The True Believer
and
The Ordeal of Change
Eric Hoffer
[Excerpts from the above two works]
From Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer" - 1951:
Thus the differences between the conservative and the radical
seem to spring mainly from their attitude toward the future. Fear of
the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while
faith in the future renders us receptive to change. Both the rich
and the poor, the strong and the weak, they who have achieved much
or little can be afraid of the future. When the present seems so
perfect that the most we can expect is its even continuation in the
future, change can only mean deterioration. Hence men of outstanding
achievement and those who live full, happy lives usually set their
faces against drastic innovation. ...
In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept
dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling. The despair brought
by unemployment comes not only from the threat of destitution, but
from the sudden view of a vast nothingness ahead. The unemployed are
more likely to follow the peddlers of hope than the handers-out of
relief. ...
When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth
living for, we are in desperate need of something apart from us to
live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and
self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something
which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
Hence the embracing of a substitute will necessarily be passionate
and extreme. We can have qualified confidence in ourselves, but the
faith we have in our nation, religion, race or holy cause has to be
extravagant and uncompromising. A substitute embraced in moderation
cannot supplant and efface the self we want to forget. We cannot be
sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to
die for it. This readiness to die is evidence to ourselves and
others that what we had to take as a substitute for an irrevocably
missed or spoiled first choice is indeed the best there every was."
From "The Ordeal of Change" - 1976:
In the chemistry of the soul, a substitute is almost always
explosive if for no other reason than that we can never have enough
of it. We can never have enough of that which we really do not want.
What we want is justified self-confidence and self-esteem. If we
cannot have the originals, we can never have enough of the
substitutes. We can be satisfied with moderate confidence in
ourselves and with a moderately good opinion of ourselves but the
faith we have in a holy cause has to be extravagant and
uncompromising, and the pride we derive from an identification with
a nation, race, leader, or party is extreme and overbearing. The
fact that a substitute can never become an organic part of ourselves
makes our holding on to it passionate and intolerant.
To sum up: When a population undergoing drastic change is without
abundant opportunities for individual action and self advancement,
it develops a hunger for faith, pride, and unity. It becomes
receptive to all manner of proselytizing, and is eager to throw
itself into collective undertakings which aim at 'showing the
world.' In other words, drastic change, under certain conditions,
creates a proclivity for fanatical attitudes, united action, and
spectacular manifestations of flouting and defiance; it creates an
atmosphere of revolution. We are usually told that revolutions are
set in motion to realize radical changes. Actually, it is drastic
change which sets the stage for revolution. The revolutionary mood
and temper are generated by the irritations, difficulties, hungers,
and frustrations inherent in the realization of drastic change.
Where things have not changed at all, there is the least likelihood
of revolution. And speaking of power ...
Even in the freest society power is charged with the impulse to
turn men into precise, predictable automata. When watching men of
power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they
know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or
neutralization of the independent individual - the independent
voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker - and that every device they
employ aims at turning man into a manipulatable 'animated
instrument,' which is Aristotle's definition of a slave.
On the other hand, every device employed to bolster individual
freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the
absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment
is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him
against the possessors of power, but by distributing and
diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against
the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however
strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse.