On Page 13 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer offers two quotes which I shall share with the reader, and then respond to.
Before I share and respond to those two quotes, I am going to share with the reader a review of this book, displayed today (3/23/24), on the Amazon book website. Who wrote the review, I do not know, but it seems well-written and articulate. Here is that quote which I will then respond to: “
In this book Hoffer gives us a brilliant, provocative dissection of modern man under stress of emotion. Here is a mirror held up in which everyone must see himself, as he wishes to be and as he is - a creature moved by love, hate, fear, forever torn as the constant and unavoidable traffic between good and evil goes on. Eric Hoffer is not comfortable reading. Rather, he is a "harsh and potent mental tonic," to quote one critic, because he strips each of us of our favorite disguises and conceits. What he offers in return is increased self-awareness, "without which" - as he explains - "there can be neither sensitivity, self-cultivation, intellectual integrity, nor a genuine feeling for one's fellow men." The extraordinary perception and insight, the "wry epigram and icy aphorism," which made "The True Believer" so notable, are present also in "The Passionate State of Mind." It is exciting reading fare for those who can bear the burden of self-knowledge. “
My response: Hoffer does give us a brilliant, provocative dissection of modern man under the stress of emotion, but modern man (And Hoffer’s description would apply, more less equally and identically, to all men and women throughout human existence as confronting the same existential crisis—to discover who they are, what is meaningful, and how each of them is meant to live and contribute.) is under the stress of emotion because altruism is his morality, because he is too emotional in the wrong way, and not rational enough in the right way, because he hates himself because low-self-esteem, selflessness, other-centeredness and self-sacrifice much expand and increase his inner territory of self-loathing, so he will have to act immorally to express his inner suffering and unhappiness.
The mirror Hoffer holds up to each reader is that the individual is to individuate, embrace truth radically and openly, to live freely and stoically, to do good and avoid doing evil as much as he can. He is not comfortable reading. He knows we are most reluctant to discover yet accept that we are born depraved, that we lie to ourselves all the time, that group-living as nonindividuators and fanatics makes lying a systemic, structured way of communal living, a world of perpetual discontent, occasionally boiling over as frustration and mass-movementization, when the prevailing social order collapses.
Hoffer is implicitly a Mavellonialist: he is for rational, moderate, and moderating egoism with individuating supercitizenship as the basic normative-political role that each citizen is to play.
Groupist true believers, the vast everyday majority of people, live unaware lives submersed in lies and deformative conceits. In quiet, peaceful times, they exist and endure as quiescent fanatics; when their world is turned upside down and shattered, these frustrated, abandoned people, panic and emerge from their shattered hive-lives eagerly seeking and finding the nearest mass movement to crawl up inside of, to put the nagging self and its conscience back to sleep.
Only as an individuating supercitizen, as a fearless lover of truth, can the individual then generate internally the sensitivity, self-cultivation, intellectual integrity, and a genuine feeling of warmth towards others. Note that the groupists are not other-centered, but the individuators are, and this is another true paradox pointed out by the wise Hoffer. He can reveal to you who you are, and how you are to live, if you have the courage to accept how much of Hell resides in your core, and what you have to do to transcend and convert it to beneficial, creative ends.
H: “The times of drastic change are times of passion. We can never be fit and ready for that which is wholly new. We must adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem; we undergo a test; we must prove ourselves. A population subjected to drastic change is thus a population of misfits, and misfits live and breathe in an atmosphere of passion.”
My response: People, at the best of times, living quietly, productively, obediently in a peaceful, roughly functioning social order, are quiet, discontented fanatics that are only quasi-true believers. When the social dispensation in which they were ensconced is smashed irretrievably, they walk outdoors into pure chaos, and they freak out. Now they become activated, full-blown fanatics, seeking a holy cause to serve and die for. All are misfits and most end up ruined and enslaved to their personal and collective passionate states of mind.
This is why I urge individuating supercitizens to be aware, that in times of complete crisis and chaos, each voter is to stay calm and resolute, insisting upon still wielding their personal power, freedom and choice, not allowing a dictator to set up martial law to quell the angry masses.
Supercitzens are part fit, and part misfits everyday as they perpetually innovate and grow, so they regard it as an opportunity or creative chaos, not a devastating defeat, being a misfit emerging from the ruins of a collapse social order, in need to produce an identity to match the present national and personal crisis. They stay calm work together and keep things running until they can cobble together a democratic government and a restored, functioning free market economy to keep things rolling without unfortunate resort to martial law and a loss of liberty and opportunity.
H: “ 14
The soul intensity induced by an inner inadequacy constitutes a release of energy, and it depends on a person’s endowments and on attending circumstances whether the released energy works itself out in discontent, in desire, in sheer action or in creativeness.
The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are all the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.”
My response: If a person becomes a misfit—and we all do when the world abruptly changes and we no longer know what our assigned role is to survive in these changed circumstances—it is a predictable blow to self-esteem and one’s natural self-loathing and selflessness, now has heaped onto it a sense of enormous self-dissatisfaction which can be easily transmuted into frustrated fanaticism, the passionate state of mind, where the ruined personal life must be obliterated and forgotten.
Rather, if one is strong, smart, versatile, competent, and confident, one emerges from this crisis a fit individuator equipped to function and flourish in the updated dispensation. If one is irrational, sluggish, conformist, inflexible and unable to deal with being misfitted, then one will elect the frustrated true believer option.
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