Sickly

 

On Page 63 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer provides two entries which I shall quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          104

 

The sick in the soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the whole world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.”

 

My response: The image he creates above is scary, real scary. And it is not that humanity is not sick; it often is, but mercy and compassion should advise one that is individualistic and wise, that if he wants to help humanity, it is better for him to quit throwing stones, and first clean up his own glass house.

 

Hoffer: “          105

 

Were one to invent a pill which if taken before going to bed would transform men overnight into patterns of perfection, the reformer would be the unhappiest man on earth. The reformer wants to play a role; he wants to make history.”

 

My response: The reformer is an altruist-collectivist: he sees human problems as a group affliction, and he considers himself to be the answer, the moral authority, to solve humanity’s problems. All all need to down is go down on one knee and genuflect to him, deferring to his superior intellect and insight; he will rule them severely but for their own good. His proper role is to rule and he will be so prominent, he anticipates, that he will have made history.

 

What he does not understand, unlike the maverizer living in accordance with his egoist-individualist morality, is that human problems are personal, and the answer to human problems must be solved by the individual, applying discipline and reformer to himself: it is truly a do-it-yourself-undertaking to improve your life.