The Self Is Gone

 

On Pages 114 and 115 of his book, The True Believer, Eric Hoffer describes what is involved when the true believer surrenders totally his distinct self in order to be invited into the targeted mass movement. I quote him and then comment on his ideas.

 

H: “The total surrender of a distinct self is a prerequisite for the attainment of both unity and self-sacrifice; and there is probably no more direct way of realizing this surrender than by inculcating and extolling the habit of blind obedience. When Stalin forces scientists, writers and artists to crawl on their bellies and deny their individual intelligence, sense of beauty and moral sense, he is not indulging in a sadistic impulse but is solemnizing, in a most impressive way, the supreme virtue of blind obedience. All mass movements rank obedience with the highest virtues and put it on a level with faith: ‘union of minds requires not only a perfect accord in the one Faith, but complete submission and obedience to will to the Church and the Roman Pontiff as to God Himself.’ Obedience is not only the first law of God, but also the first tenet of a revolutionary party and of fervent nationalism. ‘Not to reason why’ is considered by all mass movements the mark of a strong and generous spirit.”

 

My response: The fanatic’s blind obedience to the orders given him by the guru heading his holy cause is his proof intellectually and in action to that guru that he has gotten and is living the message that his self is gone and has expired; his whole and utter self-annihilation is now perfected and complete. He and the cause are now one and united in all ways.

 

This is collectivism at its most powerful, most vicious, and most immoral.

 

H: “The disorder, bloodshed and destruction which mark the trail of a rising mass movement lead us to think of the followers of the movement as being by nature rowdy and lawless. Actually, mass ferocity is not always the sum of individual lawlessness. Personal truculence militates against united action. It moves the individual to strike out for himself. It produces the pioneer, adventurer and bandit. The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent he acts, is basically an obedience and submissive person. The Christian converts who staged razzias against the University of Alexandria and lynched professors suspected of unorthodoxy were submissive members of a compact church. The Communist rioter is a servile member of a party. Both Japanese and Nazi rowdies were the most disciplined people the world has seen. In this country, the American employer often finds in the racial fanatic of our South—so given to mass violence—a respectful and docile factory hand. The army, too, finds him particularly amenable to discipline.”

 

My response: Hoffer above is contrasting individual lawlessness with collective lawlessness or mass ferocity. To me he is suggesting that however evil an individual can be on his own, the most sustainable violence and the worst atrocities are collective crimes.

 

 This feeds into my egoist theory that self-love is more moderate, generous, good, rational, and nonviolent than is collective theory where other-love (selflessness, self-loathing, and low self-esteem) renders individuals more fanatical, selfish, evil, irrational, and violent (especially in the active phase of mass movement membership).

 

Hoffer was no egoist ethicist, but it seems implied in how in writes about mass ferocity in the passage just above.