Critically Thinking about Eric Hoffer: #1

An Underappreciated Everyday Person with Genius Insights

“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement.”

Just think about that. Doesn’t that succinctly describe the entitlement mentality?

That is one of many insightful quotes from Eric Hoffer. I’m surprised how few people know about this American genius. Thomas Sowell (one of our most accomplished writers) composed a fine piece about Hoffer. Please read it!

The rest of my commentary will be selected quotes from Hoffer. I would find it difficult to improve on almost any of them.

There are so many that I decided to break them up into two random groups. That way I’m hoping that readers will not be overwhelmed, but take the time to reflect on the magnitude of this wisdom. This is group #1 and the next Commentary will be #2.

STOP!

We often tend to subconsciously go on autopilot and speed read through many things. In this case, please go s-l-o-w-l-y, and savor Hoffer’s witty and insightful observations. Then write down those you’d like to use yourself...

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.

All mass movements avail themselves of action as a means of unification. The conflicts a mass movement seeks and incites serve not only to down its enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and render them more soluble in the collective medium.

All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.

There is in us a tendency to judge a race, a nation, or an organization by its least worthy members. The tendency is manifestly perverse and unfair; yet it has some justification. For the quality and destiny of a nation is determined to a considerable extent by the nature and potentialities of its inferior elements. The inert mass of a nation is in its middle section. The industrious, decent, well-to-do, and satisfied middle classes - whether in cities or on the land - are worked upon and shaped by minorities at both extremes: the best and the worst.

In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.

Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom.

The desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a "have not" type of self.

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Amen! See more in Part #2 which will be coming in a few days…

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PS — Some books by Eric Hoffer:

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951)

The Ordeal of Change (What Hoffer thought was his best book)

The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

Reflections on the Human Condition

The Temper of Our Time

In Our Time

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