Less Worthy

 

On Page 104 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has three entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          182

 

When we say there is a deeper reason for this or that, we usually mean there is a less worthy reason. We expect the ugly and base to be hidden from sight. The deep insight and the profound saying touch most deeply on that which is not above reproach.”

 

My response: Hoffer is not easy for me to read and comprehend, even after a lifetime of studying him. He is not against deep reasons for explaining behavior or misbehavior if it is accurate and needed to clarify what is going on, and morally calling a spade a spade.

 

Hoffer seems to operate by Occam’s razor: do not obfuscate to show off how erudite and superior one is, or to use technical language to overawe and silence skeptics and the public, and to resort to employing, slippery, equivocating language to disguised behavior that one is promoting, though one knows so behaving is ugly and base, and so is the agent that resorts to such behavior on a consistent basis.

 

If one is promoting behavior that is beautiful, good, and true, ordinarily it can be revealed forthright in clear, simple, concise and understandable terms.

 

Still, at first glance, it may seem that Hoffer is declaring that that which is sordid requires deep insight and profound saying to capture its essence, that behavior that is noble and ennobling is easy to describe and define.

 

I think that is not what he is declaring for two reasons. First, evildoers that misbehave are rather not deep intellectually, and are often one-dimensional. Good-doers, who behave, are engaging in behaviors that are rationally vetted by them, so this effort is more intellectual than the instinctive and passionate choices of evildoers, so it would seem to follow that good behavior would be more intellectually deep and subtle, thus requiring profound argumentation to capture its semantic core.

 

Second, Hoffer is a moral, ontological, and epistemological moderate. As an epistemological moderate, it seems that his arguments for and characterizations of good behavior would be profound—though stated clearly in simple terms—to capture the multi-faced nature of moderated good behavior.

 

Hoffer: “          183

 

Fear and guilt are usually closely associated. Those who feel guilty are afraid, and those who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, the fearful seem guilty.”

 

My response: Why should bad, unrepentant sinners feel fear, when they feel guilty? It could be because as sinners, they do not obey God, and they on some level may and should fear divine justice or retribution being visited upon them by the good deities. Or the guilty might feel afraid, because their self-loathing and self-disgust grow as they grow in sinning. Their fear grows as their confidence and hope wither away.

 

Individual courage often tracks with being an individual that individuates, serves God and does good: doing good increases one self-esteem so one thus does not feel guilty, so one’s high self-esteem and being esteemed by the good deities give him a sense of courage that he otherwise might not manifest.

 

It could be too that a good or morally okay nonindividuator might feel guilty because he is nonindividuating as he is called to do: he feels guilty for this reason, so now his fears grows with his sense of guilt.

 

 

Hoffer: “          184

 

Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and implacable evil lurking in every person.”

 

My response: It would seem that someone that trust no one ever has been badly hurt, or is a very wicked person that expects everyone to be as rotten as she is, or she is paranoid or suspicious in unrealistic, delusional way.

 

Whatever motivates her, she will cut herself off from all others, and no peace, no companionship, will come to her; her low-esteem will lead her to be angry, resentful and very unhappy, which further feeds her rabid suspicion of others. Likely she has no trust of others, because she has not faith in her own innocence, ability or prospects.