The Future

 

In his book, The True Believer, on Pages 9, 10 and 11, Eric Hoffer discusses how differing intellectuals regard the future. I will quote the paragraphs whole and then respond to them.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “Thus the differences between the conservative and the radical seem to spring mainly from their attitude toward the future. Fear of the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while faith in the future renders us receptive to change. Both the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, they who have achieved much or little, can be afraid of the future. When the present seems so perfect that the most we can expect is its even continuation in the future, change can only mean deterioration. Hence men of outstanding achievement and those who live full, happy lives, usually set their faces against drastic innovation. The conservatism of invalids and people past middle age stems, too, from fear of failure. They are on the lookout for signs of decay, and feel that any change is more likely to be for the worse than for the better. The abjectly poor are also without faith in the future. The truth seems to them a booby trap buried on the road ahead. One must step gingerly. To change things is to ask for trouble.”

 

My response: Note the extremes, the rich and the poor, or the strong and the weak, both fear for the future, to change things, but it is those in the middling circumstances that may be more inclined to change, because they may believe in the future and in change. Change may make things better or worse, but fear of the future is what seems to drive people to stay conservative, not whether the change is beneficial to the person or society or both.

 

H: “As for the hopeful: it does not seem to make any difference who it is that is seized with a wild hope—whether it be an enthusiastic intellectual, a land-hungry farmer, a get-rich-quick speculator, a sober merchant or industrialist, a plain working-man or a noble lord—they all proceed recklessly with the present, wreck it if necessary, and create a new world. There thus can be revolutions by the privileged as well as by the underprivileged. The movement of enclosure in sixteenth and seventeenth century was a revolution by the rich. The woolen industry rose to high prosperity, and grazing became more favorable than cropping. The landowners drove off their tenants, enclosed the commons and wrought profound changes in the social and economic texture of the country. ‘The lords and nobles were upsetting the social order, breaking down ancient law and custom, sometimes by means of violence, often by pressure and intimidation.’ Another English revolution by the rich occurred at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. It was the Industrial Revolution. The breathtaking potentialities of mechanization set the minds of manufacturers and merchants on fire. They began a revolution ‘as extreme and radical as ever inflamed the minds of sectarians,’ and in a relatively short time these respectable, God-fearing citizens changed the face of England beyond recognition.

 

When hopes and dreams are set loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”

 

My response: Hoffer points out that it many kinds of people that institute change when they become disaffected, feel empowered and have faith in their efficacy in bring about a new future. Their revolution may be peaceful and partial, or brutal, violent, murderous, and total, but its occurrence, once activated is almost impossible to prevent, though one might seek to canalize it to more peaceful or constructive outcomes.

 

Quite often idealists have their revolutionary dream that is revealed, once unleashed and society is over-turned, to be a totalitarian, genocidal nightmare. Change must occur, but it should be managed. I hope the 20^th century has taught us that much.