Secretiveness

 

On Page 108 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has one entry which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          192

 

Secretiveness can be a source of pride. It is a paradox that secretiveness plays the same role as boasting: both are engaged in the creation of disguise. Boasting tries to create an imaginary self, while secretiveness gives us the exhilarating feeling of being princes disguised in meekness. Of the two, secretiveness is the most difficult and the most effective. For in the self-observant boasting breeds self-contempt. Yet it is as Spinoza said: ‘Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.’”

 

My response: The boaster is insecure and gains a false sense of pride by excessively exalting himself, and the secretive introvert is thrilled by working in secret, just knowing how excellent he is, though he comes across as the most modest person in the entire community.

 

The secretive seem modest and are liked because they are so common and humble.

 

I think too that groupists, all or almost all, on some level—to varying degrees--are satanists. Social collectivities are satanic centers of influence and monopoly. Group insiders share this smug feeling of being in the know—and they are in the know—as to the schemes, plans and games engaged in by the group and its loyal adherents to know victory in clashes with rival groups and dissenting individualists.

 

It is impossible for a maverick to fully grasp how ill-intentioned, and conniving are the surrounding groupists—that they really do not mean him well at all. He has no inkling as to their intentions, and these secret plotters, undetected and scurrying about in the dark, usually are underhanded and replete with bad motives.

 

The groupists around him will attack from any angle at any time. They know their agenda and he does not, and their self-satisfaction over enjoying his dilemma: they know the group’s plans and he, the disadvantaged outsider, is unaware of their secret ambitions. Their mutual sense of union and alliance is powerfully reinforced by their realization that they are the select few sharing secret knowledge: they prize this group-constructed status of exclusive membership in a clandestine brotherhood: their sense is huge, their sense of false pride gained by being in the know, while excluding those not-in-the-know. They know the game, and the targeted outsider does not know the game, let alone that the game is being conducted, or what are the rules that govern this game.

 

Feeling Guilty

 

On Page 107 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes one entry which I quote and comment upon/

 

Hoffer: “          190

 

The mortification born of a shameful act does not usually last long. With most people it passes in forty-eight hours. And yet each mortification as it passes leaves a stain and blemish on our feeling of well-being.”

 

My response: I believe that self-esteem is wholesome self-love, and that we should gain and keep self-esteem by limiting feeling guilty, that we should spend less time feeling guilty and more time being proud of who we are. Of course, this means that we are honest, realistic and fair to ourselves in our self-appraisal; it is permissible to feel proud of ourselves, if we have been acting ethically.

 

We do not feel guilty or not feel guilty neither dishonestly, inaccurately nor based upon self-abuse. If we have sinned, and especially a mortal sin, then we should feel guilty, make amends, and cease doing to negative behavior. Our self-esteem has taken a ding and it should have.

 

Hoffer is likely indicating that we can lie to ourselves on the surface of our consciousnesses and get away with doing evil, while claiming to be proud of ourselves, not feeling guilty, and even doubling down on sin militantly to show that we are righteous when we are not, but inside we have a suppressed moral sense that it not pleased with our evil-doing, and self-deception.

 

We need to be realistic with the self, have a strong conscience and work moral code to live by, which we do live by. Being a person of integrity who is unable and unwilling to live with a self who sins so continuously and grievously without any attempt at self-reform, means that that moral and holy person is one who one must feel proud of one’s character, will and efforts. This one self-insists that one behave for that is consistent with proper self-pride, with an openly known and heeded moral sense that is satisfied with the self’s performance, when one is honorably living in accordance with this self-image, so happiness is available to one, as long as one behaves.

 

Hoffer is right that each mortification round leaves a stain on our conscience, so increasingly our sense of happiness and good will wither, and unhappiness, resentment, self-loathing and a self-repulsion are the products of feeling guilty about our sins.

 

Hoffer: “Thus gradually an undercurrent of self-contempt begins coursing within us, and now and then it leaks out in bitterness and hatred toward others. It is in the rare moments when we have a particular reason to be satisfied with ourselves that we realize the depression and dejection secreted in us by a guilty conscience.”

 

My response: Hoffer the egoist-individualist moralist notes how doing evil and feeling guilty do gradually pervade the whole will and consciousness of the mature, invested, active, unrepentant sinner. Self-contempt or self-loathing leak out in bitterness and hatred toward others.

 

Hoffer clearly here identifies doing evil, building a permanently damaged bad will, and always and realistically if feeling guilty and wretched below the surface, with an increase in selflessness and self-contempt, and self-loathing, being evil, seeps out inevitably as evil intent and treatment of others, to export our bitterness and hatred for temporary relief.

 

Hoffer knew people were born depraved, born selfless, self-sacrificing, self-hating and group-oriented, so, if they willfully chose to sin and hurt themselves and others, over and above all of these social and biological burdens or restrictions holding them down and back, then they would feel depressed and dejected over sporting a deserved guilty conscience.

 

Note that he points out that naturally people rarely have a reason to be satisfied with themselves, because they have been, for a change, kind and decent. They have no proper pride, no self-esteem because of their constant sinning. They are guilty and they know it. They deal with this suppressed realization of not be going good, but by doing more and more evil over a period of years.

 

Altruism is immorality, hurting others because one has sinned first against the self, nature, and the expectations from the Good Spirits.

 

 

The Subjective Input

 

On Page 106 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          188

 

The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.”

 

My response: I interpret this entry as where Hoffer indicates there are two kinds of people. Nondividuators are people of low self-awareness; they do not think much or feel much: they live in their subjective bubble, slumbering in their solipsistic complacency, until reality comes crashing in; only what they experience, often painfully, even calamitously, then they see the light and realize what they should have been doing all along.

 

It cannot be denied that all of us are born and live lives of discontent and ignorance in the collectivities we swarm to; we are unaware, so we cannot relate to and learn from the experience of others, especially our ancestors’ sharing lessons learn with their disinterested, unreceptive progeny.

 

Individuators are genuine people, so their self-knowledge runs deep, allowing them to live subjectively and yet objectively, to appreciate and be willing to absorb the lesson from history and consume and live by the wisdom of the ancients. One must be awake, maverized and aware, so that one can learn from one’s ancestors to help one know what to do and not do today and tomorrow, to help one survive and flourish.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          189

 

As the world pokes its finger into our souls, it now and then touches bedrock: something compact, real, unequivocal. And whether it be genuine disgust, joy, grief, pity, shame or desire—it is accompanied by a vague sense of gratification. We are gratified by the discovery that we are not all sham and show, that there are elements in our inner make-up as organically our own as the color of our eyes and the shape of our nose. For we are never really sure of the genuineness of our convictions, feelings, tastes and desires. We are rarely free of the suspicion that we are ‘making a show.’ Hence the discovery of something autochthonous within us gives us a sense of uniqueness.”

 

My response: We naturally are born dull, pathetic, phony, malice-loving and, and, for the most part, are imbued with a consciousness that is fraudulent and mendacious. On some level we know that we are frauds, and this horrifying revelation, that we are selfless self-loathers, rightly hints to us that we are suspect, worthy of self-contempt for being the liars and posers that we are.

 

Still, there is hope: there is a part of us that is solid, real, promising, original, truthful, potentially loving, and creative. As we individuate, this autochthonous natural foundation of solidity, goodness and genuineness can be made our reality, our conscious, lived state, and we can then be genuine and substantial most of the time. We can be appropriately proud of what we have become, and have overcome.

To Heed Or Not

 

On Pager 105 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer shares three entries, which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          185

 

We are likely to have regard for the opinion of others only when there is a chance that the opinion might now and then be in our favor.”

 

My response: We have low self-esteem naturally, so we cannot stand too much negative input. Even, competent, self-confident individualists can only stomach so much negative feedback.

 

If we are individuating mavericks, then we are smart, creative, productive, and competent: we are the solid, real McCoy, so the opinions of others for or against us, will not matter to us too much. When the community speaks of us, if they are honest and impartial, their opinion should be favorable more than not.

 

Those among us that live as groupist mediocrities, that are dull, intellectually lazy, hedonic, underperforming non-producers, then the opinions of others, pro or con, based on truth or smears, matter to us much more than they should. If these opinions are unfavorable but honest more than honest but favorable, as underperformers and shirkers, public opinion about us should not be very supportive and positive, and that is what we deserve.

 

Hoffer: “The Negro who is convinced that public opinion will be against him, no matter how he acts, often behaves like a spoiled society lady who does not give a damn what people think of her.”

 

My response: Many regarded Hoffer as racist, but I think mostly he is not. He is an individualist and an egoist, and he rightly is highlighting that collectivist, tribal peoples from Africa or where ever, deemphasize individualism, egoist morality, and a standard of self-expectation that would by horrified and embarrassed about oneself when one is criminal, slacking, immoral or misbehaves. The individuators has too much positive pride to live below his own standards of behavior, so he judges himself by his own standards, and what the public thinks, though interesting, is not very relevant to how he regards and motivates himself.

 

Hoffer is suggesting that, as blacks individuate more, and live more as egoists, then they will less and less care about public opinion and will do what is right because that is how they insist each of them is to live and must live per their self-imposed standards.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          186

 

It is impossible to think clearly in understatements. Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.”

 

My response: This epistemological stance, taken by Hoffer, may be one of his most trenchant insights, and is the key to understanding his philosophy and worldview. Hoffer is an epistemological moderate but often an exaggerator in his communicative style.

 

Hoffer instinctively—and plainly explicitly and self-consciously by the time he wrote this entry—realizes that the expression of opposites, clashing against each other, reinforcing and complementing each other, ultimately being rationally reconciled with each other in an uneasy, teeming harmony, these compared and contrasted opposites, dealt with as a rational and emotional process, get the intellectual juices flowing, enabling the thinker to think, to generate new ideas, to do original work.

 

He and I advocate radical openness of ideas offered, and almost pure free speech, allowing wild speculation, and outrageous opinions—even hate speech.

 

Hoffer talks outrageously but his exaggeration is to get the ideas flowing: there was something extroverted and social about his philosophical communicating. Once the range and depth of new ideas is bubbled to the surface as new thoughts, then the thinker can sift through his products and rank, categorize, and variously accept and reject what he produced.

 

Hoffer might seem tendentious, and he is a bit, but mostly he is fair and impartial. He is not for lying or narrow thinking, but he knows that communicative exaggeration might break loose some torrent of original ideas which could be beneficial to the thinker and for humanity.

 

Those that are too constipated and buttoned-down—mid-twenties century analytic philosophers not interested in metaphysics--in their communication style and in the content of their ideas: these understaters will not think well or deeply, know truth or think originally. Their addiction to understatement is actually anti-intellectual, so here is another Hofferian paradox revealed.

 

Note that both Hoffer and Ayn Rand used communicative overstatement and flamboyance, but he did not make the mistake of identifying overstatement with quality thinking, whereas, Rand the absolutist and near pure dogmatist was strident and unwavering in her thinking and in her expression of her thoughts, and this radicalism and extremism might have made her less truthful and accurate about reality and people than she was confident that she had attained, though she is an epistemological and moral giant, in my non-professional opinion.

 

Somehow Hoffer seems more in touch with reality and truth than Rand was.

 

 

 

Hffer: “            187

 

When we are engrossed in a struggle for sheer survival, the self occupies the center of the stage; it is as were our holy cause. Selflessness then is meaningless. The enthusiasm of self-surrender can rise only when we no longer have to strive for physical survival.”

 

 

My response: Hoffer seems to be arguing that self-interest as the primary motivator in humans occurs under two very different circumstances. First, the poor and the hungry struggling for sheer survival think of nothing but making it to the end of the day; their lives are filled with meaning—albeit much suffering and pain are felt—they have no time to worry about fleeing the self, or losing the self in a mass movement, serving a guru and a holy cause.

 

Second, the other type of individual engrossed by self-interest as her primary motive is the prosperous individuator.

 

I would argue that the poor and hungry motivated by self-interest, are actually, naturally groupists, clawing and fighting each day just to survive. Once their situation improves a bit, a lot, or a whole lot, then their self-awareness makes them deeply sensitive to their collectivist morality and group-identity as personal identity: at this point, their natural selflessness becomes apparent to them and a burden: in a successful social order, they will lead lives of quiet desperation and discontent; once their social order collapses, these prosperous, alienated groupists now feel frustrated, and their requirement for a holy cause to worship, serve and self-sacrifice to, now becomes paramount, and their self-surrender enthusiastically embraced by them is their sole preoccupation.

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.

 

 

 

The Excuse

 

On Page 103 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has one entry which I quote and then comment on:

 

 

Hoffer: “          181

 

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently.”

 

My response: One is not an authentic, well-intentioned, ethical individual or individuator of good will unless one constantly strives to discover who one is, what is one’s duty, where one is to blame (including crafting tactics and strategy to defect-correct as best one can), and where one has done right and well, and may praise oneself and feel proud about one’s accomplishments, openly declaring that to oneself, to God and to others.

 

One is duty-bound to discover truth and then live in accordance with it, as best one can, as clearly as one can see what is so.

 

In this genuine mode of individual existing, there is little room for alibiing anything.

 

The wise Hoffer points out that achieving is harder and is never settles anything permanently. It is just easier to lie to the self, baby the self, do nothing and refer to it and oneself as normal, healthy, moral, and successful, just skating through life, seeking hedonic gratification, just following the crowd, without ever lifting a finger to do anything or even try to better the self. Then one finds a clever set of one million reasons to justify being a failure, a loser, a groupist conformist and nonindividuator.

 

Hoffer’s wise epigrams are filled with rich implications. If one is to individuate in the image of the Good Spirits who are creators and individuators, then one’s achievements are never done, nothing is ever personally settled, but one is to journey upwards and outwards, forever (or as long as one lives) self-realizing.

 

Thus, by extension, our mentors, the Divine Couple, the good deities, and the Good Spirits, on their own levels of consciousness, created and create the cosmos; if their achievements are never final, because human individuators do what their divine mistress and masters are doing, then it seems that becoming and self-improving by the divine entities would entail that they are improving, self-perfecting and cosmos perfecting and creating the new, and recreating the established, year after year.

 

Hoffer: “We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove we are as good today as we were yesterday.”

 

My response: Both moral, mortal individuators and the divine, good entities are individuators: we all have to prove our worth anew each day: now, my good fellow religious believers  will strenuously object to my claim that good deities do and need to self-realize: they regard God as a monotheistic, single god: perfect as is, all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful, the One, the Absolute. God is necessarily perfect right now and forever, unchanging forever. God has no reason or requirement to self-perfect forever.

 

Now I cannot prove them wrong and they cannot prove me wrong, but I think God is infinitely, richly complex, perhaps contradictory, but still it is all likely, mysteriously consistent and reconcilable.

 

Suppose, that the Divine Couple are nearly perfect directly, but they keep self-realizing and becoming; it could be that being Creators of the universe, and all worlds, they created infinity to be a world that never quits growing, expanding, self-perfecting and being perfected by good divinities ever creating and recreating cosmos. The universe’s state of being created and perfected by good, self-realizing deities is an eternal, ongoing process that goes on forever and the existence and nonexistence of the universe itself is the unchanging, eternal reality of the world, and divine, good entities can continue to self-realize and create within the parameters of the world that expands and goes forth forever, infinitely.

 

Or, it could be that Fate, the One, Being/Non-Being is that permanent, eternal, universal, infinite reality or universe that exists but within that forever existence are the good deities and their followers individuating and creating to build cosmos and goodness, and by turn the evil deities and their minions nonindividuating and destroying cosmos by malevolence, mortality conditions and sheer entropy.

 

Fate could be the reality or universe within which the good deities individuate and create.

 

Hoffer: “But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book, or painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in gaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.”

 

My response: We cannot be good, smart, or great unless we set alibis aside forever. Anyone with an IQ level of 85 or greater, if walking with the Good Spirits, and self-realizing on an industrial scale, will tap into innate inner genius to share with the world what the self necessarily, with effort, persistence and imagination explored, can create and produce, and this most personal, marked achievement will inspire and awe all that appreciate such output, viewing what near anyone can achieve once they believe in themselves, apply themselves, and learn how to maverize. It will be the greatest book or the greatest picture in some way, being the best for a few years at least, per creator.

 

 

Discoverers

 

On Page 102 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has one entry which I quote and then comment on:

 

 

Hoffer: “          180

 

The discovery and elaboration of new forms of expression whether in literature, art and music are often the work of the least talented. The search for a new form of expression is often an attempt to camouflage the fact that one has nothing new to express.”

 

My response: I am sure Hoffer is right here. It would seem that those that are misfits or those without talent are often the ones to discover new forms of expression because, for one thing, they are out there trying, and they seek meaning and structure to replace a shattered self, a shattered life.

 

This camouflaging behavior does not indicate to me that they lack talent, for I believe all are incredibly talented, some more so and some less so. To be novel or traditional is not a problem or an advantage, inherently, I believe. The more one self-actualizes, the more original, more profound, the more skilled and beautiful will be the products of one’s creativity, be one a traditional or avante garde expressive creator.

 

Hoffer: “However, once the new form is worked out, it is seized upon by the talented, and it is only then that the new manner begins to manifest force, beauty and originality.

 

It is often the failure who is a pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.”

 

My response: Yes, it is the misfits who loathe themselves and just cannot fit in, or do productive, respected work in the existing dispensation that serve as pioneers. In this capacity, they do perform a vital service: introducing needed new ideas and perspectives to humankind.

 

I think they are misfits not because they lack talent or are less talented, but because they have no self-esteem, with no sense of self-development as a maverizer, where with self-discipline, very hard, persistent work, and tight focusing, one can express oneself, in new ways, that makes one noteworthy as a creator.

 

Misfits that individuate can not only usher in new forms of expression, but they can do so beautifully, originally and profoundly, should be work hard enough.