The Savage Heart

 Calvin Thomkins refers to Eric Hoffer's savage heart and I believe that Hoffer has a savage heart, but he is a morally fine man, so he sublimates and controls his violent self.

Thomkins on Page 64 of his autobiography on Hoffer recites how Hoffer was a natural orator, a potential demagogue.

Hoffer knew it, and, unlike Hitler, who long practiced at being a more effective, captivating demagogue, Hoffer knew this trait of his--to sway people as a speechifier, demagogue or guru--but he was ethically self-aware and recognized that powerful, natural ability to sway others is to lead a mass movement, and that social institution sickens all taken in by it.

What I call for with my anarchist-individuator supercitizens is a upper middle class citizenry, the majority of adults in any given polity or nation, to be strong smart, articulate, skeptical and powerful personally, that they would have no desire to rule another, or allow another to rule them, and that makes gurus and demagogues without clout or followers.

Listen to the quote form Page 64-65 in which Hoffer describes his ethical unwillingness to ever serve as a demagogue or to sway large groups of people: "The words come--it's happened to me several times. But I didn't like that feeling with the audience; it bothered me afterward, and I didn't speak again in public for a long time after that . . . You see, the reason I don't think I am an intellectual is that I'm not impressed by my ability to hold people with words."

Hoffer was an intellectual, but he was a blue-collar intellectual that worked with his hands. He was not elite or managing anyone. The intellectuals that he does not trust are the ones that are formally educated, and to manage others. Often these intellectuals believe they are genetically smarter and morally superior to the masses that they manage. These elitists are capable of enormous cruelty and utter ruthlessness, and it is they that Hoffer warns us about.