The Most Western Philosopher

 It occurred to me this evening as I was reading from Calving Thomkins biography, Eric Hoffer, that Hoffer was the quintessential Western philosopher.  What makes him so Western is his wholehearted adopting and acceptance of the Hebraic concept that humans thrive apart from nature, and are to subdue nature. No other great religions espouse this master-servant relationship between humans-nature as do the Jews and Christians. Hoffer the atheist is a cultural Jew (perhaps genetically too) in a very deep, simpatico way.

Let me quote Hopkins from Pages 62 and 63: "Hoffer loves Golden Gate Park because it is entirely man-made: the fact that virtually every one of the thousands of shrubs, plants, and trees that grow there exists in a landscape created by man out of barren sand dunes fits in well with his theory that 'man became what he is not with the aid of but in spite of nature'"

My response: We are biological creatures of nature, and we are also good angels, part divine. As good angels we are apart from nature and create, direct, control and make a living off of nature. We can do all this while being loving, careful, responsible stewards of nature, but we are its masters and mistresses, not the other way around, without being degraded and held back.

Thomkins continues: "It was only by cutting himself off from nature that man became what he is, Hoffer believes,; man started to become human when he got out from under nature's inexorable laws, although in doing so he also made himself 'an eternal stranger in this world.'"

My response: we would be eternal strangers even if we were still hunters and gatherers living our tribal lives for another 200,000 years. We might as well build our urban, unnatural, mechanistic heaven, for that is where we belong and that is the only place living angels can ever feel at home.

Thomkins continues: "Nature--external and internal--remains the critical enemy of man. Hoffer developed a rather striking corollary to this theory one day not many years ago, when he visited the De Young Memorial Museum in the Golden Gate Park with Lili and young Eric. Seiing the Indian and Chinese stone carvings of the Avery Brundage Collection, it suddenly occurred to him that when man wanted to depict the devil, he almost invariably made him in the image of a bestial nature--with horns, tail, fur, and cloven hoof; God, on the other hand, had been created in the image of man himself."

My response: I am an suburban dweller but I love farming, gardening and trees. Part of North Dakota and my druid ancestry are stirring all the time. Yet, I know that Lucifer and Lera rise up out of nature, and keeping people in packs, herded, non-individuating, emotional and group-living--our natural altruist instincts being fully sanctioned and rewarded.

I also know that the Father and Mother are in nature and a part of nature, but they also transcend nature and are apart from nature. They are great loners and individuators, logical more than emotional and individual-living. We are made in their image; for they are not made in our image. 

Hoffer's unerring ontology and theology inform us that truth is what his thinking was.