The Paradox

 

On Page 34 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has one entry, which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “            45

 

Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable than those mobilized by the ordinary struggle for existence. The shifts and devices the weak employ to escape an untenable reality are often preposterous, yet they somehow turn out to be generators of power. One thinks of the magic of words  which turns thin air into absolute truths, and the alchemy of conviction which transmutes self-contempt into pride, lack of confidence into faith, and a sense of guilt into self-righteousness. Finally, self-hatred endows the weak with an exceptional facility for united action. Flight from the self almost invariably turns into a rush for a compact group. And certainly, this readiness to unite with others is a source of unequaled strength. Thus the soul intensity generated in the weak endows them as it were with a special fitness. There is a sober realism in St. Paul’s stilted words that: ‘God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty.’”

 

My response: First, let us define the term weak: Hoffer refers to the weak as those whose personal lives are ruined, who are frustrated, seeking desperate to obliterate their sense and nauseating sense of their spoiled life by disappearing into a mass movement. The weak may also be those common people without much economic, political, or military power.

 

Hoffer’s paradox is that it would seem the weak could never conquer the strong, but, as the Bible says, and Hoffer anticipates this, the exalted are often humbled by the humble, and the humbled are often exalted in the aftermath.

 

It seems likely when the weak, the frustrated, true-believing masses united in a mass movement serving a holy cause, do overthrow the strong, the elite, ruling the existing dispensation.

 

The fanatics on the march are a formidable force indeed.