Eric Hoffer, The Stoic

 

Philosopher and Professor Pedro Blas Gonzalez and one other source who I cannot recall, refer to Eric Hoffer as a stoic. That labeled puzzled me because I did not know what they meant, and they do not seem to elaborate, but I think I have a plausible explanation.

 

I will soon copy, paste, and respond to any articles by Gonzalez on Hoffer, which I can uncover and discover. Gonzalez seems sharp.

 

For today I will copy and paste this short snippet from an article online, by Gonzalez, where he refers to Hoffer as a stoic thinker.

 

Here is the article snippet which I will comment on afterwards:

 

Gonzalez: “

 

Hoffer and the True Believers

Apr 30, 2018

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
by Eric Hoffer.
Perennial Classics, 1960, 2010.
Paperback, 192 pages, $15.

PEDRO BLAS GONZÁLEZ

The American philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) is a rare thinker. Hoffer is a philosopher in the classic sense of the word—he sought life-affirming answers to vital concerns. Rhetoric, radical skepticism, intellectual posturing, and calisthenics, Hoffer asserted, defeat the essence of philosophical reflection. This is the case because philosophy is a vital activity that acts as a tool that props man up to purpose, meaning, and truth.

There is much of the stoic in Hoffer, a man known as the “Longshoreman Philosopher.” His work embodies that indispensable quality that informs the thought of all great thinkers: acumen for natural psychology that is guided by observation and perspicuity.”

Gonzalez equates Hoffer’s ruminations as being like the thought of all great thinkers: acumen for natural psychology that is guided by observation and perspicuity. It would seem that Hoffer, apperceptive and perceptive, so he could study himself and then observe others, and reach grand, inductive conclusions. It seems that Hoffer was speculative about metaphysical subjects, in a grand way.

This seems right but it does not explain how Hoffer is a Stoic.

Elsewhere, a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon an internet description about Descartes to whom a rough, unidentified quote, paraphrased Descartes as a stoic—rather than change the world, change your passions.

Here, I am wildly speculative: and I must admit I cannot claim that Hoffer, Gonzalez, or Descartes think like I will speculate, but at least it gives me a potential answer to my question as to why Hoffer is regarded as a stoic, and the answer is vital if one would understand Hoffer’s view of the world. It seems important. Below is my theory.

If Hoffer was old-fashioned philosopher in the sense that he was deeply speculative about the great questions, even wallowing hip-deep in metaphysical hypothesizing, if that is the trait of a stoic philosopher, then he was stoical.

If a Stoic was one like the view attributed rightly or wrongly to Descartes above, that one should not change the world, just fatalistic endure without external effort to alter the exterior natural or social arrangements, but instead, act internally to change one’s passions, then perhaps Hoffer was a Stoic in that sense, that the good person seeks to change and reform himself personally and wholly before he becomes politically engaged.

Hoffer enjoyed his labor union, but did not get involved in running it, and some socialist labor theorists criticize him for this: they imply that he was sold out because he did not advocate publicly, promoting progressive reforms in the political arena.

 These accusations seem empty: they miss the boat because Hoffer the thinker, loner, writer, great soul, and philosopher and individualist, was about ideas and mediations, not political engagement.

 He would have regarded political activism and ideologically pursuits as collectivism/holy cause work, and an outgrowth of altruist ethics, whereas as a latent egoist, Hoffer concluded that the public good and making the world better was best done internally and private by self-improvement. This is the only practical and moral means by which we may change or attempt to change the world.

Self-realizing, advanced self-care versus self-disciplining is the only or the most important, substantive reform for the individual to partake in. It could be the life of personal maverization  is the only real revolution at all.

For public and political activists and ideologues, such retreat from the active affairs of the world is cowardly, treacherous submission to the elite running the corrupt status quo. Such surrender is betrayal, they bray: fatalism is anti-activism, and promoting evil in the world by acts of omission.

I vigorously disagree and counter-argue that, if all or most accepted and agreed that self-realization, the profound, powerful changing of the self for the betterment of the self first, and then others, the world and for God indirectly, if the majority so conducted their lives, the cumulative, healthy effect public would be to bolster the public good, to change the world radically and dramatically..

 

My own version of this conservative and individualistic and quiet revolution per capita is that we have agency, and we reform ourselves more than change the world and be politically involved. On the other hand, good people as citizens must run things publicly lest we allow evil people to take over the politics and set up tyranny and injustice.

We should be stoic but not too fatalistic: by self-realizing, the majority would be improving the self in their private lives and liberty, and yet as individuating supercitizens, they would plan and get together and come up with an agreed upon compromised agenda to run the country from the vantage of being the nation’s masses, the bosses, from the bottom up

So it could be that Hoffer is seen as stoical, turning against the world, improving himself, and doubting the efficacy of communal activism and political advocacy, this could be what Gonzalez means by Hoffer is a Stoic, but this is but my opinion.