The Need To Obey

 

On Pages 115 and 116 of his book, The True Believer, Eric Hoffer writes of true believer’s aching need to obey as the price she offers to the guru and demagogue, if they will run his life for her, by admitting her to their mass movement. I quote Hoffer and then comment on his content.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “                              93

 

People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility. Moreover, submission by all to a supreme leader is an approach to their ideal of equality.”

 

My response: Individualists and individuators that live full lives filled with meaning, and self-structured security implementation become self-confident. They will obey authority figures and follow instruction under the law and from their employers, but they also think for themselves and are willing to do their own thinking, make their mistakes, learn from their mistakes, and try again and again, improving by failing. They are responsible and internalize self-restraint rather than allow external forces to run their lives.

 

Equality under the law and socially is just and desirable for people as individuals, but it is not the ideal of group equality or collective equality of the true believer.

 

H: “In time of crisis, during floods, earthquakes, epidemics, depressions and wars, separate individual effort is on no avail, and people of every condition are ready to obey and follow a leader. To obey is for then the only firm point in a chaotic day-by-day existence.”

 

My response: This last paragraph shows our need for average citizens reared up as unaverage, common citizens, as individuating supercitizens. Only the strong, wise, smart, versatile, imaginative, resourceful, innovative individuals, both confident, competent, and able to think for themselves in times of crisis and upheaval, are immune from susceptibility to join and grow immoral, undesirable mass movements.

 

H: “                                                             94

 

The frustrated are also likely to be the most steadfast followers. It is remarkable that, in a co-operative effort, the least self-reliant are the least likely to be discouraged by defeat. For their join others in a common undertaking not so much to ensure the success of a cherished project as to avoid an individual shouldering of blame in case of failure. When the common undertaking fails, they are spared the one thing they fear most, namely, the showing up of their individual shortcomings. Their faith remains unimpaired and they are eager to follow in a new attempt.

 

The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.”

 

My response: One is not an individual or individualist if one is averse to failing, being blamed, or being singled out as responsible for a collapsed project, so all the individual demands, a reasonable insistence, is that the fault be his actual blame. He is not running away from his self, and he is determined not to hide from what is, and what is his duty.