Cowardice

 

On Page 115 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes two entries which I quote and comment on.

 

 

Hoffer: “          203

 

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong it easily becomes a fashion.”

 

My response: Dennis Prager notes that most people lack courage and that this lack is devastating for moral well-being of individuals and for society as a whole.

 

We naturally hate ourselves, so that kind of weak, tepid personality is not going to engender a character resolute, able to stand out against social pressure.

 

We group-identify, and courage is a personal conviction, so this makes our natural proclivity to being cowardly, socially reinforced by being rewarded when we go along with group wishes over personal preference or stated values. Our docility and non-resistance is rewarded and we know it.

 

Then, as natural altruists and selfless creatures, we are cunning and selfish. We take the easy way out, and do what everyone else does and thus stay out of trouble. So capitulating does not serve our noble, long-term self-interest, and our capitulating serves neither us or society, but we took the quick, attractive resort for temporary gain, for temporary avoidance of unpleasantness.

 

If a community was populated by majority being individuating supercitizens, then being courageous would be the norm, as well as a social standard, and being courageous would be a desirable socially accepted advancement.

 

 

Hoffer: “          204

 

Those who proclaim the brotherhood of men fight every war as if it were a civil war.”

 

My response: It is the collectivists that hate those of rival tribes and groups, and it is the collectivists on both sides of a quarrel or war that shed so much blood in the name of cause and tribe. None are so cruel and bloodthirsty as the selfless, especially ideologues.

 

Superficial

 

 

On Page 114 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

 

Hoffer: “          201

 

The reason that man is so fantastic a creature is that he is so superficial.”

 

My response: First, I deeply trust Hoffer view of things, for he is a truth-magnet. If he suggests that humans are superficial, they likely are.

 

Second, Hoffer is deeply skeptical, even cynical at time, over the way that people present themselves to the world; people, individually and collectively even more so, live lives of self-deception and pretense. Hoffer knowing this, takes people self-assessments with a grain of salt, and then he writes what they really think, who they really are, and what they are actually up to. When he makes people aware of who and what they really are, that can be startling, disturbing, even annoying to the vain and pretentious espousing popular tropes.

 

Third, Hoffer is not denying that there are great depths of subterranean layer after layer of meaning and drives embedded in the human consciousness. What he is denying is that humans live and make ethical, life-altering and life-defeating levels on the surface of things.

 

We are best able to be smart, ethical, productive, wholesome, and loving by dealing with our problems and responsibilities by making liable, sensible decisions on maverizing and self-improvement on the surface level of living and being. We are capable of fantastic adjustments and assuming positive new roles to play, on the surface of life, that then like-muscle memory, these adopted surface roles over time, as habituated, become our personality, who we actually are and can be proud of becoming.

 

Most of us do not require years of Freudian psychoanalysis to discover who we are, and how we are to live. Hoffer advises us to quit worrying about being so superficial, but to accept who and what we are and work on self-improvement, based upon what nature gave us to work with.

 

Hoffer is also brilliantly warning ethicists and people of good will to avoid heeding pseudointellectuals, idealists, and never-do-wells, that seek complex, authoritarian, prescriptive, involuntary, collective, global revolutions to seek deep lasting reform via upending the whole system. They usually make things worse and destroy what is working well. They have no idea how to make things better, but they know how to tear things down. They are most effective when they do nothing, and no one gives them any say in running things.

 

It is more effective for reform to be personal, practical, small-scale, implemented by the nonexpert individual, practice on himself imperfectly, clumsily, with slow gains achieved effectively over time: self-change put upon the self by the self, on the surface of existence, that self-reform, will over time, go deep into his whole being.

 

Change

 

We do self-talk on the surface of our personalities, and the conscious and unconscious self will get behind this new role and the self can be healed this way.

 

Hoffer: “His nobleness, and vileness, loves and dedications are all on the surface.”

 

My response: It occurs to me too that we mostly are group creatures, and any group has a group personality and conforming joiners eagerly, quickly, frantically and repeatedly, do their damnedest to mimic and parrot the personality, view and reasoning of that official, adopted, group personality, that, to the degree that the group has deprived each member of his own individual personality, that group personality is the personality of each conforming joiner, popular and in good standing.

 

This denial of personal and private personality and identity, inflicted by the group upon each conforming joiner, claiming to be happy and fulfilled as a nonindividuating groupist, exacerbates the natural human tendency to not be self-aware, to be shallow, to deceive the self, to sin (which is living in a bubble of lies). The adoption of the group personality guarantees that most people, conforming joiners, live on the surface and may make jolting reversals in their plans, based upon what the group orders each member to think, do and what role to assume.

 

Hoffer: “The sudden drastic transformations of which he is capable are due to the fact that his complex differentiation and the tensions which shape his attitudes are wholly surface phenomena.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          202

 

We probably a greater love for those we support than for those that support us. Our vanity carries more weight than our self-interest.”

 

 

My response: There are times when I struggle to understand what he is really saying, and that is true with this entry. It could be that we feel that we lose faith and can’t helping feeling inferior to and resentful towards the ones that support us and shows us charity. We hate them for being seemingly or actually superior to us.

 

We gain face and feel superior when we support others; and we are the benefactor and they are the recipient. We love them because we are in the superior position for a change and that makes us feel better about ourselves.

 

It would be in our self-interest to receive support and aid when we need it, but our vanity is hurt because we feel inferior to the giver of charity.

Intolerance

 

On Page 113 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has one entry which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          200

 

It is doubtful whether there is such a thing as impulsive or natural tolerance.”

 

My response: Once again I am very impressed, astonished, even flabbergasted at how insightful this original, moral genius is, and how rich with implications are even a seemingly simple, single sentence like the one just above.

 

Hoffer is saying that humans are not naturally or impulsively tolerant. What does this indicate? It signifies to me that he thinks humans are born depraved, that they can only be good, kind, rational, accepting, tolerant and willing to peacefully coexist with those of differing opinions when so conducting oneself is a learned moral behavior that the majority of a nation practice, actually practice.

 

It also indicates that he is a moralist that believed the moderate, tolerant, civilized, libertarian and classically liberal acceptance of intellectual independence of others opposing us is the ideal, the behavioral standard to live by in settling disputes and disagreements. These behaviors must be taught, learned, and then widely practiced, if there is to be peace and tolerant across the land.

 

For humans to be good, they must become good, following an adopted, artificial moral code. As individualists, individuators and classical liberals, loving freedom, and mutual tolerance, and that practice peaceful tolerance and rational, civil dialoguing, humans must allow a range of views differing from their own, agreeing to peacefully and legally coexist.

 

Hoffer believes that people are born emotional, passionate, fanatical, and addicted to false dichotomies. They are born intolerant, tyrannical and willing to use force and the threat of violence to compel pure conformity in thought, word, and deed from others to one’s own views.

 

Because human history is a history of warring amongst rival groups, tribes, and nations, in which people group-live, live nonindividuated lives, group-identify and live in accordance with altruist-collectivist morality, people were allowed to express their wicked tendencies, given cover and moral sanction by society and its leaders. People, being naturally vicious, cruel, savage, barbaric and willing to terrorize and use authoritarian government to impel people to see things, “the proper way”, were allowed to act as bad as they were without secular or divine sanction, so they just misbehaved consistently and ignominiously.

 

Hoffer: “Tolerance requires an effort of thought and self-control. And acts of kindness, too, are rarely without deliberateness and ‘thoughtfulness’.”

 

My response: Hoffer does not much believe in random acts of kindness: who is most capable of consistently acting kind as a learned behavior? it is the individual being self-interested but being kind to himself, to the Good Spirits and to others as a planned pattern of behavior and it works.

 

Random acts of cruelty and intolerance are easy and effortless: all we have to do is deny we have a human nature, an animalistic, bestial nature, that is intolerant, aggressive and unkind, or that we have to fight this nature, as Dennis Prager exhorts us to do.

 

When we run in packs, it easy for acts of intolerance and cruelty to be joyously, eagerly engaged in and indulged, whether it is random or planned as a long-term pattern of abusing the dissident, the weak, the stranger, those from a rival group with a different story that they live by.

 

Hoffer: “Thus it seems that some artificiality, some posing and pretense, are inseparable from any acts or attitude which involves a limitation of our appetites and selfishness.”

 

My response: Because humans are so depraved and savage, and yet salvageable and redeemable, they must be taught the artificial, unnatural morality of egoism-individualism so they then can act rational, loving, nonviolent, tolerant, and civilized. This morality is alien to humans, so it must be a pose or pretense until, like muscle memory exercises, the natural human recessive appetite to be individual, kind, and tolerant, becomes natural or second nature to a morally well-trained adult of good will. This lie or faked goodness is a role played by humans until it becomes their surface personality, a genuine good person, a virtuous and holy persona worn over the beast or savage pullulating and raging within. As the ethical adult learns to behave, she can limit her appetites for hate and to curb her burning urge to hurt and attack those different from her, especially if they are militant about disagreeing with her. She can limit her selfish desire to control, break and own and direct them only by becoming a civilized individual and human individualist.

 

Hoffer: “We ought to beware of people who do not think it is necessary to pretend they are good and decent.”

 

My response: How I would translate this sentence in plain, Mavellonialist English talk would be to note that we are to beware of people that are unwilling to be hypocritical as a standard—always sought after even if not always lived up to (the standard of being a well-behaved person of good will, kind to the self, kind to others, and tolerant of oneself and tolerant of others frailties and follies too): the hypocrite gives praise to being virtuous, while often or mostly failing to or refusing to behave, but this hypocrite is just the average person, a bit more good-behaving than not, but who is underneath not good or decent at all. When in a group with not socially conditioned restraints on misbehaving, the group become a mob and its members, of all or any race, gender and creed, are quite equal in being capable of doing anything, literally anything to others.

 

When evil rules the social dispensation openly, when the hypocritical requirement to pretend to be good and decent is no longer required, socially rewarded or not without real danger of being punished for striving to remain good and decent, then people’s fanatical, natural tendency to be selfish, violent, intolerant, authoritarian and lawless, is openly expressed, lived and championed by the majority of the people, then it is their natural, honest, genuine nature being openly, truthfully expressed and worn on their sleeves. This is not sustainable for society, for the gates of hell are open and the demonic monsters walk the streets in their millions, these human beings openly showing their nature and their lived base desires being easily expressed and socially praised and reinforced.

 

Hoffer: “Lack of hypocrisy in such things hints at a capacity for a most depraved ruthlessness.”

Equality

 

On Page 112 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

 

Hoffer: “          198

 

We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a man truly craves but knows he cannot have we must find the field in which he advocates absolute equality. By this test the Communists are frustrated Capitalists.”

 

My response: No sane, rational, fair, or moral person would ever go against equality of rights and access to justice, or equality of opportunity for everyone. Beyond that, seeking equity, or equality of outcome—what Hoffer identifies as absolute equality—is detrimental to the opportunities for all anyone to maverize should she choose to live right.

 

Again, none are unable to attain excellence, should they believe they can, have such capacity, and think the self is worthy of such a fascinating journey of self-development, and will settle for nothing else.

 

Only altruists, the lazy and the quitters need whine about the need for universal equality of outcome, and they must be thwarted completely.

 

 

Hoffer: “          199

 

If we want people to behave in a certain manner, we must set the stage and give them the cue. This is true also when it is ourselves we want to induce. There is no telling how deeply a mind may be affected by the deliberate staging of gestures, acts and symbols.”

 

My response: We are born evil, but we have some innate goodness residual to our souls. If we live in accordance with maverizing via egoist-individualist morality, emphasizing the need to strengthen what is good in our will until our character is virtuous and our will is good, for the most part, then we can be moral adults. Once doing good and being good by us have been made the major components of our strengthened moral sense, the predominant focus of our consciousness and conscious state of living, then we will be good people.

 

We might be tabula rasa more than we are what we are essentially and naturally, but, if we set the stage for ourselves and for the young to maverize as individuators, we can become productive, loving, talented adults. What we require of our youth in the culture will greatly aid them in becoming good adult supercitizens.

 

Hoffer: “Pretense is often an indispensable step in the attainment of genuineness. It is a form into which genuine inclinations flow and solidify.”

 

My response: Here is another Hofferian paradox revealed: Moral advancement is best and most predictably, successfully achieved one person at a time, by society and the individual playacting a role of being virtuous and self-realized, and thus pretense repeated over time becomes the genuine self: individual, individuated, loving, genuine, sincere, truth-living and truth-loving, and immensely talented.

Control

 

On Page 111 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

 

Hoffer: “          196

 

The control of our being is not unlike the combination of a safe. One turn of the knob rarely unlocks the safe. Each advance and retreat is a step towards one’s goal.”

 

My response: Hoffer, the realistic, patient ontological moderate, is stating that self-development or growth is never just linear, never without hitches, setbacks and complications; still, for she who stays at it, progress can be made, fumbling and stumbling along each day.

 

 

Hoffer: “          197

 

 

Conservatism is sometimes a symptom of sterility. Those who have nothing in them that can grow and develop must cling to what they have in beliefs, ideas and possessions. The sterile radical, too, is basically conservative. He is afraid to let go of the ideas and beliefs he picked up in his youth lest his life be seen as empty and wasted.”

 

My response: The clue to translating Hofferesque entries into regular English is to understand that he regards humans as naturally weak, not very nice, lazy, group-living and conformist. They need a sense of self-worth to go on living: if that sense of pride in the self is based upon individuating and being of good and loving character, then the self will proudly openly acknowledge being what one actually is. One dares speak the truth to the self and out in the public because the self is not an ish or nonentity.

 

Where—and this is standard and normal for most people—when the life lived is sterile, empty, and wasted because the altruistic nonindividuator just lays around in the pack decade after decade getting little or nothing done—the desperately need sense of personal worth must be based on a lie and self-deception. When is an ish and a nonentity, then the imaged, imagined self displayed to the self and to the world must be a fake, because the self cannot stand dealing with what one is actually without going mad or committing suicide.

 

One is a self-proclaimed stagnant conservative or a sterile radical that clings to his old ideas, beliefs, associations, and possessions because, behind them and underneath them there is not self, no soul, to ground all of these rationalizations and fancies.

 

 

 

 

Motive To Rebel

 

On Page 110 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

 

Hoffer: “          194

 

The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection—real or imagined—by them.

 

We often hate that which we cannot be. We put up defenses against something we crave and cannot have.”

 

My response: One of these hidden presuppositions that course through all of what Hoffer writes is that we deceive ourselves: what we claim vehemently to favor or fight for on the surface of things, is often a cause or stance that is a poor substitute for being cast out of belonging to a cherished, desired group rejecting us, or their cultural story.

 

This poor substitute is now heralded by us as our first choice all along, and that it is the best thing going; the truth is, it may be worthy or froth, but we were embarrassed and shamed by being rejected by our desired group, and that humiliating reality must never come to light in the public.

 

Those that we yearned to join, to be accepted and allowed to belong to, have spurned us, so our rebellion, to be different from them, is being at war with them, and a denial that the spurning ever took place, and that, because it did, they need to be crushed.

 

 

Hoffer: “          195

 

There is in us a dark craving for rot. It is as if decay were an escape from the limits, the oppressive fears and the pains of an individual existence."

My response: There are several things indicated hear. First, Hoffer does not believe that human nature is basically good: we hate ourselves and are addicted to being and doing evil, hurting ourselves, others and the world. Murder of the self, murder of others and murder of the world itself, if we have the skill and power to effect us, is our goal should our dark craving for rot, violence, destruction and chaos grow pure and powerfully emanating within us, pervading our entire consciousness.

When we are dead, and all is dead, then there is no need to have to meet the divine call to maverize, a heavy burden laid on each human from the moment of birth onward, by the demanding Good Spirits. If we are dead and do not exist as  individuals, there no longer the pressure to measure up as a living angel, a burnden most of us would just as soon avoid.

The First Accuser

 

On Page 109 if his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          192

 

By accusing others of a crime we committed or are about to commit, we drain all force from any accusation which may be leveled against us. We attach a quality of hollowness and incredibility to the formula of indictment.”

 

My response: Hoffer does not think well of human nature. We often do not mind committing a crime, or not feeling guilty about having committed a crime, and may well plan to commit a similar crime in the future. One of the misapplications of human ingenuity occurs when an evildoer accuses others of a crime that he has committed, and he cleverly schemes to deflect blame from himself, and also by blaming others, he lessens whatever guilt that he may have felt inside for his criminal acts.

 

 

Hoffer: “          193

 

If what we do and feel today is not in harmony with what we want to be tomorrow, the meeting with our hope at the end of the trail is likely to be embarrassing or even hostile. Thus it often happens that a man slays his hope even as he battles for it.”

 

My response: Hoffer is so understated in so many ways, but his entries are rich with possibilities, so I will take liberties and assume things about the entry above, which he did not say, which I cannot prove, but that seem to be coherent with his worldview and what he writes over time.

 

My theory: I believe that God made humans to serve God, oneself, humanity, and the world by living a holy and virtuous life of self-realization, and that living as an advanced individual and individuators, whose self-realization is one’s telos, is the charge that God makes against each human.

 

I believe Hoffer thinks this way, roughly, only he replaces God with nature, because God does not exist, he stated often. As an aside, if he, an atheist like Ayn Rand, espouses that nature demands from humans that the self-realize, then there is some until now undiscovered convergence in their thinking.

 

Returning to Hoffer entry 193, if what we do and have done fails to match our permanent goal of self-realizing as a life plan, when we see how little we have accomplished when we are old, and life has passed us by, the meeting of our dashed hope when pitted against our pathetic performing and mediocre performance, we will be racked by guilt and self-contempt.

 

We have two ways to go when young or middle-aged, and yet somehow glimpsing this sad result of a life poorly performed by becoming an old nonindividuator.

 

We could man up and maverize, and then do well and feel well about our lives and performance as our adult performance tracks well with our adolescent hopes.

 

Far more typically, we will settle the issue permanently by erasing or burying our sense of hope to maverize. If the hope is extinguished, then we will be mediocrities, but we will have deceived ourselves long enough, and lie hard enough, often enough, that we come to promote and feel righteous about being a group-living, nonindividuating, popular mediocrity as moral, desirable and preferable and superior to a life of maverizing.