Self-Seeking

 

 

 

On Page 134 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer provides three entries which I quote and comment on.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          256

 

That which serves as a substitute for self-seeking may eventually serve as its camouflage.”

 

My response: When those idealists that claim to or do practice altruist morality, they cite their selfless generosity in service of humankind to improve conditions for all. Their brag that they are compassionate and love of humanity is their soul motive. Rather, social justice activism is their route to acquiring and amassing power for themselves and their holy cause.

 

Never underestimate how selfish the selfless are. Do not accept their self-assigned motive but look deeper with a tinge of skepticism.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          257

 

The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind.”

 

My response: One would hope that a person’s passion to get ahead is straightforward, a trustworthy self-announcement by an ambitious, industrious, eager-beaver young person willing to work hard and long to self-sacrifice for the sake of building an impressive career.

 

Hoffer has a clever knack for stating assumed or self-proclaimed motives that people offer the world, but he then looks deeper to seek what makes them tick, and to compare their actual motive against their self-assigned motive.

 

Most people are conformists and followers, so if the group is ambitious and stresses to its members that they should get ahead, then the contented and sleepy among the pack could be sufficiently aroused to work to get ahead, lest they be left behind, and cast out of their favorite group. That loss of status within that group is their genuine motive for whatever they choose to do, or what the group leaders order them to partake in.

 

Also, when people flee the self, sometimes rushing off into a new adventure is cover for a frantic, last-ditch attempt by the individual to escape from a spoiled life and an unwanted self.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          258

 

There is in imitation a passion for equality: to do as others do is to have blanket insurance that we shall not be left behind.”

 

My response: The passion for equality is almost always a force to compel people not to stand out from the herd; if we spend our lives imitating each other in line with specified group standards, role accepted and approved-of behaviors, we not only are not left behind, but we have a indestructible fortress around us, within which we hide, to avoid God’s summoning to be unequal and become remarkable and singular.

 

5322024

 

Hoffer C

 

In Common

 

On Page 135 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes three entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          259

 

It is chiefly by their commonness that people are held in common.”

 

What a delightful entry. Objectively speaking, people biologically have likely more in common as a species than how they differ as individuals. Essential human nature is shared by all.

 

But Hoffer is not referring to shared human commonness in that sense of the word. I think he uses the word commonness to capture and explain how people live in groups, group-living, group-identifying, nonindividuating and practicing their altruist-collectivist morality.

 

Their commonness has a slightly pejorative edge to it—referring to the masses as common, or plain, vanilla mediocrities, not real good or real bad, rarely exceptional, artistic or thinking giant, new thoughts.

 

It is this chosen lifestyle of group-living in common which holds the masses in common.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          260

 

Propaganda does not deceive the people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.”

 

My response: On one hand, I have long preached that each adult citizen should exist as a living angel: an anarchist individuating supercitizen. Such a life lived is predicated intimately and grounded on an accurate, immediate, ever-present, and ever-sought connection and understand of what is true, especially as communicated by the good deities which people worship.

 

Neither politicians nor public officials, nor totalitarian authorities, nor the demagogues and gurus spearheading their personal mass movement and its story, their holy cause, can deceive the people with their lies and propaganda, if and once the masses refuse to accept lies or propaganda internally told them, or externally fed to them.

 

Groupists and nonindividuators lead collective lies based on lies and falsehoods: they deceive themselves, then expect and even welcome the lies fed them by their leaders.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          261

 

Much of man’s thinking is propaganda of his appetites.”

 

My response: We love to deceive ourselves in order that we can justify sinning, and feeding our most basic desires and impulses, that provide us with instant if temporary gratification.