Thomas Shactman wrote a biography on Eric Hoffer, American Iconoclast. Here is what he wrote on Page 16 of the book: Another mystery is why Hoffer never attended school. He contended it was due to his blindness during his prime school years; but New York had schools for the blind, and tuition for poor students was underwritten by wealthy donors. In later life Hoffer attributed his “savage heart” to never having been “gentled by school marms.” Lili Osborne also suggested that an important element in his personality derived from his lack of religious education or orientation; he was, she observed, as “free” of religion as he was of formal education. That absence of school and religion combined to render him unsocialized in a society that stressed the ability to get along with, learn from, and have intimate relations with other people.”
My response: if youngsters are not given moral training, they usually will have savage hearts but without Hoffer's self-discipline, and turn into spoiled brats, narcissists, or sociopaths. If the child is without being reared in formal institutions like church and school, and somehow, he is individual-living and yet is morally trained to be a developed loner and individuator, then he can grow to adult greatness as did Hoffer.
How do we create millions of individual-living, individuating loners like Hoffer in America. We still need other people and family and friends to be sane, healthy and happy, but we need to be egoistic and individual live more than be altruistic and group-live.
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