Incomplete So Panicky

 

On Page 117 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has three entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

 

Hoffer: “         208

 

Some people are born to spend their lives catching up; and they are as rule the passionate ones.”

 

My response: People that do not discipline themselves, working hard and smart at self-improvement, by never giving up and by succeeding through sheer stick-to-itiveness, are people that are fit, fit into society as competent, flourishing, adapting, well-adjusted adult individuals—they have caught up and keep up. They are integrated, composed individuals, so they do not require passionate pursuit of some radicalized ism in which to devote themselves as a means of self-forgetting, and to deceive watchful onlookers, if possible, that they, these unfit and ill-fitting zealots are doing something meaningful, demonstrating that they fit somewhere

 

 

Hoffer:            209

 

Stupidity is not a mere want of intelligence. It can be a sort of corruption. It is doubtful whether the good of heart can be really stupid.”

 

My response: Dennis Prager is not impressed by high IQs, or PhD credentials: bright, well-educated people are often stupid, clueless, incompetent, arrogant, mean and completely mistaken. Their ideological and group-thinked values make them unable to detect between truth and falsehood, good or evil. They lack both a truth-compass and a moral compass.

 

What they lack is wisdom. Only a sensible, secular realist, or a religious lover of truth, a good deity and virtue for its own sake is open to becoming wiser. These individuals are smart, and the brilliant, credentialed ideologues and evildoers are stupid.

 

At one time or another, all of us are ignorant and in error, to varying degrees. We are not stupid, but are unenlightened. To be are remain willfully blind, that is to be stupid and corrupt.

 

 

Hoffer: “         210

 

The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity of deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity. One needs the talents of an animal trained to deal with the stupid.”

 

My response: It seems likely that one cannot be stupid or remain stupid if one loves the truth for its own sake, and pursues it fervently, seriously, relentlessly. He who wants to discover what is what, will sooner or later, discover the error of his ways, and then take steps to wise up, and recover.