To Praise

 

On Page 76 of  his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has three entries which I will quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          131

 

The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it.”

 

My response: Hoffer, the implicit and unrecognized egoist-individualist moralist, knows that if one is a moral person of high self-esteem, proper pride, a desire to get better, and perhaps a self-realizer, then one will judge others’ character and actions truthfully. Where they fall down, are evil, lazy or mediocre, this truth-telling judger will criticize them.

 

Where they do well and are good and achieve merited excellence, this one will praise others, and this non-flattery but fair judgment of these succeeding others does indicate that he is not an insecure egotist or jealous Nosy Parker, but one admiring excellence in others, while he is determined to do something excellent on his own.

 

Hoffer: “          132

 

A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is a symptom of meagerness.”

 

My response: This rich little proverb alerts us to the fact that egoists that self-realized, creating wealth and new ideas, new technologies and artistic objects, will ordinarily be persons of generous approach to others, willing to share praise, tips, and money.

 

Non-individuating altruists and joiners, by contrast, have very little self-love: these cramped souls so impoverished and empty, are usually without much spontaneous generosity; they have little to offer because they have come to believe they have nothing to offer, so they do nothing to better themselves, so they end up having nothing to offer; this state of unhappiness and guilt cannot be stomached very long: to gain a sense of worth so they can stay sane and continue to function, they become selfish, and stingy towards themselves and others, unwilling to give credit where it is due, stinting with praise, money, gratitude or appreciation.

 

Hoffer: “          133

 

Those who are ready to praise others usually take praise from others with a grain of salt. On the other hand, those who praise others reluctantly accept praise from others at its face value. Thus the less magnanimous a soul, the more readily does it succumb to flattery.”

 

My response: How to unpack this rich paragraph: Dennis Prager is a self-actualizer, a brilliant and wise man of faith. He often reminds the audience that he enjoys praise from the public, but does not base his sense of self-worth on such input. He is often condemned and criticized harshly, but he does not internalize the slings, though it likely bothers him on some level. Rather, he knows who he is and is in a state of objective truth about his own character and worth; as an egoist-collectivist, he and he alone provide self-praise and self-criticism that he hears, heeds and adjusts to where necessary for self-improvement is called for.

 

He is also reminding the public to be honest with themselves but judicious too. Each agent is to live as an independent-thinking individualist that do not pay too much or too little attention to praise or blame offered to them by the public or their peers. Each person is to make up his own mind in judging who he is and how he is doing: input from others is welcome, but he alone decides how he is doing, and what he needs to be doing.

 

Prager and Hoffer, good Jews both of them, are suggesting that individualists have high self-esteem: they feel secure and generous, so they are free to praise—never flatter—others when such praise is warranted. They take praise from others with a grain of salt.

 

It is groupists of low self-esteem that listen and heed both the criticisms and praises from others and base their self-image on what others characterize them as. They cannot praise or criticize others honestly because they have no internal resources that make them secure enough to be so honest.

 

They criticize and praise others based upon how the group as a group characterizes that other person, no matter how unfair, slanderous, or flattery-bound such characterization may be.

 

They have no self-esteem, so they are meager inside, and cannot praise honestly. They will flatter others if the group orders them to flatter others. They live in a pattern of lying, spoken and lived, so if the group condemns them, they might kill themselves, as these unfortunate teenage girls sometimes do when their online clique informs them electronically that they are valueless losers.

 

When their group flatters them with fake, unearned praise, they soak it up, and are then prone to being deceived, abused, exploited or used as a tool of mob violence should their clique order them  to go after some helpless, innocent victim.