Other-Governed

 

On Page 77 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          134

 

When we are not governed too much by what other people think of us, we are likely to be tolerant toward the behavior and opinions of others. So too, when we do not crave to seem important we are not awed by the importance of others. Both our fear and our tolerance are the result of our dependence.”

 

My response: When we mostly make up our own minds about ourselves (what and who we are and do, and should we approve of our status and behavior or not), rather than live vicariously through the eyes of others as to who and what we are, we are self-esteeming individualists and potential individuators who neither overreact and severely punish others for their harsh input (be it fair or unfair), nor do we go overboard rewarding and promoting them for flattering us.

 

When we strive to be important as a self-made individual and do not strive to be important within a hierarchy or of quite high social standing in our group-affiliations, we are not awed by the importance of others.

 

Groupists are overawed by important others in their hierarchy or clique, so their fear and intolerance of dissidents and rival tribes is ruled by the opinions and commands of revered gurus and demagogues at the helm of the group ship.

 

 Hoffer: “         135

 

Our impulse to persuade others is strongest when we have to persuade ourselves. The never wholly successful task of persuading ourselves of ourselves manifests itself in a ceaseless effort to persuade others of it.”

 

My response: Hoffer’s entries are often rich beyond belief. In this entry, he implies that groupists, without self-esteem, are not loving of truth, so they do not accurately appraise themselves or others—it is all a tissue of lies. If they were honest individualists, honest about themselves and others, their input to themselves and others would be truthful--truthful input necessarily if imperfectly and only partially goads the individual and his group to act better and strive to improve, however slightly at times—they would act better and do better, so they would justifiably feel better about themselves, so their self-esteem would increase.

 

Once they know where they as individuals and their group as a collectivity actually stand, they no longer need to resort to slander, flattery or the Big Lie to convince others or themselves of what they don’t actually believe, and which is never true, but they must act as fanatical true-believers on the surface level of consciousness to persuade themselves personally and the whole group that bad is good, that ugliness is beauty,  that dumb is smart, and that what is false is true;  these social patterns of enmasse lying behavior is an endless web of circulating deceit and mass hypnosis.