The Disintegrated Self

 

On Pages 83 and 84 of his book, The True Believer, Eric Hoffer discusses how the true believer has a shattered self, or no self-esteem left. I quote him and then take notes on what he writes.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “                                61

 

The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. He cannot generate self-assurance out of his individual resources—out of his rejected self—but finds it only by clinging passionately to whatever support he happens to embrace. This passionate attachment is the essence of his blind devotion and religiosity, and he sees in it the source of all virtue and strength. Though his single-minded dedication is a holding on for dear life, he easily sees himself as the supporter and defender of the holy cause to which he clings. And his ready to sacrifice his life to demonstrate to himself and others that such indeed is his role. He sacrifices his life to prove his worth.”

 

My response: Perhaps Ayn Rand’s most important contribution to the world was her moral axiom that rational selfishness is good, and that irrational altruism is evil. Limited, sensible altruism, on an individual basis, or a legitimate charitable drive almost moral even admirable.

 

But, humans can never grow, be loving, good and prosper until they accept certain moral truths; that humans are lapsarian; that to be born evil is to be addicted to nonindividuating, immoderate joining groups, prioritizing one’s group identity over one’s personal identity as a maverizer, to bolster group rights over individual rights.

 

Excessive groupism, as a static corporatist in a social, economic, political and bureaucratical hierarchies and stratifications, especially under a totalitarian governmental, socialist regime is one thing; in what Hoffer is describing here is the selfless nonentity citizen inserted deeply into a mass movement, the true believer as foot soldier of a holy cause, that may be the new social order once victorious. When true believers are willing to die for their cause, this is pure evil and this is pure collectivism, a dragon tearing up the entire society, and then altruist-collectivist morality is revealed for the horror that it engenders and perpetuates.

 

H: “It goes without saying that the fanatic is convinced that the cause he holds on to is monolithic and eternal—a rock of ages. Still, his sense of security is derived from his passionate attachment and not from the excellence of his cause. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to. Often, indeed, it is his need for passionate attachment which turns every cause he embraces into a holy cause.”

 

My response: For the true believer, he joined and stayed with his adopted holy cause, not due to its excellence, justness, or holiness, but due to its superior, radical opportunity to passionately belong to a cause with its false binary doctrine, which most thoroughly allows him to escape from the ruined, despised self.

 

The Good Spirits are strong, developed, becoming individuators and Great Souls, and what they do and advocate for humans to emulate is good. The life of the true believer inserted deep in the belly of a mass movement is the antithesis of what they love and approve of, so this collectivist escape from the self is about as evil a rebellion from God the Father and God the Mother as one can come up with.

 

H: “The fanatic cannot be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to his reason and moral sense. He fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause. But he finds no difficulty in swinging suddenly and wildly from one holy cause to another. His passionate attachment is more vital than the quality of the cause to which he is attached.”

 

My response: The fanatic or true believer (these are synonymous or tautological) cannot be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to his reason and moral sense, because reasoning, moderate adaptation to what the world sends one’s way and innate and honed moral sense or conscience are traits of the whole, integrated, contented self—all of which the fragmented, disconnected, frustrated self of the fanatic loathes and flees from entirely. With his passionate attachment to his holy cause, the fanatic indulges his innate flawedness, his innate immoral sense, and cultivates it and lets it grow like a field of poisonous mushroom growing out of a city’s sewer lagoon.