Eric Hoffer

Perhaps you've heard of Eric Hoffer. I did about six decades ago when I read his book, The True Believer, while in college. I've reread it since. It certainly changed the way I think of fanatics and, indeed, my fellow man.

He wrote several books afterward and I'm in the midst of reading some of them. They're not nearly as famous as his first, but I'm learning from them as well. Hoffer was an autodidact who lacked formal education, but was wiser than almost anyone else. He was a product of the period of the Second World War and the world it yielded. He spent his life as a longshoreman, hobo, and doer of odd jobs. And he read and wrote. His style of writing (in addition to the wisdom of his words) reflected his peripatetic life-style (a term not current so many decades ago) and his varied experiences. He was a man of strong opinions and his ideas were expressed succinctly – in short bursts that were to the point and clear. And then he moved on to the next idea, which was often related to the one that preceded it, but not always.

Though compact, his writing wasn't usually the “twenty-five words or less” [sic – “fewer” is the correct word, not “less”] style so much in vogue in the past when there was a competition of some sort. It's a kind of writing that appeals to me because I appreciate someone who makes a point and moves on. That's the way I try to write, though I lack Hoffer's intellect. So rather than try to imitate him or improve on his words, I want to simply present some of his thoughts. I won't cite the sources (though The True Believer is not one of them – I urge you to read that yourself). It doesn't matter. There's no specific theme nor order. I'll include some comments when they might help.

One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations. The intellectuals who idolized Stalin while he was purging millions and stifling the least stirring of freedom have not been discredited. They are holding forth on every topic under the sun and are listened to with deference. … The metaphysical grammarian Noam Chomsky, who went to Hanoi to worship there at the altar of human rights and democracy, was not discredited and silenced when the humanitarian communists staged their nightmare in South Vietnam and Cambodia. Is there a greater freedom than the right to be wrong?

[Hoffer was not a fan of “wise” men. He was more interested in what they had to say.]

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I cannot see myself living in a socialist society. My passion is to be left alone and only a capitalist society does so. Capitalism is ideally equipped for mastering things but awkward in mastering men. It hugs the assumption that people will perform tolerably when left to themselves.

[I, too, want to be left alone. I must be a capitalist. But I don't assume that people will perform tolerably under any system.]

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I have a hunch that the Arabs will use their oil billions not to modernize their countries but to redress the balance between the Christian West and the Islamic East. … Idi Amin is a Moslem hero kept in power by Arab money in largely Christian Uganda. … The Islamization of Africa is a dream to fire Arab hearts.

[This was written in 1974, but things haven't changed. Except that they've expanded the they've scope of their dreams. Hoffer's hunch was prophetic.]

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A world that did not lift a finger when Hitler was wiping out six million Jewish men, women and children is now saying that the Jewish [emphasis added] state of Israel will not survive if it does not come to terms with the Arabs. My feeling is that no one in this universe has the right and the competence to tell Israel what it has to do in order to survive. On the contrary, it is Israel that can tell us what to do. It can tell us that we shall not survive if we do not cultivate and celebrate courage, if we coddle traitors and deserters, bargain with terrorists, court enemies and scorn friends.

[Also from 1974. The more things change, … Incidentally, Hoffer wasn't Jewish.]

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It is now fashionable to contrast authority with human rights. But we are learning that the moment authority becomes ineffectual most of our rights are nullified by the many-headed tyranny of anarchy.

[Nowadays we face the tyranny of the protest mob and its demands. We give them free rein and advertise their views as if they represent what is right or what we all believe. Our rights are nullified.]

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A revulsion from work is a fundamental component of human nature. It is natural to feel work to be a curse. A social order that grants only minimal necessities but asks for little effort will be more stable than a system that offers superfluities but demands ceaseless striving. One reason that communist governments seem so stable is that they no longer insist on hard work. Islam too is markedly stable because it functions tolerably well in an atmosphere of indolence.

[In our own society in the twenty-first century (and before) the goal has been the “superfluities” without the striving. They're entitled. Someone who's rich will pay.]

It would be hard to hide my admiration for Hoffer, and I do not intend to do so. I fear, however, that his hunches and prophesies will be overlooked or ignored by a world that needs to confront them. I'll continue his ideas and aphorisms next week.