Downplayed

 

On Page 19 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has one entry which I will quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “            23

 

There is a deprecating attitude towards desire among moralists and idealists.”

 

 

My response: Ayn Rand was incorrect for being an atheist, but she was right to urge that it is ethical for the agent to pursue his own self-interest, desiring things, enjoying himself, and realizing his potential with productive worth, valuing his own life and experience in this world.

 

The ideological idealists, otherworldly or degrowth moralists, with a deprecating attitude towards desire are likely ascetic or controllers of a holy cause, and they need fanatical followers to deny their own pleasure, desires, needs and interest, to deny the present to advance the cause to grow stronger and spread wider in the future.

 

If one had an intense desire to rob a bank or steal a car, that kind of desire should be discounted and condemned by everyone. If an agent desires material wealth, comfort, and enjoyment in this world, that is just acceptable, unless these acquisitions seemed excessive, greedy, or addictive.

 

Overall, Hoffer is pointing out that the individual is one that desires and that is morally good. I add that desire to self-realize is an especially noble end to desire.

 

Altruist and idealistic moralists are anti-individual, so their complete rejection of personal desiring is a corrupt conclusion to reach about people. People that are anti-individual are people that accentuate that people should have few wants or desires, and should not seek after them, and that is cruel and anti-life.

 

Hoffer: “They see it as rushing into ‘nonentity, absurdity, valuelessness and childishness.’ Still, the triviality of desire need not impair its value as a motive of human activity. There is no reason why humanity cannot be served equally by weighty and trivial motives.”

 

My response: Humans should love living and love life, and they should develop as individuals; that means having more and desiring more, within reason, for the sake of living in this world and the next. There is likely some supervenient hierarchy of motives from the most trivial to the most weighty, and in balance with one another, and within reasonable amounts of indulgence, these motives should be moral, even admirable.

 

If the desire is a noble or harmless desire, that is all that is required; if it is a hurtful or malevolent desire, aimed to harm oneself or others, then it is not to be indulged.

 

Hoffer: “It is indeed doubtful whether it is well for a nation that its people should be so reasonable and earnest that they refuse to set their hearts on toys.”

 

My response: Hoffer knows trivial motives motivate people to work and stay moderate, both morally desirable conditions. Living those conditions teach people to live in the present, and that is useful for everyone to do. She cannot always sacrifice the present for the future, but she should do that too, as one of her long-term desires, perhaps her telos.

 

Hoffer also reminds us that he may be hinting, as did Bernard Mandeville, that trite consumer consumption of material comforts, material goods, baubles and trite enjoyments like a theme ride park visit—all these commercial, consumer consumption pleasures, do grow the economy, create prosperity and provide employment or millions of people.

 

Hoffer also reminds us that we want the people to love themselves and the simple things in life so that they are not frustrated, self-denying, self-sacrificing true believers, denying the self everything for the sake of growing the holy cause they serve—that all seems noble, but that end of collectivist morality and enthusiastic idealism grows extremism, evil, strife and groupism in the world, which are very dangerous desires to reward. Remember that J.R.R. Tolkien taught that hobbits, with their simple pleasures and modest lives, were very happy, very normal and the least corruptible race in Middle Earth.

 

Hoffer: “The pressure of desire in a population manifests itself in a sort of vigor. There is restlessness, recklessness, sanguineness and aggressiveness. A nation is ‘tired’ when it ceases to want things fervently.”

 

My response: A people that are energetic and desire material things is a people that can learn to canalize some of that energy, industry and fervent desire into self-realization, monumental community projects, and growing the economy, all desirable social behaviors that grow out of desire.

 

Hoffer: “It makes no difference whether this blunting of desire is due to satiety, reasonableness or disillusion. To a tired nation, the future seems barren, offering nothing that can surpass that which is or has been. The main effect of a main revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those that know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all the world has to offer.”