Fisher-Hoffer II

 

I am going through a book by industrial psychologist and creator of The Fisher Paradigm The book, Mirror Of The Psyche, A Study of Eric Hoffer’s Writings from the Perspective of The Fisher Paradigm.

 

If I had the time and interest—which I have neither of--and went deeper into Fisher’s psychological theory, and immersed myself in Fisher’s program, The Fisher Paradigm, the benefit to me and to my readers would be that we would deeper understand and appreciate psychology as a science—even if coming out on the other side of our study of Fisher, we disagreed with him. There must be something of Hoffer in him that so deeply influenced his theory of psychology that, in his old age, Fisher goes to such detailed trouble to compare and contrast Hofferian philosophy with The Fisher Paradigm. Chances are, Fisher understand Hoffer quite well, and I could learn a lot from Fisher about Hoffer. I will just have to make do with what I can glean from this book.

 

The second benefit would benefit that I and the readers gained from Fisher is that he is a close reader of Hoffer and is a PhD. of psychology, so he sees Hoffer through an professional analysis of Hoffer’s psyche and personal approach to writing.

 

Here is what Fisher writes about Hoffer as noted by page below. (Fisher is F after this and Hoffer is H.)

 

Page 48: F writes that H’s genius lies in treating behavior in mass movements in terms of self-worth. That is an amazing insight that F provides the reader, and what it suggests to me is that Hoffer morality and worldview are that the individual is sovereign, and what is good is consistent with maintaining his sense of self-worth or self-esteem, and what is evil and disadvantageous is that which degrades his sense of self-worth. This directly ties into Hoffer’s observation directly the existing social order, in any society, is more or less, where group-living is the social pattern, and the ethics of the members of society are guided by altruist ethics.

 

Altruist ethics makes people feel selfless and lacking self-worth, so, the existing social order is an extinct or dormant post-mass movement from the past, and the citizens there do not like themselves and live lives of quiet discontent and despair.

 

When time or catastrophe blow the existing social order to pieces, the exposed and awakened zombies, anomic and panicked, in a mode of terror and desperation, become frustrated and available to flee from their spoiled lives, seeking a replacement home (the proffered mass movement in its active phase) in which to embed themselves, escaping from awareness of themselves as conscious, separate individuals, hiding in the collectivist movement.

 

On the bottom of the page, F writes that the mass movement becomes the self for all its joiners. I have long written elsewhere that the loner/rebel/great soul is a strong but vulnerable isolated ego vying with and often being crushed the Giant Ego opposing him, that mass movement, the mob, the opposing herd entity conflicting with him.

 

Page 55: With the rioting, arson and looting that burst into flame after George Floyd’s death in 2020, F observes that H would not have been alarm because he realized that madness, herd lawlessness, and disorder, are always lurking below the social surface, should things fall apart. Civil society can be smashed with the struggle of the mass movement going active and revolutionary in the streets.

 

People are herd creatures, so they live collectivized lives of self-loathing, low self-esteem, and avoidance of the self; when things fall apart, these frustrated masses will lurch towards annexing themselves to any passing holy cause.

 

Page 56: F is correct in pointing out that H was not a systemic thinker or philosopher, and certainly was no ideologue. H did not seem to mind those that described him as a social and moral who happened to be a longshoreman.

 

Since Hoffer was a moderate in philosophy (He was a living, true paradox, one-half philosopher and one-half blue-collar worker; he liked the American value system, economy, traditions, political system and its culture.), and an individualist warning the world about mass movements and the aristocratic ambitions that intellectual hold against the masses, he was a moralist and prototype for my rational egoist morality.

 

Page 61: F notes that H was not the first or the last thinker to write of mass movements, a general term for such social movements. H also wonders if H ever heard of Gustave Le Bon, who covered some of the same topics as did Hoffer. F may be implying that H knew of Le Bon but never acknowledge his debt to him. F comments that incredulously H fails to reference Le Bon. It could well be that H never knew of Le Bon.