Wolff was keenly interested in social and political issues, and he thought that it was important for all to engage in such matters. For example, in 1940 he advised that:

It is a matter of vital importance for all, for the pure scientist and for the recluse, as well as for men engaged in more “practical” affairs, just what form the future organization of society may assume. At this time it is no longer safe for any man to abstract himself from concern relative to political affairs. For in an age when politics assumes ascendancy, the bearers of the higher culture face the threat of obscuration.[1]

This quote is from a booklet in which Wolff advances a political agenda he called the “The Vertical Thought Movement.” Wolff wrote this manifesto in the wake of the 1940 United States presidential election, which saw the New Deal Movement run virtually unopposed. In response, Wolff proposed a new political association that he intended to be a “continuous crusade oriented to a principle and conviction which stands in contrapuntal relation to the Socialist Movement.”

More of Wolff’s thoughts on government can be gleaned from his books Pathways Through to Space and The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object, as well as a number of essays that he penned prior to the 1960s. After this date, Wolff made a number of audio recordings that addressed the political turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s. All of these recordings are listed under this category.

[1]Franklin Merrell-Wolff, “The Vertical Thought Movement” (Wolff Archive: Essays, ca. 1940), 115.