Another Fortean in name only, whose presence on the Fortean Society membership rolls says more about Tiffany Thayer, and Forteanism's association with left-libertarianism, than it does about the so-called Fortean. Indeed, he likely had no, or very minor opinions, on Fort at all.
Albert Jay Nock was born 13 April 1870 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, his father a steelworker and Episcopal priest. He grew up in Brooklyn, graduating from what is now Bard College and going on to a brief career in baseball. He too became a priest in the Episcopal church, married, had two children. He separated from his wife, left the clergy, and became a journalist. That was in 1909, around the same time Charles Fort himself was eking out a living doing the same job in the Bronx.
Nock became known for his journalism as well as his books. He championed that economic red-haired stepchild Henry George, a favorite of the Forteans, and his single land-tax idea, editing The Freeman a magazine dedicated to the idea, and writing a book on George. He chafed at the increasing power of government, penning Our Enemy the State in 1935—a shot at FDR’s New Deal. He was militantly opposed to war, seeing it as needless killing done to prop up the state’s authority. These were opinions not so different than those being voiced by Kenneth Rexroth and other left-leaning anarchists, although they would later serve to underwrite parts of the conservative movement.
He died in 1945, just as Thayer’s reconstituted Fortean Society was finding its groove.
Albert Jay Nock was born 13 April 1870 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, his father a steelworker and Episcopal priest. He grew up in Brooklyn, graduating from what is now Bard College and going on to a brief career in baseball. He too became a priest in the Episcopal church, married, had two children. He separated from his wife, left the clergy, and became a journalist. That was in 1909, around the same time Charles Fort himself was eking out a living doing the same job in the Bronx.
Nock became known for his journalism as well as his books. He championed that economic red-haired stepchild Henry George, a favorite of the Forteans, and his single land-tax idea, editing The Freeman a magazine dedicated to the idea, and writing a book on George. He chafed at the increasing power of government, penning Our Enemy the State in 1935—a shot at FDR’s New Deal. He was militantly opposed to war, seeing it as needless killing done to prop up the state’s authority. These were opinions not so different than those being voiced by Kenneth Rexroth and other left-leaning anarchists, although they would later serve to underwrite parts of the conservative movement.
He died in 1945, just as Thayer’s reconstituted Fortean Society was finding its groove.