I am going to type out the entire Chapter 12 from Eric Hoffer’s book, The Ordeal of Change, and this chapter runs from Page 96 to 100, and its title is Concerning Individual Freedom. I will then respond to what he wrote.
Hoffer (H after this): “It seems to be generally assumed that the maintenance of freedom within a society requires the presence of sturdy individuals ready and able to stand up for their rights. We are told that ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,’ and that ‘He alone merits liberty who conquers it afresh from day to day.’”
My response: I have long studied Eric Hoffer, and well realize that he uses paradox as a literary device to educate the reader, a teachable moment. In the two sentences above, he is at it again: He will contrast the idealistic memes, depicting humans as noble freedom-seekers--that the citizens are sturdy individualists ready and able to stand up for their rights, eternally vigilant so they can remain free from tyrants, that they know and work each day to keep creeping despotism at bay—with the contrasting, sordid reality, that the majority of any population are low-self-esteeming, tyranny-loving, humans: fatalistic altruists, preferring group-living and oppression under the boot of an elite to self-determining independence and liberty.
H: “How relevant are these assertions to everyday experience in a more or less free society? Does individual freedom owe its existence to individual militancy? Can a man really feel free who has to be eternally vigilant and must win his freedom anew each day?”
My response: As undeveloped, uneducated masses without self-esteem and Mavellonialist training to live as individuating supercitizens, the average citizen will not waste a second of his time worrying about remaining eternally vigilant to his necessity and duty as a citizen to remain ever alert afresh each day to reinforce the dike protect his free society from the ocean of tyranny ever seeping into cracks in that dike.
It is so that each citizen should work each day to renew anew his commitment and active advocacy of expanding liberty for himself and others, while pushing hard against incoming tentacles of slavery seeking to grasp him and others, and to pin then down, but natural humans will not be so inclined.
Only highly trained, motivated, sturdy, individuated individualist recognize liberty as his mode of existence for existing as a moral person and free citizen, and thus he demands liberty or death almost on every occasion. The asleep, enslaved nonindivduating citizen will not be a militant advocate for and fierce defender of freedom.
H: “Pascal maintained that we are made virtuous not by our love of virtue but ‘by the counterpoise of two opposite vices.’ It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the byproduct of a stalemate between two such opposite vices.”
My response: My exegesis of this sentence is that both Pascal and Hoffer read the world and the human soul carefully and without a prism, and they intuited that the ethical and ontological axiom that guides life is that moderation, or the middle way.
Both men knew that to be rational more than passionate, and prudent and modest, rather than ardent, irrational, exuberant and perhaps violent was how to act and how to choose, most of the time. If evil is extreme, either too much or too little between contraries, then good generally is the mean between the two extremes, likely more moderate as more rather than less.
Observe that two vices, or two political dispensations (an authoritarian Communist government fought to a standstill by a powerful, authoritarian Polish Roman Catholic church), if the groups and hierarchies vying for ultimate power, over an extended period of time, cancel each other out in a state of exasperated exhaustion, then, by historical accident, a moderate condition like freedom or virtue arises, unpredicted, completely unexpected, unintended, unpredictable and hugely, monumentally beneficial for suffering humankind.
Pascal and Hoffer both knew humans are not virtuous naturally, so humans naturally seek not—most of them anyway, most of the time—virtue: they were born in vice, suffering and slavery, which degrades them all, and their natures and nurturing keeps them down and back, and that is what humanity wills for itself.
God, by allowing virtue to spring up, where conflicting vices have fought to a draw, occasionally, allows humans to grow morally (A social, ethical growth learned, and once it becomes a tradition in a given society, then humans, however haphazardly, intermittently with lots of historical examples of backsliding, make actual moral progress, and slowly painfully things can get better as people learn to act better, and grow to like living well, acting well, doing well.).
Virtue popped up again with God’s guiding hand when God allowed the medieval Church to wear itself out fighting the Reformation, and when, as in Poland, when the Communists and the Catholic church canceled each other out, the miracles of freedom and virtue accidentally—or by the invisible divine hand—occurred.
High fantasy master writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, like Pascal and Hoffer believed that humans were conceived in sin, and fallen from divine grace. Thus, for even the good and noble Frodo could not give up the ring of power, and, it was accidentally destroyed, when Gollum and Frodo ferociously fought over possessing it on the precipice of Mount Doom, and only Gollum falling into the pit of fire with the One Ring allowed Enlarged Evil to be accidentally abolished in Middle Earth. Frodo could not will to do the right thing.
Pascal, Tolkien, and Hoffer all realized that desirable human moral advancement historically was made possible, generally when two vicious powers wore themselves out, fighting for power, and virtue, or godliness, swept in to move humanity forward and inch or too, before evil, tyranny and needless suffering engulfed foolish humanity once more.
Under Mavellonialism and with egoist morality, we have a chance to raise our children as good deity worshipers, who, as adults living as moderate, individuating supercitizens, so that they make these historical and divine gifts of moral and spiritual advancement, a living, expanded tradition on earth for the children of light to live, work and die under, and the American Way is the best, most fertile ground in which to grow this moral and spiritual crop.
H: “The same probably holds true of individual freedom: we are not free by our own power but by the counterpoise of two opposite powers.”
My response: It is a great irony that Pascal, Hoffer and Tolkien, who consciously were likely sacred or secular altruists of the Judeo-Christian variety, subconsciously and implicitly anticipated the future coming and superiority of egoist morality: the realization that humans are born in sin, or self-hating, selfless, groupist, and altruistic, and that their weak, natural, recessive good nature (natural goodness, self-loving, self-interested, individualistic and egoist) could become a social custom learned by a people, passed down from generation to generation (Each new generation must learn to be egoistic, or things go backwards within a few years.), so that a national culture progresses.). Only where opposite vices or clashing political forces cancel each other out, are the masses able to take a few baby steps and seek a third, middle way to grow in freedom and individualism, before collective darkness and madness reasserts its dominance over near all societies.
H: “Individual freedom is the automatic by-product of a drawn-out contest between two more or less equal parties, factions, bodies, and so on. The quality of the contestants seems immaterial. A contest between two reactionary bodies can be as productive of individual freedom as a contest between a reactionary and a liberal party. If Poland is at present the country with the most individual freedom in the Communist world it is due mainly to the fact that a powerful Communist party and a powerful Catholic church—neither of which has any concern for individual freedom—are there pitted against each other in a more or less equal contest. The present situation in Poland echoes to some extent the situation which prevailed in the Occident toward the end of the Middle Ages when Church and State, each reaching out for total domination, were engaged in a prolonged tug of war, thus unintentionally preparing the ground for the birth of civil liberty.
The growth of freedom in the Occident has been marked by a diversification and distribution of power.”
My response: If our near-Utopia on earth is to come about, where the American Way with its free markets, constitutional republic, faith in God, and a citizenry of indivduating supercitizens, must become the economic, political, and cultural dispensation of many nations, power must be made diversified and distributed largely but not wholly. We still need institutions, laws, and government, but the citizenry should be able to be quite free and able to live self-ruling, lawfully anarchist lives.
If these supercitizens become so free, prosperous, happy, and civilized, and work each day vigilantly to keep things free, then it may last.
Let us not forget the historical warning from Pascal, Hoffer and Tolkien, that the though supercitizens virtuously strive to be virtuous and remain virtuous, it does not hurt to allow vices to be permanently in a standoff in the soul of each moderate individuators, in his group, his community, his state and his nation. If there are 300 million supercitizens functioning and flourishing at the same time in America, power is kept dispersed, harmless (even beneficial as the power of powerfulness, egoistically wielded, and self-restrained) and unable to coalesce into groupism, collectivism and totalitarianism (This power model is the evil power of powerlessness, justified by altruist morality.).
The other way to keep vices in check is a daily battle waged by each agent in her own soul to live prudently, temperately, and this prevents vice, or excess/deficiency, or evil from growing in the human soul, inverting a virtuous, acquired nature into a vicious, adult nature.
H: “Starting out with a division between sacerdotal and secular power, there evolved in Western societies additional categories of power (political, economic, intellectual), subdivisions within each category (a multiplicity of churches, parties, and corporations, independent legislatures and courts, an antagonism between labor and management, and between intellectuals and men of action); and safeguards against the perpetuation of power (periodic elections, and periodic confiscations through income and inheritance taxes). The rise of totalitarianism in the twentieth century constitutes a sharp reversal of this characteristic Occidental tendency.”
My response: With the arrival and enormous spread of Communism and other forms of totalitarianism in the 20th century (and even now in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea in 2025), here is an example that vice, evil, and tyranny arise and strike back against mostly beautiful and noble Modernity and Westernism, bring collectivist, irrational darkness back to humankind.
H: “Totalitarianism spells simplication:”
My response: My explanation of totalitarian simplication is that Hoffer is reminding us that individualism, goodness, moderation, love and freedom are wiped out in a totalitarian, demonic dispensation, be it sacerdotal or sacred, it makes little difference. The masses are hyper-collectivized collectivists and groupists, for there is only one simple, ultraistic, black-and-white truth, the Party Line and holy cause pushed and promulgated by the elite running the government, backed up by secret police, gulags and terrorism against its own people.
H: “an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power. In a totalitarian state power is of one kind, and the defeated individual, no matter how outstanding, can find no redress.”
My response: Hoffer is correct here: the defeated individual, no matter how outstanding, can find no redress against the totalitarian Leviathan.
But if a minority of dissidents, by God’s intervention, could grow into individuating supercitizens, it would be impossible for the authorities to quell these dissenters very long, and their numbers would soon swell and overthrow the evil regime.
Each is capable of standing alone against the Leviathan, and 8 or 10 of these apostles of freedom and godliness, released into civilian communities, would light a revolutionary spark that the authorities could not squelch for long.
H: “It is clear, therefore, that the presence of an effective, organized opposition is a prerequisite for individual freedom. A society that in normal times cannot function adequately without unanimity is unfit for freedom”
My response: Hoffer’s axiom of ontological and moral moderation as goodness on earth does apparently extend to the political arena too, but, that should not surprise us, because what is political is downstream from the moral system practiced by a nation’s masses.
Thus, the only people fit for freedom are those in the majority that welcome and seek to coexist with a loyal opposition.
H: “It is equally clear that that the activities of an effective opposition and of free individuals subject the body social to considerable strain. A society must be in good working order and firmly anchored in a tradition of unity if it is to stand up under the ceaseless tug of parties and the willfulness of free individuals. Its government, economy, and the whole apparatus of everyday life must function smoothly and with a considerable degree of automatism. This means that a free society is a skilled society. A wide diffusion of skills—technical, political, and social—not only makes it possible for a society to function under strain, but it also enables it to dispense with fervor and enthusiasm, which unavoidably blur individual autonomy., and to avoid the curtailment of freedom involved in excessive tutelage and supervision.”
My response: A free people that are unified while disagreeing, insistent upon holding the nation together while quarreling, who are skilled, moderate, and prudent, are able to avoid factional schism between rivaling true believers, which converts free individual citizens into heteronomous minions of warring tribes of special interests, and civil war could ensue, resulting in the rise of authoritarian rule, and the purging of vanquished factions.
H: “In a genuinely free society even extraordinary tasks can be accomplished by ordinary people in an ordinary way, and the social process can run at room temperature rather than white heat. Finally, a society needs a large measure of affluence before it can allow its members full play of their initiative and bents. It must be able to afford the waste inherent in a riot of trial and error. There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.”
My response: Individualism begets creativity, change and innovation, but, if conducted by rational, temperate adults at room temperature, then society need not be sickened by change, and affluence and room to fail allow progress and correction to follow.
H: “There is no doubt that individual freedom is an unequaled factor in the release of social energies, and particularly in the activation of ordinary people. ‘It infuses,’ says de Tocqueville, ‘throughout the body social an activity, a force and an energy which never exist without it and which bring forth wonders.’ But this source of energy can only be tapped under special conditions: a society must be strong enough to support, and affluence enough to afford, individual freedom. It would thus be wholly unreasonable to expect a backward country to modernize itself in a hurry in an atmosphere of freedom. Its poverty, lack of skill, and its need for fervor and unity militate against it. In exceptional cases, like Puerto Rico and Israel, where capital and skills are available, rapid moderation is not incompatible with a considerable measure of individual freedom.”
My response: If a people in another Third World country, were to have a skilled population with plenty of capital, the sense of self-esteem of the masses would not be so depleted and individually erased, that they must seek collectivist, totalitarian substitutes and Communistic holy causes, to be created along with rapid modernization.
Skills and affluence render a people able to modernize and change without embracing drastic, revolutionary metanarratives to dope them up with false self-regard, so that they can stomach rapid modernization.
H: “To some extent, the present dominant role of the intellectual in the modernization of backward countries also militates against the prevalence of individual freedom. Not only does the intellectual’s penchant for tutoring, directing and regulating promote a regimented social pattern, but his craving for the momentous bound to foster an austere seriousness inhospitable to the full play of freedom.”
My response: The intellectual is a grandiose fanatic with his craving for constructing, via federal mandate, a momentous, perfect social order which will “benefit” all, and the intellectual will direct the building of it, and will rule it as part of the authoritarian elite once he holds the reins of power. He and his slaves, the captured, passionate, true-believing masses, strive to remain true to their pure revolutionary doctrines, and all opposition will be crushed or retrained on the torture rack. His grim seriousness of purpose and policy allows for no individual divergence of thought and playful experimentation, not centrally regulated, and conducted by the individual for its own sake, as he pursues his personal vision of worldly salvation and happiness.
H: “The intellectual ‘transforms the prosaic achievements of society into Promethean tasks, glorious defeats, tragic epics.’ * (*Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intellectuals (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957), p. xiv.”
H: “The strained atmosphere of an eternal drama working up toward a climax and a crisis is optimal for heroes and saints but not for the autonomous individual shaping his life to the best of his ability.”
My response: The skilled, affluent, American individual and individualist, can find meaning and emotional reward running his life and affairs and political operations at room temperature, if his nation is to remain a society, a democracy or constitutional republic, of more or less cooperative yet autonomous individuals.
H: “The chances are that should an advanced country come into the keeping of the intellectual it would begin to show many of the hectic traits which seem to us characteristic of a backward country in the throes of awakening.”
My response: The current mass movement in America of cultural Marxism, run by intellectuals, by 2022, came mighty close to transforming America fundamentally into social, authoritarian Venezuela.
H: “To the intellectual the struggle for freedom is more vital than the actuality of a free society. He would rather ‘work, fight, talk, for liberty than have it.’* (*Lincoln Steffens, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1931), p. 635.)”
My response: The freedom that the intellectual fights for is the freedom from a society’s traditional culture, political arrangement, and economy, be it mildly corrupt and authoritarian, or a free, prosperous, decent place of law and order and individualism and capitalism like in America.
This intellectual promotes revolution to overthrow the status quo, which he labels corrupt and tyrannical (It may be so to some or a large degree.), but the totalitarian nightmare, and its doctrines, once the new regime is installed, is far more tyrannical and corrupt and bloody than what he worked so hard to overthrow. He lied and hid his plot, that he planned to make things worse, for the masses, and they accepted his lies, and wake up only when it is too late, and he is their new Mao Tse-Tung.
H: “The fact is that up to now the free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither accorded him a superior status to sustain his confidence nor make it easy for him to acquire an unquestioned sense of social usefulness.”
My response: Under Mavellonialist thought, I would support the rise of each citizen to individuate and just be an average (average in the sense of people one among equals, of 340 million American citizens of remarkable individuals, as supercitizens.) person. Each citizen would be a Renaissance man or woman, relying upon himself or herself—as a hybrid intellectual/artist/technician/doctor/farmer, plumber/housewife, shopkeeper--only to find confidence, meaning purpose and an unquestioned sense of social usefulness, so he or she would never need to rule the masses as an intellectual at the head of a mass movement, bringing hell and suffering to all people in his or her country.
H: “For he derives his sense of usefulness mainly from directing, instructing and planning—from minding other people’s business—and is bound to feel superfluous and neglected where people believe themselves competent to manage individual and communal affairs, and are impatient of supervision and regulation. A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual’s sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman’s sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.
The intellectual craves a social order in which uncommon people form uncommon tasks every day. He wants a society throbbing with dedication, reverence, and worship. He sees it as scandalous that the discoveries of science and the feats of heroes should have as their de’nouement the comfort and affluence of common folk. A social order run for and by the people is to him a mindless organism motivated by sheer phsyiologism.”’
My response: We need a society of individuating supercitizens, all of whom would be a hybrid of uncommonness (individuated personal excellence, intellectual, ingenuity and artistic expression) in character and mind while infusing their workday job as teachers, professors, bankers, plumbers and farmers with the same remarkable traits, practically applied, not just culturally applied, and yet 86% of the masses would be such remarkable, miraculously talented thinkers and doers, that their aristocratic, superior, rational worldview would be common and disperse amongst the vast majority, the common folk. These people would run society democratically and equally, in comfort, affluence, freedom and happiness, and elites of all kinds would disappear.
No comments:
Post a Comment