To Resent

 

On Page 69 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          116

 

Resentment springs more from a sense of weakness than from a sense of injustice. We resent a fully false accusation less than one that is partially justified. The blameless are perhaps incapable of resentment.”

 

My response: It could be that some of the reasons why Hoffer is now unknown and not much appreciated is because no one understands his technical terms, either because he uses them and does not define them, or because there is no archetypal, overarching hermeneutic of his thinking, giving to the readers a clear presentation of his presuppositions and worldview, which I am trying to provide by identifying him as the undiscovered, original Mavellonialist.

 

Dennis Prager is wise in many ways, but his book and show on happiness is perhaps the finest explanation of what it means to be happy. Prager advises that one cannot be a good person, unless one is a happy person. It is our ethical duty to be happy. I would roughly define Prager’s ethical duty of happiness as equivalent to my thought that good person cannot be good, desire good or working to improve, unless he self-loves or self-esteems, and that the very act of doing good, acting good, thinking good thoughts will strengthen one’s self-esteem, and state of being a happy person. A third equivalent term for being ethically happy or self-esteeming is to be a person of good will.

 

To be resentful or bitter and indignant at others and the world for how unlucky, how miserable, how unhappy one feels, how victimized one feels, is to be very unhappy, filled with nausea, rage, self-loathing and to desire revenge upon the self, others, and the world. Resentment, unresolved anger, a growing ill will and the need to be a scapegoat and to seek scapegoats to inflict one’s rage upon—these negative, unhappy, resentful passions are the spring of most of the poisonous water imbibed across the earth, the font of much human evil and misdeeds.

 

Hoffer’s word the weak has several meanings. He refers to the passionate true believer that  feels weak because his group, his cause, his sense of worldly belonging are shattered and he is wandering aimless, without a narrative superstructure, social order and culture to cover him up literally, inside of which to hide from himself and his spoiled self. This type of weak person never had or has been deprived of social standing and respectability. His self-loathing is off the Richter scale, and that existence is not sustainable.

 

When Hoffer refers to the weak, he also means people that lack social power, economic or military power. These people too are filled with dread, unease, discomfort, and resentment, which they will, when it gets bad enough for them, will take desperate steps, often in a mass movement.

 

These passionate groupists feel weak because their social order or clique is not powerful in the world, or no longer is a set of functioning collectivities, making the weak person able to disappear inside of this group cocoon, with all the right answers, with no self being conscious to have to answer to God, Being or oneself for why one has not taken up one’s cross of individuation and done something with one’s life.

 

These passionate groupists feel weak because their collectivities are now weak in the world. Their sense of worth, their group pride, in being powerful within the thriving collectivities’ hierarchical structure, whose whole power model is the power of powerlessness, has been shattered so they feel resentful. They resent being weak from a loss of social power, not because of unjust treatment, and they long to be in a powerful collectivized mob with someone to trample, and then glorious vindication then will be theirs.

 

If they were happy, had self-esteem, were optimistic and without resentment, being individuators of good will, they would lack resentment or the urge to smash themselves and others; their sense of self-worth would be solid and real and meaningful, growing out of their maverized status of wielding the power of powerfulness that only individuals and individuators may practice.

 

The happy person of noble character and good will is blameless and without resentment. The groupist nonindiviudator of weak or evil character, bad will and resentment, has a lot to answer for and he knows it, but he minds less being accused of something he is not or did not, than an accurate assessment of what he had done or is—that truth is unforgivable, and he will kill the truth-teller if he dared or is sanctioned to commit murder.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          117

 

The attempt to justify an evil deed has perhaps more pernicious consequences than the evil deed itself. The justification of a past crime is the planting and cultivation of future crimes. Indeed, the repetition of a crime is sometimes part of a device of justification: we do it again and again to convince ourselves and others that it is a common thing and not an enormity.”

 

My response: It is commonly known that efforts by an evildoer or the government to cover up, hide, justify, and never take responsibility or accept justice or punishment for crimes committed, is usually worse than the original crime, and this is what Hoffer is complaining about above.

 

He insightfully warns that protecting a past crime usually leads to evildoers repeating the crime in the future, and usually becoming more vicious and cruel each time they hurt others. Evildoers keeps committing the crime repeatedly to be consistent with their lie of justification that they are doing nothing wrong, and that their behavior is normal, moral, even laudable. Thus, lying and doing and perpetuating evil are deeply linked.

 

This entry by Hoffer reveals too that he is an ethicist, that justifying an evil deed makes evil grow more and faster than just the isolated deed itself. Hoffer the atheist thought that evil was a biological force, a natural force, a structure of nature which manifested itself in crimes and misdeeds that humans carried out willingly, repeated, especially once institutionalized as respectable.

 

Each evil deed is to be judged, opposed openly, opposed immediately each time of occurrence, with the perpetrators handed over to the justice system where necessary and appropriate, early, every time, to protect society.