The True Believer Eric Hoffer
Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 4:05 am
I just finished reading it. I copied the passages that had the most meaning for me. Open for your discussion.
The most drastic way to achieve this end is by the complete assimilation of the individual into a collective body. The fully assimilated individual does not see himself and others as human beings. When asked who he is, his automatic response is that he is an German, a Russian, a Japanese, a Christian, a Moslem, a member of a certain tribe or family. He has no purpose, worth and destiny apart from his collective body; and as long as that body lives he cannot really die. p.60
a historical awareness also imparts a sense of continuity. Possessed of a vivid vision of past and future, the true believer sees himself part of something that stretches endlessly backward and forward-- something eternal. He can let go of the present (and of his own life) not only because it is a poor thing, hardly worth hanging on to, but also because it is not the beginning and the end of all things. Furthermore, a vivid awareness of past and future robs the present of its reality. It makes the present seem as a section in a procession or a parade......
A depreciating attitude toward the present fosters a capacity for prognostication. The well-adjusted make poor prophets. On the other hand, those who are at war with the present have an eye for the seeds of change and the potentialities fo small beginnings. p.69
The reactionary does not believe that man has unfathomed potentialities for good in him. If a stable and healthy society is to be established, it must be patterned after the proven models of the past. He sees the future as a glorious restoration rather than an unprecedented innovation. p.71
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of the devil. When Hitler was asked whether he thought the Jew must be destroyed, he answered: “No... We should have to invent him. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely and abstract one.” p. 86
Even in the case of a just grievance, our hatred comes less from a wrong done to us than from the consciousness of our helplessness, inadequacy and cowardice-- in other words from self-contempt. When we feel superior to our tormentors, we are likely to despise them, even pity them, but not hate them. p.88
Self-contempt produces in man “the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred agsinst that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults.” (quote Pascal, pensees)
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and a guilty conscience.
There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred towards a person than by doing him a grave injustice. That others have a just grievance against us is a more potent reason for hating them than that we have a just grievance against them. We do not make people humble and meek when we show them their guilt and causee them to be ashamed of themselves. We are more likely to stir their arrogance and rouse in them a reckless aggressiveness. Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us. (p. 89)
The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse. It is doubtful whether a movement which does not profess some preposterous and patently irrational dogma can be possessed of that zealous drive which “must either win men or destroy the world.” It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction between profession and practice-- that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt-- are likely to be the most fervent in imposing their faith on others. (p. 102-103)
The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will ind meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves. (p. 114)