Act Humble

 

I have long studied Eric Hoffer and I am probably understand him better than anyone—I may not know the most about him, but I think I best understand him. It is not an empty trope to refer to him as the grandfather of Mavellonialism (My Dad would be the father of it, though he and I were not close.); I think that my world view is but an extension of what Hoffer already anticipated 75 years ago.

 

What a shock it was for me is to read online (Wikipedia) that Hoffer is regarded as moral as well as social philosopher—that I did not see him as, and that was likely a blind spot in my view of him, and it is probably correct that Hoffer is a moral philosopher.

 

To begin to correct that oversight, I want to paraphrase Hoffer from memory, as to what he felt would work to help people behave in public. He basically suggested the crime rate would go way down if criminals were arrested, prosecuted, tried, and jailed fairly but quickly, each time, every time, and that deters crime and improves public behavior.

 

The question at that time was how to reduce the crime rate. Liberals wanted to search for and treat causes of crime: broken homes, racism, poverty, unemployment. Hoffer just wanted the criminals off the street, pronto, to make society safer.

 

 He was right. He did not care what the motive of the criminal was, or what were the extenuating circumstances of his childhood. Hoffer likely assumed that once a man is an adult, his individuality and his free will made him responsible for how he legally misbehaved, and he should pay the penalty for the common good, to protect society and warn other scofflaws to cut it out, and other would-be criminals to respond to punishment as a deterrent.

 

Marxist professors and social justice bleeding hearts of his day looked for root causes and wondered about the offenders’ motives to justify and ameliorate the punishment they received for lawbreaking.

 

Hoffer dismissed all of that as not germane and not helpful. For public authorities to shape adult behavior in public, external rewards and punishments, and social conditioning, were enough to get most people to behave most of the time.

 

This is an ethical argument and a critically important one, so he was a moral philosopher. I need to research this more and nuance my interpretation but here is a present reading: Hoffer was a pessimist about human nature. He may have been a psychological egoist. He did not think we were born good. Because we were not born good, there was little need to waste time seeking to correct motives, because we had all these horrible, natural motives that we want to satisfy: predatory, hedonistic, violent, impure drives and instincts demanding immediate release and gratification on the street as one impulsively, naturally did whatever one wanted, whenever, to whomever one wanted to do it to.

 

Hoffer was likely no Kantian, but, as a pragmatist, would push the ethical strategy that gave consistent, tangible, effective, positive desired results for the individual and for society.

 

It was largely a waste of time, or to slow a strategy, to seek to reform and civilize human savages by seeking to appeal to their better nature, nurturing benevolent, high-minded, pure motives. Rather take the gutter-rat drives bubbling up out of the psyche of human beast, and use that raw, powerful energy and force and recanalize it to good ends.

 

He wanted the individual to seek self-esteem by channeling his basic drives into ennobling outlets like hard work, acceptable social enjoyments, and game-playing, raising a family or allowing the common people to be empower in our free, capitalist society to take advantage of the cornucopia of wealth, abundance, and opportunity to run their own lives and develop their talents to the maximum. The people, regardless of race, color, or creed, were loaded with talent, and, especially in America, they should get after it. Anything holding anyone back was internally caused, not externally erected obstacles.

 

This is why liberals and Leftists denounced him as racist against blacks: Hoffer felt they had tons of ability, and, if they were not making it America, it was their fault. His recommendation: quit babying blacks with crippling victimhood excuses, and invite them, as adult individuals as capable as anyone else, to go after all they could for themselves and their families like most of the poor, immigrant white ethnics had done, and it would work. I agree.

 

Hoffer was tough on himself, on other whites, and other blacks because he did not identify people as defined by their group identity: he saw them as individuals, and individuals in America with grit, a vison and hard work will flourish and do well. That applied to all Americans, he felt. His approach to blacks was not racist, but pro-human.

 

His assigning to blacks--and all Americans--the concept of individual identity, individual responsibility, individual self-help, and individual rights (their racial identity  as black, and group rights moral values as members of victims class, unable to better themselves against the man, their white overlord--this was a dead end story to lay on these folks).

 

 Deliberately, Leftists called Hoffer a racist, and he probably was to some degree (And some, minor systemic racism was built onto our culture at that time, but we are and have moved past most of that.) as was not uncommon in that generation, but the truth is, he knew blacks, worked with blacks and liked blacks, and intuitively knew that with hard work, the right values (the values of individualistic self-help and self-reliance and self-application), most blacks could overcome anything imperfect in front of them in America then or now. The Leftists that provide excuses for whole ethnic groups are the most racist, vile, hateful cretins, in the world for they assign group values (evil altruism-collectivist ethics and group rights over individual values, individual rights, and group-living over individual living). The cult of brotherhood in America has done more to hold blacks back and down than any slurs that the KKK or Southerners could ever hurl at them.

 

I have no evidence from his books that Hoffer is no egoist ethicist, but some individualistic sense of making oneself happy and prosperous as an extension of one’s legitimate self-interest is likely something he could have agreed with.

 

Hoffer would not worry about imperfect moral motives, though the motive of wholesome self-interest might have appealed to him. Rather he wanted the individual Americans to work hard, rely on themselves and to bootstrap their way to prosperity and independence. As an individualist, but not an egoist, he expected great things from each American, and if an individual did not make it, the fault was his, not society. With the right values, industry and a can-do attitude, anyone could and did make it here in America.

His ethics were practical: do not follow Freud or the social scientists digging deep into the blighted unconscious for gold nuggets—just toughen up, get going, and build a great life for oneself and one’s family.

 

Let me switch over to Dennis Prager, the rabbi of America and my favorite ethicist. Prager advises that we act as we would like to be, and not act as we feel. If we act brave, or wise, or kind, pretty soon, our behavior and our feelings start to change and match the new, more positive behaviors that one aspires to be morally. One picks the ethical role one wants to play and adopt, based in wholesome, Judeo-Christian, altruist values—still altruist but not anti-individualistic too much, and one can become an attractive, decent person. As one lives this approved, new self-image, one’s feelings and actions, over time, start to match the new self-image.

 

This seems different, but it is really similar to what Hoffer was pushing: do not worry about bad feelings, unseemly urges, or the deep pools of discontent and upheaval at the bottom of the human psyche, just correct the bad origins of human action by, on the conscious level, redirecting these urges and passion to positive, socially acceptable outlets. Bad behavior can be corrected by self-talk image improvements at the surface, not digging deep into repressed memories.

 

Hoffer wants to change criminal behavior, quick, at the surface, and society benefits. If we teach immigrants to assimilate into the Anglo-American culture, the good values of that culture will be adopted and lived by the immigrants to the benefit of all. No psychoanalyst can match that.

 

Jordan Peterson is a brilliant psychologist that would speak for himself, and I am no psychologist, but he seems like an existentialist: one is to know and love the truth as a Christian, and live it authentically without lies or decent, and one is to be as ethically noble as one can be. He offers therapy to people by getting them to lie no more to themselves, and to be good authentic, and to straighten up their room so that they bring more order and less chaos and suffering into their live.

 

I want to apply this ethical theory of envisioning an improved moral role for oneself—conducted by the self on the self at a surface level of remedy-that one finds attractive, keeps practicing it, and then one’s feelings, one’s behavior and one’s self-esteem, and one’s self-image began to look natural as they match the acted on new self-image. One’s basic nature has not changed, and one’s neuroses, flaws and perhaps psychoses are still there but new values (self-realizing), egoism, individual-living, individual rights over group-rights that are now lived and practiced everyday should help one become a more skilled, talented, empowered, kind person. One’s governing free will is a good will, and one’s character is ennobled, so one should have a better life, and make the world, on average, a better place.

 

I have been thinking that I like self-esteem and positive pride in oneself and healthy self-love, but I think, that one should think these things about the self and put a lot of time, attention, and resources into self-development but in a mode of humility not boasting.

 

One cannot be grateful to God for one’s countless blessings and opportunities if one is arrogant, showing off, putting down others, playing endless sadomasochistic social power games. If one is humble and modest, while quietly self-confident, and courteous to everyone, then good manners make the person at peace and a person of good wishes.

 

No one likes a bragger, for it is a displayed insult towards others that one is superior to them, which is not objectively true anyway, but still superciliousness makes people feel bad about themselves or at least angered, and that is not what we want: more people mad at themselves and others, and the uptick in fighting resulting contributes to the negativity of grouped selfless and unhappy selflessness that is evil growing in the world, and we had a personal hand its being produced.

 

One can be quietly proud of oneself if one has earned success by what one has worked hard on and achieved, but that justifiably proud self should conduct himself to himself, towards God and towards other in a mode of pleasant humility. If the maverizer acts this as a surface, played out role for the self, then, over time, her feelings, her thinking, her character, her public persona, her will, her demeanor will reflect who she has become or Is becoming.

 

Moderation in thought, speech, prayer, and action makes one morally better and more truthful and rational. Being humble is close to moderate appreciation of self and others, and all are to be treated with dignity, consideration, and respect. If one stays temperate, modest and humble, then one is more honest, not thinking too much of oneself or too becoming self-deprecating.

 

The trick is to be who one is and do what one needs to do with Midwest understand, a person determined to take the melodrama out of things.

 

The good deities and the good spirits are individuators of high self-esteem, but many have lived alone in spiritual space perhaps for millions of years. Someone that that was arrogant or insecure would not hold it together out there, alone, for so long, for the silence and sheer aloneness would drive him mad. With a stoic calmness about him he can keep his wits and make it all work together for the long run. Besides, it is good manners to not brag or put anyone down; it is kind. If you are unkind and feel the need to inflict unnecessary suffering upon others, you may wield more power than they do, but you have demonstrated that you are a pathetic loser, and morally inferior to the victims, real not imagined victims of your malice.

 

Remember that egoist and altruist ethics are two sides of the same coin labeled moderate ethics. How we treat the self is how we treat others, and how we treat others is how we treat the self;. If we are kind to others, are being kind to ourselves. This is an inescapable moral law.

 

If we are gentle with ourselves, we will be gentle with others. If we are mean to ourselves, we will hurt others. If we inflict harm to the self, we will export these injurious acts to others If we love ourselves, we will be good to others.

 

. Enlightened self-interest is the best way of caring for others, the self and the needs and expectations of the Good Spirits and good deities, and some service to the common good is necessary, so do that too.

 

If one is calm, modest and at peace, then that is how one lives. The happy self will be a self of good will and kindness. Acting out this role of a humble individualist of good will leads to one beginning to live this way, one begins to think this way and to feel this way.