Envy

 

On Page 68 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has two entries which I will quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          114

 

To be truly selfish one needs a degree of self-esteem. The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unattainable, envy takes the place of greed.”

 

My response: Note Hoffer’s egoist morality: he directly equates true selfishness with a degree of self-esteem. Greed is chased after by egoists seeking their own increase, and self-esteem is attainable for them.  The selfish can be taught to maverize with some training, far more easily than can the selfless, those that self-despise.

 

Here is where real evil is flourishing: they are less concerned with their own gain, than they are with keeping others around them down and back. All that have is neighbor-envy, all the while it being the case that worrying about the neighbors affairs is not one’s job or obligation.

 

Groupists compete to compete all down and envy any that gets ahead, sticks his head out of the crowd, and is working assiduously to better himself. That is intolerable say the groupists surrounding him. Why does he think he is better than anyone else: this arrogant, selfish prick need to be humbled, brought back down into mediocrity, gotten back into line, to be humbled and reduced for daring to exalt and glorify himself.

 

Hoffer: :           115

 

The real ‘haves’ are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities.

 

On the other hand, the real ‘have-not’ are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it.  They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others and rich by making others poor.”

 

My response: Hoffer’s definition of haves hear is similar to the individualist whom Ayn Rand refers to as a first-hander. The first hander can acquire freedom, self-confidence and even riches without stealing them forcibly from others. The first-hander gains by developing his own potentialities.

 

Hoffer refers to the collectivist parasite living off the efforts, products and resources create by others as have—nots, and Ayn Rand will refer to them as second-handers. By interfering in the lives of others and by undercutting them, these have-nots reduce all to have-not affliction and lives of mutually defective misery. All are to be taken down and kept down—so say the second-handers.