Saturday, December 25, 2021

Eric Hoffer's Outlook


 In his book, American Iconoclast, biographer Tom Shactman, on Page 198, writes this of Eric Hoffer: " . . . Perhaps, more importantly, his announcement to the diary, "Self-denial is self-assertion,' never appeared in the published version, although the thought is central to Hoffer's view of himself and his philosophy of how to exist in the world. It is likely Hoffer himself eliminated the thought from the published version because it was such a naked statement of his core belief.

He was more comfortable in writing about larger themes."

I take away two thoughts from this entry. First, Hoffman was a very private person, and writing about larger themes was something he was more comfortable to share with the public than confessions of a personal nature.

Second, Hoffer never, to my knowledge, made any statements about egoist ethics and individuating, but these concepts seem implicit to me in his writing. If Shactman is right, and he likely is, and if Hoffer's view of himself was that self-denial is self-assertion, then that stand is consistent with maverizing. The self-centered focus of an individuator is not concentrating on the pursuit of pleasure, consumption, and leisure. Rather the maverizing self is a self that pushes the self hard, constantly for years, to meet ambitious teleological targets set for the self, by the self, to realize.

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