Misfits

 

 

 

From Pages 45 to 47 of his book, The True Believer, Eric Hoffer writes about misfits and their proneness to be frustrated, and therefore, are ideal, potential converts for a proselytizing mass movement.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “                            VI

 

Misfits

 

                                                              36

 

The frustration of misfits can vary in intensity. There are first the temporary misfits: people who have not found their place in life but still hope to find it. Adolescent youth, unemployed college graduates, veterans, new immigrants, and the like are of this category. They are restless, dissatisfied, and haunted by the fear that the best years will be wasted before they reach their goal. They are receptive to the preaching of a proselytizing movement and yet do not always make staunch converts. For they are not irrevocably estranged from the self; they do not see it as irremediably spoiled. It is easy for them to conceive of an autonomous existence that is purposeful and hopeful. The slightest evidence of progress and success reconciles them to the world and themselves.”

 

My response: This paragraph is fascinating. First, it seems that Hoffer is defining a misfit as someone who does not fit into some group, some job category, some neighborhood or some family, some niche, and that is the external, obvious definition of misfit. The misfit, as I would define those that Hoffer names as misfits, would be those that are also estranged internally from themselves. Due to their misalignment with the social arrangements of their day, and with their own self-assessment as not at peace with themselves as they are at any given moment, for these two reasons, the misfit views his life and self and irretrievably lost and spoiled, so he hates himself so much that he wants to eradicate himself. He does this not by committing suicide, most of the time; rather he immerses himself in a ism, group or mass movement so controlling of him and so demanding that he obey and play exactly the role that they assign to him, that he, once embedded in his holy cause, is able to forget he even exists, and that was his sole aim, and he is victorious at completing that quest.

 

Second, Hoffer’s characterization of the temporary misfit is his clearest statement yet that his ethics and view of human nature match or anticipated my own. Note that the estranged, frustrated misfit is self-loathing and self-estranged, so being frustrated is a selfless state, and the cure is not to self-realize but to further self-obliterate and self-smother by fleeing into the collective cause, group, or mass movement, in which the self ceases to exist. This self-annihilation grows out of self-hatred, so malevolence is instilled and wafts up from the thinking, being, words and actions of the misfit.

 

Where the temporary misfit finds reasons to hope that life will get better, he might well renounce his holy cause and return to an active, independent lifestyle. If he does the latter, it is because he has become reconciled to the world and himself, and he has found once more or for the first time that an autonomous existence is useful and purposeful.

 

This sounds a lot like living as an autonomous individual is the preferred, moral, healthy human style of living, and should be our moral motive, at least the primary one. It is implying that individual-living is preferable to group-living, and that is how we ought to live.

Note too that when the misfit is reconciled to himself, he no longer lies to himself, and can face who he is and handle problems on his own, mistakes and all.

 

Hoffer does not believe people are basically good, and their willingness to flee into the collective because they hate themselves and see their lives as irremediably spoiled is almost identical to my views about human depravity. He seems implicitly to favor what I explicitly favor, that is my sympathy towards Ayn Randian egoist-individualist morality. Under this theory, self-interest, implied self-realizing, and individual-live are preferable and obligatory for the moral being instead of living as a nonindividuator, a second-hander, group-living and sacrificing oneself for one’s holy cause or for others.

 

I am a psychological altruist, and I believe Hoffer could be one, and we define evil as altruistic and selfless, and enlightened selfishness or enlightened self-interest as good and self-interested.

 

Is Hoffer a normative egoist? I don’t think I can claim that. He likes individualism but he likely wants individuals to pursue their self-interest, but he writes of the value of common interests for the masses, things like bowling (my example), the Kiwannis, the Rotary Club, etcetera.

 

He might even be a normative altruist like Dennis Prager and Jordan Peterson are, who like individualism but within a classical altruism of the Judeo-Christian sort.

 

H: “The role of veterans in the rise of mass movements has been touched upon in Section 35. A prolonged war by national armies is likely to be followed by a period of social unrest for victors and vanquished alike. The reason is neither the unleashing of passions and the taste of violence during wartime nor the loss of faith in the social order that could not prevent so enormous and meaningless a waste of life and wealth. It is rather due to the prolonged break in the

civilian routine of millions enrolled in the national armies. The returning soldiers find it difficult to recapture the rhythm of their prewar lives. The readjustment to peace and home is slow and painful, and the country is flooded with temporary misfits.

 

Thus it seems that the passage from war to peace is more critical for the established order than the passage from peace to war.”

 

My response: Veterans do seem to be temporary misfits and lots of them. There are two paradoxes at work here: first, it would seem that the unleashing of soldiers’ passions, their having used violence to kill or harm enemies, or their shock and dislike of the system for sending them to war, wasting blood and treasure, would be the main causes of their being disaffected with the social order, but that is not the case. The cause is their prolonged occupational and social divorce from living as part of family and community in a given village or town. This seems true but counterintuitive.

 

The second paradox is stated in the last sentence that I quoted: it would seem that going to war from peace would frustrate and disrupt the soldier more than would be being demobilized, going from war to peace, but that is not the case. It is counterintuitive but true that, once having gone from being productive, working, immerse in life and family, living peacefully and successfully, the soldier youth is plucked and taught to kill and wipe out foreigners. In a sense, the youth turned warrior is going from a state of being civilized to be barbarian.

 

I assume we are naturally evil—as does Hoffer—so unlearning to be civilized and socialized is easy and natural. Once having learned as an adult to be uncivilized, barbaric, savage, and violent, when demobilized, then the veteran, without therapy and guidance, is unceremoniously dumped back into the civilian role, and he is in essence told to figure it out for himself how he is to become nonviolent, law-abiding, productive, civilized, socialized, “normal” and to fit in. That is a painful transition, and there are thousands of misfit vets that are shell-shocked and on skid row with mental illness and drug addiction and alcoholism issues.

 

These young men were told by military leaders to be evil and savage, as they were basically made by nature, and now they are told by politicians and the police to learn to be good and civilized, and that is no easy sell. Society misunderstands terribly what veterans are going through, so that they would be misfits is not surprising.

 

Next Hoffer is going to switch gears and write about permanent misfits: “

 

                                                               37

 

The permanent misfits are those who because of a lack of talent or some irreparable defect in body or mind cannot do the one thing for which their whole being craves. No achievement, however spectacular, in other fields can give them a sense of fulfillment. Whatever they undertake becomes a passionate pursuit; but they never arrive, never pause. They demonstrate the fact that we can never have enough of that which we really do not want, and that we run farthest and fastest when we run from ourselves.”

 

My response: We need to train all people to self-realize and none lack remarkable uniqueness and specialness, especially as she maverizes. Her talent is singular and is more or less than the talent of her neighbor, but she can still create singularly and marvelously in an original way that is a genuine contribution to expanding human knowledge and its corpus of beautiful things. I declare this ability to be special and remarkably talented and skilled at something as the potential of nearly every human being, and it will come about if society teaches all that they have this knack, that they can so achieve of they work very hard, originally, over a long period of time after and because they believe they can—first believe, and then do.

 

There are people with a lack of talent or are irreparably blighted in some way or another, so they are so frustrated they elect the life of being a permanent misfit, but usually their being misfitted is permanent and not temporary, because they decide that is their fate, but it need not be so. They accept being a permanent misfit because society told them it was so, they gave up on themselves and believed it was so, and because they adhere to altruist-collectivist ethics rather than egoist-individualist morality.

 

Notice that the permanent misfit fleeing herself identity by hiding in the collective identity of a holy cause has struck a bargain with the proselytizers: she gives up her life and personal power to them, turning these over to them as a “noble” gesture of self-sacrifice; they gain power and followers, and, in return, they agree to provide her with tight corporate structure in which she will fit, be popular, belong totally, and is able to forget she exists, her self disappears and become part of the giant ego or unitary personality of the collectivized group or movement.

 

When Hoffer writes that we can never get enough of what we really do not want, this is the self-deluding justification of a true believer, the fanatic, who, once embedded in the movement, praises it and his guru as the noblest, greatest, most elite cause ever. He settled for this life of self-forgetfulness, a life he did not want, but insists that this is all he ever wanted, to cover up his cowardice, duplicity, and weakness in not trying again and again to love, do good work, create, produce, and find his place in the world.

 

He must be super-enthusiastic and praising his cause because his total belief in it is a lie, and deep inside he knows it is. On the surface and before others and his masters, he can never admit it consciously. He cannot admit that it is illogically argued, internally incoherent and spurious. His allegiance to it is a lie, and that announcing the holy cause is holy good or worthy is just another lie. Deep down he knows it as manifested by his excessive, loud and melodramatic support for it. His gushing praise and passionate insistence as to the excellence of his cause is to cover over all his doubts about it, his loyalty to it, and his devotion to it, though he will die for it willingly, and call this noble duty fulfilled.

 

H: “The permanent misfits can find salvation only in a complete separation from the self; and they usually find it by losing themselves in the compact collectivity of a mass movement. By renouncing individual will, judgment and ambition, and dedicating all their powers to the service of an eternal cause, they are at least lifted off the endless treadmill which can never lead them to fulfillment.”

 

My response: Hoffer cannot mean, by identifying the frustrated true believer as being a permanent loser or misfit, who finds relief or salvation, from a hopelessly spoiled life lived in maximum suffering, anguish, and agony by a worthless self, only by losing herself in the compact collectivity of a mass movement, that self-loathing or negative altruism is morally desirable as a goal. Self-loathing what I refer to as selflessness. Can escaping a life of personal consciousness into a mass movement be a form of self-sacrifice (I doubt that most self-sacrifice is moral, though Hoffer may not go that far. I am for self-sacrifice as self-discipline and delayed personal hedonic pleasure as the means of self-realizing, but mostly I frown upon self-sacrifice as our duty to live for others as our life goal.) that is morally commendable? No, it cannot so be.

 

H: “The most incurably frustrated –and, therefore, the most vehement—among the permanent misfits are those with an unfulfilled craving for creative work. Both those who try to write, paint, compose, etcetera, and fail decisively, and those who after tasting the elation of creativeness feel a drying up of the creative flow within and know that never again will they produce aught worth while, are alike in the grip of a desperate passion. Neither fame nor power nor riches nor even monumental achievements in other fields can still their hunger. Even a wholehearted dedication to a holy cause does not always cure them. Their unappeased hunger persists, and they are likely to become the most violent extremists in the service of their holy cause.”

 

My response: This paragraph is terribly frightening. The most incurably frustrated, the most evil, the most violent, the most vehement, the most violent extremists in the service of their holy cause are those stunted or thwarted in their creative ambitions.

 

Here is another Hofferian paradox at work: the most evil, hate-filled, violent, destructive fanatic is the one that actually or most potentially had creative aspirations that went unfulfilled. Such angry, desperate, bitter, resentful persons, then renounce themselves, life, love, creativity and Being itself. They want revenge for having been born, and they are out to kill, maim and smash as much of or all of existence as they can get away with obliterating before they are stopped or die.

 

We Mavellonialists will be counseling the masses to self-realize as supercitizens, but we must warn them repeatedly never to cease trying to self-perfect and become, never to doubt their right, personal authority (granted by the Good Spirits) and capacity to achieve great, original things. They do not lack ability in some way or somehow or to some unique degree. They are never to doubt themselves, forsake belief in and love of the self, so once frustrated and resentful, they turn on society to get revenge for having been born. That path is a choice not a reality. None lack talent, but many give up striving to maximize their potential.