Invaded

 

On Page 27 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has one entry which I quote and comment on.

 

Hoffer: “When a nation is subject to foreign domination its creativeness is a rule meager. This is not due to the crippling of the ‘national genius’ but that resentment against foreign rule so unites a nation that the potentially creative person cannot attain the distinctness requisite for the full unfolding of his powers. His inner life is tinged and shaped by the feelings and preoccupations of the mass. Like a member of a primitive tribe, he exists not as an individual but as a member of a compact group.”

 

My response: Group-living, and pure group-living in a compact group disallows any person to be a separate individual who can individual-live, self-realize and allow his personal powers to unfold. When times of crisis force the collective identity and group-living to be maximized, it is predictable that creativeness in that generation will be minimized.

 

Hoffer: “Things are different in the case of resentment against domestic oppression. Provided the oppression is not of a thoroughly totalitarian brand, the individual may manifest his protest by asserting his distinctness and originality.”

 

My response: If we rear a generation of individuating supercitizens, they will not tolerate any tyranny subjugating them, be it brutal or mild. Nor will they subjugate others. This allows each person maximum personal power, liberty, say, legal and social sanction to do her own thing.