Be Gentle

 

On Page 61 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes two entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          101

 

It is an evil thing to expect too much either of ourselves or others”

 

My response: I agree with this but wish to qualify Hoffer’s remark; it is an evil thing to expect too much from us or others, especially expecting perfection all the time, or the first time out from a child, from others or from ourselves. The ethical law of moderation, coupled with a desire to be merciful, forgiving, and reasonable, does suggest that we set small, achievable goals that incrementally build self-confidence in us, motivating us to go a couple of steps farther, mastering that level and then going higher and higher, farther, and farther. All people have different levels of talent, and they learn at different speeds and in different ways.

 

Children should be taught that they are almost limitlessly gifted, talented, and self-realizing is to keep self-perfecting for a lifetime at what interests one, and no one else gets to pick that goal or goals for one.

 

Also, once children are taught to self-realize, then it is not so painful to expect more of them or of ourselves.

 

Hoffer: “Disappointment in ourselves does not moderate our expectations of others; on the contrary, it raises them. It is as if we wish to be disappointed with our fellow men.

 

One does not really love mankind when one expects too much of them.”

 

My response: We should not worry too much about being disappointed with others by expecting too much of them, complaining that they are not living up to our ideals, our expectations of them.

 

Each individual, of his own free will, and by his own effort, must save himself and insist that he self-realize.

 

Our purpose is to quit straightening out our neighbor, and to straighten out ourselves. We cannot settle for being disappointed with our performance yesterday: we must get up each day and try, try again and then we should start improving.

 

We must invite others to join us as maverizers, but we must not expect too much of them, even if they are our children.

 

Hoffer: “          102

 

The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves. The untenability of the situation does not by itself always give rise to a desire for change. Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us. The revolutionary agitator must first start a war in every soul before he can find recruits for his war with the world.”

 

My response: We need to change ourselves, not others, the country, or the world. When collectivists and intellectuals quarrel with themselves, they are not self-referential as they should be identifying the problem and solution as personal and internal, rather they nurse a grudge against the world, and strive mightily to tear down all that is.

 

As individuating supercitizens we must always be on guard against demagogues and gurus seeking to start a war in our souls so we become first discontented and then frustrated, so we must flee into his mass movement, and push his holy cause against the world.

Easygoing

 

Eric Hoffer, on Page 60 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, wrote two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          99

 

An easygoing person is probably more accessible to a realization of eternity—the endless flow of life and death—than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.”

 

My response: Here is another Hofferian paradox. The overly serious are truly frivolous, and the genuinely easygoing are substantive. What does he mean with this paradox?

 

Hoffer: “          100

 

The remarkable thing is that we really do love our neighbors as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant with others when we are tolerant with ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

 

It is not the love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict the world.”

 

My response: I have not read this passage for 20 years or so, and it is clearly the metaethical theory of a rational egoist. If we abuse others, it is because we abused ourselves first. If we hate and are cruel to others, it is because we hate and our cruel to ourselves first.

 

If we love ourselves, we will love our neighbors. If we hate ourselves, we will hate, attack, and hurt our neighbors.

 

I believe Hoffer was a normative egoist.

 

The Narrative

 

Eric Hoffer, on Page 59 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, wrote two entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          97

 

Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for the plot and a pattern in the development of his life story—a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.

 

The turning of our lives into a story is also a means of rousing the interest of others in us and associating them with us.”

 

My response: People need meaning in their lives, and they utilize language and concepts to craft a narrative to give them values, purpose, and significance. If they have self-esteem, live as individualists and love truth, then the story they craft and then live out will be productive and interesting.

 

If they group-living and do not maverize, their low self-esteem will drive them to devise quite a different story, one filled with lies, half-truths, grievances, contradictions, excuses, fantasies, and some real statements.

 

The quality of stories that people self-generate in reference each to herself does predict how society will operate and fare going forward.

 

Hoffer: “          98

 

Action can give us the feeling of being useful, but only words can give us a sense of weight and purpose.”

 

My response: The happy and successful individuators requires work, action, to hold a job in the everyday world of commerce to feel alive, productive, substantial, and happy. As a brilliant intellectual, each individuating supercitizens will know that she carries weight and purpose, more or less second to none, with millions of brilliant, talented peers also able to think, write and articulate, so no men of words would be empowered to use words again to bewitch and get a grip on the masses, who formerly were anti-intellectual, non-intellectual, non-critically thinking, and non-independent thinking individuals.

Trend-Setters

 

Eric Hoffer, on Page 58 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, has two entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          95

 

History is made by men who have the restlessness, impressionability, credulity, capacity for make-believe, ruthlessness and self-righteousness of children. It is made by men who set their hearts on toys. All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.”

 

My response: Hoffer seems to be suggesting that history is made by mass movements on the march, and it is populated by children-fanatics in a passionate state of mind who work tirelessly to capture their object, their holy cause’s success in the world, the toy they are manufacturing.

 

As all leaders strive to turn their followers into true believing children, the children take up, too often their voluntary servitude, by forcing their leader to lead as a tyrant that is but a petulant, criminal, violent teenager himself.

 

Hoffer: “          96

 

Man’s being is neither profound nor sublime. To search for something deep underneath the surface in order to explain the human phenomena is to discard the nutritious outer layer for a nonexistent core. Like a bulb man is all skin and no kernel.”

 

My response: Often it seems as if Hoffer is cynical and degrading in his characterization of human nature, but I trust my intuition that he is a psychologist and truth-detector of the highest order.

 

With this presupposition in mind, I will try to translate what he wrote above. Jordan Peterson, a brilliant psychologist and philosopher, defines mental health as not so much about the various neuroses, psychoses or kinds of mental sickness that people are afflicted with—and those are real—but what he seems to recommend is that the person get right with God, the cosmos and oneself by living as truthful, as authentic and ethical life as one can muster, and that high caliber existing will solve most mental health ailments, especially if they have not been afflicting the patient for decades.

 

If I may interpret Peterson, he does not want a therapist to employ a treatment plan like a Freudian, in depth, almost apriori digging deep into the subconscious to cure mentally sick people. Rather the cure is to treat them on the surface, and, if they play act and role model being loving, moral, spiritual, and healthy on the surface, that will cure them all the way down, and from one end to the other end of their personal psyche or consciousness.

 

Hoffer the longshoreman is writing something akin to this above. Man’s surface being is that he is 60% beast and 35% angel, so where humans live, on the surface, is where they must be healed. To heal the surface is to help each person, who chooses to self-reform or not as an individual implementing his plan of self-care of his own free will.

 

If and when the egoistic individual self-disciplines and self-reforms, his bestial side will be redirected and controlled by him to positive and human purposes, good for himself and for others. In this way, his will will be transformed into a good will and his weak, recessive angelic nature will now become strengthened and will be his outlook and approach to living for the remainder of his life. Once the individual has high self-esteem and loves himself, loves the good deities and loves others, his entire psyche or consciousness will be healed. Its profound and sublime aspects can be operating at the conscious level of existing for the self-reformed agent.

 

Humans live on the outer surface; the surface is their core, so to speak, another Hofferian paradox. If each person, adopts worshiping a good deity as his life mission, and is reared to maverize as an individuating supercitizen, these surface moral lessons taught to children are the most effective way for the child to become good and stay good.

 

The parent is like a basketball coach teaching an awkward child how to practice layups to the basket over and over again, until muscle memory kicks in, and the child easily scores points by dribbling and then shooting to the basket in action with smooth layups to score points.

 

This surface training soon is automatized by the child’s inner computer (bad analogy from a blue-collar worker) until this new habit and self-perfecting surface action becomes second nature to the child and the action converted to part of the child’s consciousness, over time, becomes the child’s trained and permanent nature. Moral training would work similarly, by taming the inner beast and nurturing the weak angel in each child so that she can be normal, sane, and loving.

 

This is what Hoffer is recommending above, and I think he is correct as usual.

 

Certitude

 

 

On Page 57 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          93

 

The fact of death and nothingness at the end is a certitude unsurpassed by any absolute truth ever discovered. Yet knowing this, people can be deadly serious about their prospects, grievances, duties and trespassings. The only explanation which suggests itself is that seriousness is a means of camouflage: we conceal the triviality and nullity of our lives by taking things so seriously. No opiate and no pleasure chase can so effectively mask the terrible truth about man’s life as does seriousness.”

 

My response: Humans cannot deal with the certitude of facing their ultimate doom out of fear of dying and being nothing if God does not exist, or, far more terrifying for a mortal and depraved creature, facing the grim prospect of becoming holy and virtuous enough to stand up to and survive judgment from an all-seeing divinity, at the end of it all.

 

One way to deal with these awful choices is to avoid them entirely: no one is better at walling off metaphysical destinies of certitude better than the true believer so deadly serious in promoting his holy cause.

 

Hoffer: “          94

 

Considering how lighthearted we feel when we do not take ourselves seriously, it is surprising how difficult the attainment of this sensible and practical attitude seems to be. It is apparently much easier to be serious than to be frivolous.”

 

My response: Unless one is courageous and a lover of goodness and truth, one will not be willing to face the Good Spirits directly to discover what is God’s mission for oneself on earth. To maveize is to develop the self in line with being the best version of oneself that one can be as an individuated businessman, artist, mother, writer or farmer, and this self-growth is one gift back to God and the Good Spirits.

 

When one gains self-esteem and is doing what one was meant to do, when one is authentic and at peace about how one is interacting with others and the world, there is no need to take oneself too seriously, to lack a sense of humor, though one’s service to the good deities is no joking matter at all for one.

Most people never maverize, so they are unable not take themselves seriously, which is their fake pride in their group-allegiance.

 

 

When people live their quiet lives of discontented despair in their group units, or quiet mass movements, or they become anomic, panicked, and frustrated when abandoned by their shattered existing order, so they live as true believers dedicated to their holy cause, their approach to life and themselves is one of deadly and deadening seriousness.

Soul-Raping

 

On Page 56 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer wrote three entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer:             90

 

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man’s spirit than when we win his heart. For we can win a man’s heart one day and lose it the next. But when we break a proud spirit we achieve something that is final and absolute.”

 

My response: The sadist’s or ideologue act of victorious soul-raping an independent person is evil at its most cruel and vile. The crushed spirit is destroyed forever.

 

Hoffer: “          91

 

When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint meaningfully at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.”

 

My response: One of Hoffer’s finest insights for the field of psychology and for general understanding of human nature is his observation that people must have pride or a sense of worth about themselves, or they will not last a day.

 

Their pride, or individual self-esteem can be an objective fact, when it is the sense of self-worth reflective of a life of talent honed, hard work, productivity, and decency.

 

Or an individual’s self-regard can be other-esteem or group pride, or group-esteem based upon the group, family or ism that he belongs to.

 

Whether the individual is an individuator or a nonindividuator, whether his self-regard is one of self-esteem or group-esteem, he will have a sense of worth about himself, true and legitimate or fake and illegitimate.

 

The weak lack worldly power, rank, self-esteem, and big muscles, so they, being groupist, brag about their capacity to do evil, which would make them feel strong, even if enacting their life of evil sends them to hell. For it is better to burn and regard oneself as powerful in the world, than to be weak, and feel contempt for oneself, and must live with that fact about oneself, somehow surviving in the next world, limping into Purgatory.

 

Hoffer: “          92

 

The paradox is that much that can achieved by faith can also be achieved by utmost frivolity. If faith rejects the present, frivolity makes light of it and disregards it. Both the devout and the utterly frivolous are capable of self-sacrifice. Both generate a fortitude which sustains one in difficulties; both are capable of extremes.”

 

My response: Both the devout with complete dedication or faith in their holy cause and the utmost frivolous are prime candidates for true believer membership in a mass movement. They both scorn the present, the life interest in time of the individualist: these radical joiners are capable of extreme behavior to demonstrate they will do anything, absolutely anything to further or protect their holy cause.

Brittleness

 

On Page 55 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has one entry which I quote and will comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          89

 

We associate brittleness and vulnerability with those we love, while we endow those we hate with strength and indestructibility. It is perhaps true that the first conception of an almighty God had its origin in the visualization of an implacable enemy rather than a friendly protector. Men loved God the way the Russians loved Stalin. Only be convincing ourselves that we really and truly love an all-powerful and all-seeing enemy can we be sure of never betraying ourselves by a word or gesture. ‘How are you going to love,’ said Tertullian, ‘unless you are afraid not to love!’”

 

My response: It could be that early or later even current relations between humans and an almighty deity is not easy, automatic or without conflicting feelings.

Fearless

 

On Page 54 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          87

 

Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage.”

 

My response: Here is another Hofferian paradox laid out. It seems intuitive that certain knowledge would make us less fearful, and that not knowing would eat away at our self-confidence and sense of tranquility.

 

The paradox arises when he links fearlessness with utter goodness or utter worthiness, but also its counterpart, utter wickedness, or utter unworthiness. It would seem that being completely evil and well knowing it consciously would make that agent realize that she was flirting with eternal hellfire as her ultimate destiny, something she had better fear or else.

 

But she does not fear hellfire: as a naturally born fanatic, she fears feeling weak, powerless, uncertain, anxious—all moods and sentiments that, collectively, lead her to utterly hate herself, and that naked state of consciousness, with no rationale giving her a sense of worth for group affiliating, is a state of personal, psychic misery that she cannot tolerate for more than 5 minutes. Better to be so wicked, cruel, and demonic, that she is certain of her chances of burning in hell, but she is completely certain of who she is and what she deserves, and that gives her a home among the demons where her group-esteem gives her that sense of worth, and that is her number one priority, and it has been met. It is better to burn among friends, fellow devils, than any longer to be uncertain, afraid, lost as an anomic misfit.

 

 

Hoffer: “          88

 

Absolute power is partial to simplicity. It wants simple problems, simple solutions, simple definitions. It sees in complication a product of weakness—the torturous path compromise must follow. There is thus a certain similarity between the pattern of extremism and that of absolute power.”

 

My response: Absolute power is wielded by the strongman or the junta after the active mass movement has won its revolutionary attack upon the formerly prevailing dispensation. But, when he was leading his mass movement, championing his ism, his holy cause, he did so as a radical showing in thought, word, and deed that he was a pure extremist of passionate enthusiasm. Thus, absolute power of powerless is the common denominator linking the extremism and brutal violence and terror committed by the true believers of mass movement to the absolute power wielded by the strongman, once the totalitarian state is a going concern.

 

Both prefer simple problems, simple solutions, and simple definitions, though that was never how the world works. Here is another Hofferian paradox: The absolute tyrant and the extremist man of action from the active phase of the mass movement are the same person, and they are weak, hollow man wielding limitless power of powerlessness in both roles.

 

It is the President of United States, with endless complications to sort out by political compromising, indelicate legislation constructing, and working with the enemy to get perhaps half a loaf; this stronger, more moderate leader of a free people is stronger and less powerful, but this wielder of the power of powerfulness is actually the stronger leader—stronger as President and stronger as a person.

Decision Free

 

 

 

On Page 53 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I will quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          85

 

There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power—God, history, fate, nation or humanity.”

 

My response: Here is another quote which, I conclude, puts Hoffer strongly in the camp of egoist ethics. Most or all of us feel that natural, powerful craving to deny personal responsibility for the cruel, vindictive, or hurtful things we say and do to others, blaming our misdeeds on the collective unit that we belong to.

 

The weak claim just to be obeying orders. The strong do evil in the name of God, history, fate, the nation, or humanity. It is their altruist morality, the ethics of immorality disguised as morality, that allows them to do evil openly without taking personal responsibility for their wickedness and wrongdoing.

 

Only when the young are reared with egoist-individualist morality, will we have a huge decline in wickedness in society, where quantitatively and qualitatively, most evil doing is a group effort, or is individually perpetrated by a criminal that is a joiner to his core.

 

Each person, as an individual is responsible for his wrongdoing, and each individual must wield self-care more than group-care to become and remain an ethical agent.

 

Hoffer: “          86

 

The awareness that the misfortunes which befall us are some sort of retribution for past transgressions often evokes in us a sense of relief. We are relieved of immediate responsibility for whatever it is that is happening to us. For if our difficulties can be ascribed to something that has happened in the past, they cannot serve as evidence of our present inadequacy and cannot blemish our self-confidence and self-esteem.”

 

My response: It is not clear when or to what degree, that the misfortunes we experience in this life are divine payback or punishment of us in this life for sins recently committed, but it is not alright to use suffering as an alibi for wrongs we committed prior to today and the evil we plan to commit tomorrow.

 

If we want self-esteem, we have to be loving, just, persons, kind to ourselves first, and then to others, afterwards. There are no workable alibis, no credible denial of responsibility for each behavior we elect to perform. We need to drop the excuses, man up, and shoulder our worldly duties directly going forward.

Hyper Extremes

 

On Page 52 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has three entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          82

 

Everything seems possible when we are absolutely helpless or absolutely powerful—and both states stimulate our credulity.”

 

My response: Hoffer reminds the reader that the masses serving as the grunts or true believers in the mass movement armies are absolutely helpless or absolutely powerless while the guru or demagogue in charge is absolutely powerful, so they could exhibit an attitude of absolute credulity about any absurd proclamation.

 

By contrast a sober individual of self-esteem will be mildly optimistic and always a bit skeptical about the inevitability or infallibility of any human plan or undertaking.

 

Hoffer:  “         83

 

The charlatan is not usually a cynical individual who preys on the credulous. It is the credulous themselves who manifest a propensity for charlatanism. When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths. Self-deception, credulity and charlatanism are somehow linked together.”

 

My response: The charlatan is likely cynical in part, but much of his persuasiveness is that he, over time, increasingly comes to believe the lies that he tells repeatedly, and thus he is persuasive to his gullible, credulous audience, for he sincerely believes the nonsense that he is preaching them to accept.

 

The group-liver, the nonindividuator, practicing altruist-collectivist ethics, is a creature hiding from the self and from God inside a group in quiet times, and inside a mass movement in more momentous turbulent times. Self-deception and mutual deception with and among other insiders is the way of life. These liars are ripe for the picking for any charlatan or con man to scoop up, ensnare, command, enslave and exploit.

 

As true believers, these liars and fanatics are convinced that they possess the absolute truth and last word on everything. They can be taught anything and will believe anything their leader spoon-feeds them, no matter how contradictory, bizarre or unrealistic it seems to be so obviously to any outsider.

 

Hoffer: “          84

 

Modern man is weighed down more by the burden of responsibility than by the burden of sin. We think him more a savior who shoulders our responsibilities than him who shoulders our sins. If instead of making decisions we have but to obey and do our duty, we feel it as sort of a salvation.”

 

My response: We are not much bothered by sin, even after World War Two, when Hoffer wrote these books since we were already a secularized people, to a large extent. But, as the Western ideal of the mind of the individual as sovereign still reigned, it was incumbent then and now that he individual shoulder his responsibilities as a competent, productive, hard-working, even maverizing individual.

 

Many people want to join the collectivity and be told what to do and what to think. We find it a source of salvation to be relieved of the burden of existing as a separate person who makes his own choices and must answer for the choices selected.

Rudeness

 

On Page 51 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          80

 

Rudeness seems somehow linked with a rejection of the present. When we reject the present we also reject ourselves—we are, so to speak, rude toward ourselves; and we usually do unto others what we have already done to ourselves.”

 

My response: It is indicative of Hoffer’s profoundly original thinking that he would connect a rejection of the present as a rejection of ourselves, being rude to ourselves. A true believer has abandon the self and the present, so he is rude to the despised self, murdering self-consciousness. His only consciousness henceforth is his being a cell in the mind of his mass movement. Its consciousness is his consciousness going forward, and the advancement of this holy cause into the future is his only focus, an orientation he brags up as noble and virtuous.

 

To reject the self is to be rude to the self, and this is then how the self treats others, rudely. This is another indication of Hoffer’s indirect support for egoist ethics: that we cannot treat others well unless we first esteem, love and treat the self with courtesy; only then will we practice the Golden Rule, to love others as we love ourselves.

 

Hoffer: “          81

 

To the child, the savage and the Wall Street operator everything seems possible—hence their credulity. The same is true of the people who live in times of great uncertainty. Both fear and hope create credulity. And it is perhaps true that those who want to create a state of mind receptive to fantastic and manifestly absurd tenets should preach hope and also create a feeling of insecurity.”

 

My response: I think that revolutionaries and men of words instinctively and perhaps consciously stoke the people’s imaginations with uncertainty, worry and unrealistic expectations to contrast the dispensation and accompanying holy cause as greatly superior to and preferable to the present dispensation, which like the one in present America, is not that bad.

 

If they can shake the masses free from their traditional loyalty to the metanarrative of the standing dispensation, then they can frustrate the people, and stampede them into the proffered, waiting mass movement.

 

Deity Level Power

 

On Page 50 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          78

 

The only way to predict the future is to have the power to shape the future. Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.”

 

My response: This brilliant insight is also quite chilling: the dictator running a totalitarian state can make his declarations and his lies come true. That dispensation is not one that any sensible human wants to live under.

 

Hoffer: “          79

 

Those that are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.”

 

My response: This bleak but factual take on human behavior reveals that individuals live in the present and can be corrupt and cruel but not genuinely vicious. It is the fanatics in an active mass movement, before or after the revolution has been won, who are exercising a most pure, consistent form of altruist-collectivist ethics, and their methodic, consistently ruthless cruelty knows no limits, and no let-up.

 

 

Bungling

 

On Page 49 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I will quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          76

 

It seems that when we concentrate for a time on something that is new and difficult we acquire a sense of foreignness which we carry over as we shift to familiar fields. Thus it happens that those who set their minds on tackling the wholly new often end up by seeing the familiar as if it were new and difficult, and expend their energies in directing and regulating affairs which usually function automatically.”

 

My response: Our being inept and fumbling when tackling the novel can also carry over into dealing with the automatized, routine affairs well established. What we know how to do automatically is more sophisticated than we realize, when we try to smooth out consciously what we intuitively and subconsciously did quietly and without a hitch, previously. This indicates that there is still much learning and planning going on in our implicit and subconscious phases of conscious planning that are not yet well understood, let alone well administered or practiced.

 

Hoffer: “          77

 

A living faith is basically a faith in the future. Hence he who would inspire faith must give the impression that he can peer into the future, and that everything is happening under his guidance—even when it turns out disastrously—had been foreseen and foretold.”

 

My response: The demagogue, dictator or guru at the head of a mass movement is not infallible or omniscient, but he must so present himself as such, and his adoring followers must believe this of him too.

The Future

 

On Page 48 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and comment on.

 

Hoffer: “            74

 

We cannot dream passionately of the future without making a counterfeit of the present. The craving for things that are not induces us to see the world as it is not.”

 

My response: Here Hoffer is suggesting that revolutionary men of words are at war with the current dispensation, seeking to replace it with their “perfect”, idealized utopia of the future. If they can gaslight and deprecate the present and the existent dispensation, to the point that the masses lose faith in it, and awakened and without a collectivity to hide from themselves inside of, the desperate, panicked, frustrated masses are now ready to serve in the mass movement in its active phase to overturn to current dispensation, with a new, totalitarian, revolutionary dispensation whose doctrine and rationale grow out of the holy cause being promoted.

 

Hoffer:  “         75

 

The remarkable thing is a preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. To enter the realm of the future is like entering a foreign country: one must have a passport, and one must be able to provide a detailed record of one’s past. Thus a nation’s preoccupation with history is not unfrequently an effort to obtain a passport to the future. Often it is a forged passport.”

 

My response: Yes, that forged passport is revisionist history written by men of words shilling for the revolution already victorious, or for the mass movement still in its active phase.

 

 

 

 

 

Grave Deception

 

On Page 47 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has three entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “   71

 

There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving others but think it is as nothing to deceive themselves. Still, it is doubtful whether the self-deceivers can ever really tell the truth.”

 

My response: The purest, most deadly, most malevolent, most consequential lies told are not told by the agent to others but are the lies that he tells himself and about himself to himself. If an evil man was to tell himself the complete truth about his wicked character and actions, it is likely he could not continue to be wicked. Therefore, it follows that his skill at self-deception is what keeps him able to enjoy his groupist sense of personal worth, while doing foul deeds repeatedly.

 

His entire way of life is but a bundle of interlocking lies of self-deception, and, secondarily, a social exchange of mutual lies and deception.

 

H: “        72

 

To the self-despisers, reality is soiled and threadbare. They cannot base their opinions of the evidence of their senses. They are reluctant to distill their judgment of a country, a government or humanity in general from the raw material of their daily experience.”

 

My response: Self-despisers cut themselves off from reality because it is too painful to know the truth about themselves. They already live in a fantasy world, so that is where they stay.

 

H: “        73

 

The war on the present is usually a war on facts. Facts are those toys of men who live and die at leisure. They who are engrossed in the rapid realization of an extravagant hope tend to view facts as something base and unclean. Facts are counterrevolutionary.”

 

My response: Facts are counterrevolutionary: the last thing that true believers will tolerate is allowing truth or facts to derail their denial of the present pleasure and enjoyment, sacrifice for future victory of the holy cause.

 

Walled Off

 

On Page 46 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has three entries, which I will quote and comment on.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “   68

 

A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.”

 

My response: The doctrine or bubble of protective words that surround the consciousness of a fanatic do insulate and protect him from doubt or corrective criticism from either outside or internal sources. He is a living creature of denial and fantasy: he is without moral awareness or restraint, so he can be as cruel as he wishes without limit, and then feel good and proud of his mayhem afterwards. What he has become is the antithesis of his real self; a guilty conscience sways or deters him not in the least.

 

H: “        69

 

We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion or conviction but to evoke it in us. It is not only other people’s words that can rouse feeling in us; we can talk ourselves into a rage or an enthusiasm.”

 

H: “        70

 

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.”

 

My response: Methinks thou protest too much.

Motivation

 

On Page 45 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes two entries which I will quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “            66

 

There are people who need the sanction—or rather the incantation—of an idea in order to be able to act. They want to command, manage and conquer; but they must feel that in satisfying these passions and hungers they do not cater to the despised self but are engaged in the solemn ritual of making the word become flesh. Usually, such people are without the capacity to originate ideas. Their special talent lies rather in the deintellectualization of ideas—the turning of ideas into slogans and battle cries which beget action.”

 

My response: The true believer, inside his mass movement, can act only if the abstraction he worships, his holy cause, so excites him to warlike aggression that he spreads his cause across the globe, conquering and smashing all in his path. When the name of his holy cause is his battle cry, this army of fanatics are near unstoppable in their march of ism conquest and expansion.

 

Hoffer: “            67

 

Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of events.

 

The new barbarism of the twentieth century is the echo of words

bandied about by brilliant speakers and writers in the second half of the nineteenth.”

 

My response: Lest the postmodernist Progressive double-talk of the last 60 years become American cultural and politics in the 2030s and 2040s, let us MAGA by introducing Mavellonialist ethical, cultural and political theory, for our grandchildren to put into practice.

 

 

Free-Floating

 

On Page 44 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “            64

 

What is the farthest removed from our flesh-and-blood selves?

 

Words.

 

To attach people to words is to detach them most effectively from life and possessions, and thus ready them for reckless acts of self-sacrifice. Men will fight and die more readily for a word than for anything else. The metaphysical double-talk which has fascinated Germans since the days of Hegel was undoubtedly a factor in the rise of that German recklessness which has shaken our world to its foundations. At present, Communist double-talk is moving millions in Europe and Asia to acts of daring and self-sacrifice.

 

They are dangerous times when words are everything.”

 

My response: Hoffer and Ayn Rand do share some areas of agreement, arguing that the individual’s life in the present here and now is precious and worth savoring and improving if it can be done. Such an individual is competent and effective in the here and now and has some fair amount of self-esteem as he is reconciled with who he is and what he is doing.

 

By contrast, what is Hoffer alluding to when he describes discontented and then frustrated altruists, group-livers and nonindividuators, is a true believer that attaches himself to a fetishized abstraction or holy cause. His sole objective is escape from a haunting and untenable personal consciousness.

 

These true believers are most ready to fight and die for something that is not real, a word. This word does name and represent their fervently cherished abstraction, their holy cause. They have renounced their right to a personal life, a blemished life of self-reproach. In its place, they are willing to sacrifice and die, giving their all, even their own lives for the sake of this word, this holy cause. They will dare their all, their lives, and their future, to defend and perpetuate what is not real, a word. Double-talk is beautiful talk to these fanatics, making utter, beautiful sense to them. They will die for this word which not real and die gladly and gloriously. This linguistic symbol for them is a reminder that they no longer are connected to the present, no longer advocating for a spoiled self that has been ignominiously repudiated and discarded, all for the worship of a mighty, empty visual-audible symbol, the word.

 

Hoffer: “            65

 

It is by their translation into mere words and almost meaningless symbols that ideas move people and stir them to action. This deintellectualization of ideas is the work of pseudo-intellectuals. The self-styled intellectual who is impotent with pen and ink hungers to write history with sword and blood.”

 

My response: The men of words and the men of action that run the mass movement with sword and blood push the holy cause across the globe, burning all down, and conquering all, for the sake of a mere abstraction, represented by a holy but simple word.

 

 

 

Vehment Profession

 

On Page 43 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and then will comment on.

 

Hoffer: “            62

 

If what we profess is not an organic part of our understanding, we are likely to profess it with vehemence and intolerance. Intolerance is the ‘Do Not Touch’ sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind having our hair ruffled, but we will not tolerate any familiarity with the toupee which covers our baldness.”

 

My response: What is true is a proposition that the individual can declare without vehemence, radicalized passion, or coercive intolerance of opposing opinions. That individual will be an individuator that is calm, happy, self-esteeming and moderate in his declarations, because he fully knows that his statements are solidly backed up by facts in the real world, by the validity and soundness of his argument, and by evidence accrued in the world. Truth is organic to his nature.

 

Were he instead a nonindividuator, dedicated to living a life of sin and avoidance of duty as an undisciplined shirker encapsulated in the collective hiding place, there he would offer the rationales and doctrines favored by the adherents of his holy cause. It would all be fluff and nonsense so he must vehemently assert that it is the absolute truth about his one true faith.

 

Hoffer: “            63

 

The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than of deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without.”

 

My response: Hoffer is Mavellonialist in his thinking in that he concluded by 1940 that the truth is moderate, egoist, individualistic, rational more than emotional; reasonable compromise is desirable, good, and loving.

 

The uncompromising attitude is aligned with fanaticism, lying, evil, groupism, passionate enthusiasm, hatred of self and others, intolerance, forced compliance, unwilling to accept freedom of thought and speech in others. The absolutist usually is not absolutely right or absolutely virtuous, but his absolute passion is a protest in the world that he must hide what is from a damage self which would be shattered once the light of truth shined upon his dank, twisted soul.

 

 

Vehement Resistance

 

On Page 42 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes two entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “            60

 

The fact seems to be that we are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about. The rabid radical remains in the dark concerning the nature of radicalism, and the religious concerning the nature of religion.

 

Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own—something rootless, incoherent and incomplete. Whether it is our own meaningless self we are upholding or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.”

 

My response: The key to reading Hoffer is to establish what are the presuppostions that guide his psychological insights into the human condition.

 

First, he assumes in the moral law of moderation, or living by the middle way, is how humans are to proceed. What this entails is that the individual should be moderate, reasonable, individualistic, self-repairing, truth-prone, at peace and calm so that he can accept the harsh criticisms to himself about his own flaws, so that he can face them head on, working and gaining ground over time at being a smart, better, kinder, more artistic, more skilled person, who can esteem himself because he is working on bettering himself all the time, having initially accepted that he was a natural mess, and that he needed to clean himself up.

 

Second, he assumes people are naturally liars (mostly to themselves about themselves, far more so in quality and quantity of lies told, more than lying to others around them) who deceive themselves, that they are natural messes because they cannot stand the truth, and, then, if they do not receive the truth about themselves, there is no need to even try to improve the self.

 

Third, once people set up a pattern of lying to the self and not ever maverizing, then erecting a complex edifice of fabrications, pseudo-explanations and pathetic excuses, intentionally is deployed by the deceived self to wall off any deserved sense of self-contempt that would be unbearable to receive and endure.

 

Fourth, now that the individual is a liar as a permanent way of living, he cannot find a sense of worth that is not grounded in his lying, his self-avoidance; his group-living and nonindividuating among and in the midst of dozens of other lying nonindividuators. His deceptive way of life and thinking allows him defend his worthless self and his shoddy pseudo-religion or some other fake holy cause, only in a mood of absolute faith, and radically passionate adherence to his ism providing him cover.

 

Hoffer: “The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.”

 

My response: The weak person here is a soul is living in sin, falsehood, darkness, evil, selflessness, selfishness, engaging sadistic and masochistic cruel behaviors, not self-developing, and not individual-living, so he can avoid the communication with and communion with the good deities, which he does not want to be most effectively transferred back and forth.

 

To sustain this life of the lie and militant, passionate sinning, the weak groupist must deny almost the truth about everything.

Blissful Ignorance

 

On Page 41 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I will quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “            58

 

Far more crucial than we know or do not know is what we don’t want to know. One often obtains a clue to a person’s nature by discovering the reasons for his or her imperviousness to certain impressions.”

 

My response: Hoffer is a genius for many reasons, but two salient traits that he repeatedly demonstrates is his keen psychological insight into the inner workings of human consciousness, and his psychological, sociological and ethical characterizations of people are objectively true and valid. He demonstrates this explicitly in what he writes, and implicitly in what the implications of what he writes are, and where the lead to reader to.

 

I presuppose that God exists and that the Divine Couple created humans to live individuating, individuated holy and virtuous lives, as do the Father and Mother each day. One cannot be spiritually and morally good unless what knows what is true and what is false, so once one knows how one is to act and proceed, one will then know the telos to work towards.

 

When any of us or each of us is unwilling to allow the Good Spirits to teach us what we do not want to know, to the degree that we personally reject their teaching, to that degree we are exiled from the presence of the good divinities, from prospects to maverize, to grow in spiritual and moral goodness. The life of the lie shuts off the ability to advance.

 

Hoffer: “            59

 

It is as though our inner self is always in a state of war. No totalitarian censor can approach the implacability of the censor who controls the line of communication between the outer world and our consciousness. Nothing is allowed to reach us which might weaken our confidence and lower our morale. To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats—we know it not.”

 

My response: The individual’s ability to allow in nothing that he does not want to hear, acknowledge, or deal with is amazing. The self-deceiver, unwilling and successful at keeping out any unwanted truth or bad news about the self, is a liar not only ontologically, but emotionally and conceptually too. He will not fare well. In quiet times he will despise himself in a mode of inner discontent; when his group cover is smashed, he will then ramp up his self-hatred to a white heat of frustration and agony, so he must find a new collectivity to escape into, right now.

To Adjust

 

On Page 40 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has written three entries, which I will quote and comment on.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “             55

 

The moment we are seized with a passion to be different from what we are, we are in a religious mood. Remorse, a vivid awareness of our weakness and worthlessness, the craving for pride and fame—they all involve a reaching out for a new identity, and they all have a religious nexus.”

 

My response: Note that H characterizes this need to be reborn or to adopt a new identity is a passion that the seeker is seized by, and this is the passionate state of mind of a discontented or frustrated nonindividuating group-liver, aware intensely of her weakness and worthlessness, pushing her to acquire pride in a group or holy cause, to be buffeted by fame and accolades. This is a religious craving.

 

There are two ways for the person to react to this need to acquire a new identity, to be reborn. The self can begin the long healthy journey towards self-realization which will offer the self a new identity, a self, based on personal achievement and success and these positive encounters with reality should lead to the self being reconciled with the self.

 

The second, more common and unfortunate reaction is for the selfless, unhappy wretch to seeking relief and to be born again, by fleeing from an unbearable self-consciousness into a mass movement, service to and unity with other zealots promoting their holy cause.

 

H; “        56

 

Make-believe partakes of the nature of a magic ritual. We not only pretend to be what we are not, but by staging our pretense we strive to conjure and bring into existence a new genuineness. The strange thing is that often this conjuring act succeeds, and we become what we pretend to be.”

 

My response: Humans are fantastic creatures, and, how we improve ourselves may not always unfold in a predictable, linear depiction. If we envision the self as a maverized genius, inventing new computer algorithms, we might just get smart enough to write those impressive algorithms.

 

What we would not want to pretend to be is envisioning ourselves as a demon, killer, or true believer because making those fantasies roles for the self-come true will bring about a living nightmare for ourselves and the world. We may just become the living monster that we seek to make real.

 

H: “        57

 

Our most poignant frustrations can be traced back to something in us that puts an insurmountable limit to our capacity for make-believe. If our skin be black, our back hunched, our creative capacity manifestly meager we feel as if we are chained and imprisoned.”

 

My response: When people are frustrated and absolutely convinced that their dreams are irreparably shattered, and that there is no future, no hope, no growth, then the person’s self-contempt ratchets up, and this angry, bitter, resentful person will take his inner grievance and sense of victimhood upon others in the world.

 

My philosophy of Mavellonialism is a message of hope for those that feel all is hopeless. Everyone has enough talent to self-realize, but each person must believe that her internal gifts are substantial, real and commensurate to achieving victory at the life journey she is to undertake. God works in innumerable, mysterious ways and the Divine Couple will not allow a woman or man of meager talent to self-realize without their realizing their talents in some special, spectacular way—that is the divine promise for trying and just keeping at t forever till death comes.