmosphere and is no doubt the reason he began writing poetry and would continue to do so throughout his life–he was particularly fond of writing sonnets. Early in his life, Kenneth decided to be a Christian and his experiences as a child during World War I (1914-1918) contributed to his becoming a pacifist six years later at age 14 (Wright, 1988). It was the experience of seeing his Uncle Bert, psychologically traumatized by trench warfare, that most impressed upon him the vulgarity of war. He wrote that he was very fond of Uncle Bert and that when he returned from the war he had “an expression in his eyes I can still see” (Boulding, K., 1989, p. 367). Further, Boulding wrote that his closest friend and playmate, who lived next door, had an older brother who was killed in the war. Upon learning of his death, his mother came over in hysterics. Soon after, Boulding writes, “I even recall being horrified at a toy I got, with wounded soldiers in little stretchers” (p. 367). There were many other injuries and deaths of close friends and relatives. So deeply affected was Boulding that it was around 1 Kenneth was also one of three scientists profiled in Three Scientists and Their Gods (Wright, 1988). 345 this time he developed a life-long stutter. So common is stuttering (or stammering as it was called at the time) among English boys that it became known as the mark of the English gentleman. It is a hereditary trait, yet no known person in Boulding’s family had a stutter (Kerman, 1974). Boulding’s stutter became a trait endearing him to people. Boulding’s pacifism was resolute. In high school, he read John William Graham’s “Conscription and Conscience” (1922)–a study of conscientious objectors from World War I and their struggle to live their faith during wartime. He was impressed by arguments in the book and came to respect the Quakers for their commitment to pacifism. This knowledge led him to talk with his friend Robin Wall (a Quaker) about Friends and their spiritual practices (Kerman, 1974). Wall took Boulding to some Quaker meetings, and Boulding felt an immediate spiritual connection with the Quaker method of worship–especially the silence from which spoken ministry arose. Boulding started regularly attending the Liverpool Friends Meeting and continued while he attended Oxford University. While remaining an active Methodist during much of this time, he finally became a convinced Friend in 1931 (Kerman, 1974). Being a Quaker comprised his primary social circle during the rest of his life–and had a profound effect on his professional life. Serving as a Quaker delegate at the 1937 Friends World Conference in Philadelphia, Kenneth received a call from a friend about a job at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. He interviewed immediately and after some negotiating took the job. His two years at Colgate were largely spent writing a textbook, Economic Analysis (1941). It was an immediate success that furthered his reputation and acceptance among economists, and he argued later it was a primary reason he won the John Bates Clark Medal in 1949 since it was “as pure as the driven snow” (Mott, 1992, p. 356). The medal is awarded by the American Economic Association to an American under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. The atrocities of Nazism in Europe tested Kenneth’s pacifism to almost the breaking point when in May 1940 he felt almost overwhelmed by hate. As a young man, Kenneth’s son Russell, remembers Kenneth recounting the experience. While taking a bath Kenneth says he was filled with a feeling of unbearable hatred, then as if a plug was pulled from a water-filled bathtub it drained away. According to Kerman (1974): “Something broke in on him, an experiencing, almost a vision, of the suffering that Christ had taken on himself for people no better than the Germans, no better than the Bouldings” (119). 346 He described the experience in a poem, titled “Out of Blackness,” published in 1940 in The American Friend (Boulding, K., 1975): I feel hate rising in my throat. Nay–on a flood of hate I float. My mooring lost, my anchor gone, I cannot steer by star or sun. … Black are the fountains of my soul And red the slime on which they roll. … I hate! I hate! I hate! I hate! I hate this thrice-accursed State, I’ll smash each bloodshot German face That travesties the human race! Hatred and sorrow murder me. But out of blackness, bright I see Our Blessed Lord upon his cross. His mouth moves wanly, wry with loss Of blood and being, pity-drained. Between the thieves alone he reigned: (Was this one I, and that one you?) “If I forgive, will ye not too?” The vial of wrath breaks suddenly, And fear and hate drain from me dry. There is a glory in this place: My Lord! I see thee face to face (p. 38). For the rest of Kenneth’s life his pacifism only grew stronger as threats such as nuclear war and modern warfare provided further evidence that his convictions were correct–war was never a solution. Elise: Early Life and Influences Elise Biorn-Hansen was born July 6, 1920 in Oslo, Norway. Her parents emigrated to the United States when Elise was three years old, and she grew up in a closely-knit Norwegian immigrant community in the New Jersey-Long Island area. Her mother Birgit was an ardent pacifist and imbued Elise with a 347 strong concern for social justice. Writing about major milestones in her life in Friendly Women she explained her first major pacifist realization as an adult in April 1940, a month before Kenneth’s spiritual epiphany: I am 19, a senior in college, and Norway has just been invaded, shattering my safe world.