Essay Questions

Why was Jeffers opposed to World War II? What effect did this have on his career?

Ultimately, Jeffers was opposed to World War II because of his philosophy of inhumanism. In other words, he was opposed to WWII because he believed that it would not benefit humanity as a whole and served very little purpose.

Jeffers' opposition to WWII was a bane to his career. He was wildly famous in the 1920s and 1930s, but once WWII rolled around and his opposition to it was publicized, his popularity began to wane. In fact, publisher Random House included a very unconventional note in his 1948 book The Double Axe and Other Poems that said that the views expressed in the book do not represent the views of Random House. After that, largely because of his opposition to the war, no significant work of Jeffers' was published until after his death in January 1962.

What is Inhumanism?

Inhumanism was, in fact, created by Jeffers but was never widely adopted across the world. At its core, Inhumanism says that humans and the human race as a whole are too self-centered and too "indifferent to the astonishing beauty of things." It also says that humans have to become less selfish and to "uncenter" themselves in order to create a better, more harmonious world. In other words, Inhumanism says that humans should worry more about the beauty of the world and the potential beauty in mankind rather than worry about themselves and their lives.