Adaptable

 

Eric Hoffer, on Page 38 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, has one entry which I will copy and respond to.

 

Hoffer: “            51

 

The exceptional adaptability of the human species is chiefly the peculiarity of the weak. The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new—whether it be the settlement of new lands or the initiation of new ways of life—is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts, and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new. Only when, after a clumsy and wasteful struggle, they have somehow bound and tamed the unknown do their betters move in and take charge. The plunge into the new is often as escape from a familiar pattern that is untenable and unpleasant. It is the weak who strain their ears for a new word, clutch at every promise and rally around a savior and a redeemer.

 

The role the unfit play in human affairs should make us pause whenever we are prompted to see man as a mere animal and not a being of an order apart.”

 

My response: Here again Hoffer is describing two kinds of misfits as the agents of exceptional adaptability that have allowed humans to progress and advance, however wastefully, bloodily, tyrannically, or unevenly throughout history. The one kind of misfit is the group-living nonindividuator that is a loser, that misfit, that cannot fit in anywhere, not because he lacks talent and versatility, but he has willfully blinded himself about his prospects at both. He seeks after the new because he needs a new cause to chase after, to hide from himself inside of.

 

The second kind of misfit is he who is a bit of a loner or individualist, created by genetic predisposition or environmental forces. He is a permanent misfit, so he decided to make the best of it, and is drawn to the new to find meaning, a home for himself, and a reason to go on living.

 

It could be that the misfits described in this entry by Hoffer are a hybrid creature, a weak misfit that is part true-believer, part individualist.

 

Humans always have consciousness, free will and the power to reason or innovate, when they feel good enough about themselves to work towards change. We are animals but we are also part angel, and that makes us beings of an order apart from creatures in the natural world.