On Page 206 of Eric Hoffer: The Syndicated News Articles, Hoffer wrote this: "Hence, unavoidably, an age of drastic change becomes an age of regulation, and of regimentation. In other words, the vanishing of an established social automatism eventually leads to the conversion of autonomous individuals into automata.
It becomes evident, therefore, that if drastic change is to proceed in an orderly manner, without explosive byproducts, there is a vital need for the preservation of some continuity with the past. The changes have to take place within a preserved and reinforced framework."
One of the emerging surprises for me is that I am not alone in my thinking. I am a radical conservative, an egoist with a dark view of humanity, that works for good, and is infused with a sense that moral and ontological moderation is the axiom underpinning--and perhaps even ruling--the universe. I claim that such a worldview runs through the writings and musings of Eric Hoffer and Jordan Peterson--although neither would ever accept that they are normative egoists like I am.
Let me start by laying out what Hoffer is writing in the quote above: when change is too violent and too drastic for a people, in a given society, they go from tyranny to revolution, right back to tyranny. This occurred in the French revolution, and during the Bolshevik uprising in Russia--from czar to totalitarian strongman rule back to fascist rule under Putin today. One extreme breeds its opposite, which is really much like what it topples. Western style democracies cannot stomach either communist or fascist revolutions.
Hoffer is warning America that the Leftists radicals of his day or today, should they overthrow America by violent revolution, would wipe out our heaven-on-earth near-paradise with its ordered liberty, free markets, plenty, constitutional republicanism and satisfaction of individual interests.
The vanishing of an established social automatism, overthrown by revolutionaries, ushers in a new regime, as totalitarian as the ancient river valley despotisms of the Nile River, and the autonomous American citizen will become automata, or quelled, quiet, submissive robots and minions, exactly what they, the revolutionaries, sought.
It occurred to me that Hoffer likely never knew of Friedrich Hayek and his belief that free market economics would self-regulate and work rather smoothly without central planning, a successful, working capitalist, republican nation in which its internally consistent, harmonious laws would run smoothly, a spontaneous order guided by the invisible hand of God, requiring no governmental intrusion or control. Hoffer's warning about dismantling America's smooth-running social automatism is much like Hayek's spontaneous order. Mark Levin is approaching this when he talks about preserving the civil society.
Jordan Peterson has remarked that he is constantly amazed that people can sit quietly, cooperatively, and politely in a room of people, without bickering, shouting, bedlam, war, violence and theft being the topic of the day. Peterson knows that we are born wicked, and that there are good people all around us trained up to be polite, law-abiding, civilized persons in a crowded room--this is a moral, social and political miracle of no mean significance. Whatever contributed to such peace, brotherhood, prosperity, freedom and happiness is a system not to be tampered with, lest its social automatism or spontaneous order be disrupted and its collapses. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Radicals and revolutionaries are arrogant, stupid and nasty lovers of destruction for its own sake, and nothing pleases them more than smashing such social automatisms. Hoffer knew that this was what the intellectuals stood for, and so he sounded the alarm against them early and often, and now millions of people, learned from Hoffer's war against intellectuals--they owe to this wise benefactor of humanity, their suspicion of educated, organized, powerful, radicalized elite ideologues out to tear down the status quo. Whatever changes take place, and need to take place, need to be peacefully suggested by reformers, to be voluntarily accepted or rejected by the common people "within a preserved and reinforced framework."
On Page 206 of Eric Hoffer: The Syndicated News Articles, Hoffer wrote this: "Hence, unavoidably, an age of drastic change becomes an age of regulation, and of regimentation. In other words, the vanishing of an established social automatism eventually leads to the conversion of autonomous individuals into automata.
It becomes evident, therefore, that if drastic change is to proceed in an orderly manner, without explosive byproducts, there is a vital need for the preservation of some continuity with the past. The changes have to take place within a preserved and reinforced framework."
One of the emerging surprises for me is that I am not alone in my thinking. I am a radical conservative, an egoist with a dark view of humanity, that works for good, and is infused with a sense that moral and ontological moderation is the axiom underpinning--and perhaps even ruling--the universe. I claim that such a worldview runs through the writings and musings of Eric Hoffer and Jordan Peterson--although neither would ever accept that they are normative egoists like I am.
Let me start by laying out what Hoffer is writing in the quote above: when change is too violent and too drastic for a people, in a given society, they go from tyranny to revolution, right back to tyranny. This occurred in the French revolution, and during the Bolshevik uprising in Russia--from czar to totalitarian strongman rule back to fascist rule under Putin today. One extreme breeds its opposite, which is really much like what it topples. Western style democracies cannot stomach either communist or fascist revolutions.
Hoffer is warning America that the Leftists radicals of his day or today, should they overthrow America by violent revolution, would wipe out our heaven-on-earth near-paradise with its ordered liberty, free markets, plenty, constitutional republicanism and satisfaction of individual interests.
The vanishing of an established social automatism, overthrown by revolutionaries, ushers in a new regime, as totalitarian as the ancient river valley despotism of the Nile River, and the autonomous American citizen will become automata, or quelled, quiet, submissive robots and minions, exactly what they, the revolutionaries, sought.
It occurred to me that Hoffer likely never knew of Friedrich Hayek and his belief that free market economics would self-regulate and work rather smoothly without central planning, a successful, working capitalist, republican nation in which its internally consistent, harmonious laws would run smoothly, a spontaneous order guided by the invisible hand of God, requiring no governmental intrusion or control. Hoffer's warning about dismantling America's smooth-running social automatism is much like Hayek's spontaneous order. Mark Levin is approaching this when he talks about preserving the civil society.
Jordan Peterson has remarked that he is constantly amazed that people can sit quietly, cooperatively, and politely in a room of people, without bickering, shouting, bedlam, war, violence and theft being the topic of the day. Peterson knows that we are born wicked, and that there are good people all around us trained up to be polite, law-abiding, civilized persons in a crowded room--this is a moral, social and political miracle of no mean significance. Whatever contributed to such peace, brotherhood, prosperity, freedom and happiness is a system not to be tampered with, lest its social automatism or spontaneous order be disrupted and its collapses. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Radicals and revolutionaries are arrogant, stupid and nasty lovers of destruction for its own sake, and nothing pleases them more than smashing such social automatisms. Hoffer knew that this was what the intellectuals stood for, and so he sounded the alarm against them early and often, and now millions of people, learned from Hoffer's war against intellectuals--they owe to this wise benefactor of humanity, their suspicion of educated, organized, powerful, radicalized elite ideologues out to tear down the status quo. Whatever changes take place, and need to take place, need to be peacefully suggested by reformers, to be voluntarily accepted or rejected by the common people "within a preserved and reinforced framework."
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