Eric Hoffer Got It Right

In The True Believer, Eric Hoffer wrote: "The discontent generated by backward countries by their contact with Western civilization is not primarily resentment against exploitation by domineering foreigners. It is rather the result of a crumbling or unmaking of tribal solidarity and communal life. ...The Western colonizing powers offer the native the gift of individual freedom and independence. They try to teach him self-reliance. What it all actually amounts to is individual isolation. It means the cutting off of an immature and poorly furnished individual from the corporate whole and releasing him, in the words of Khomiakov, "to the freedom of his own impotence."

We in the West ask ourselves why the Islamic countries commit acts of terrorism against us. We remain blind to the destructive effects our modern Western civilization, culture and values have upon them. We have made the mistake over and over again that we can appeal to their reason, to their sense of logic and fair play. On the false assumption that their poverty and envy of our material success motivates them to be hostile to us, we jump to the erroneous conclusion that our assistance in their economic progress will eliminate or alleviate most of our problems with them. The 'westernized' elites of the Muslim countries and other third world countries share this erroneous conclusion, as shown by their repeated calls for the western industrialized nations to 'share' their wealth with the poorer nations. But lack of wealth does not motivate one to fly an airplane into a tower filled with people, nor does it motivate mothers to send their youngsters out to kill others by blowing themselves up. Anger, deep alienation and a sense of enormous impotence and loss motivates them. In the words of Eric Hoffer in The True Believer: "When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for 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 lives."

We in the West would be well advised to reconsider our relationship with the Islamic third world countries, and to isolate and contain them until they develop a cultural and religious rationale to deal with us on a peaceful basis. Our civilization and cultural heritage was forged over thousands of years beginning with the ancient Greeks, and we cannot expect these third world countries to adopt our ways and values in a fortnight. We are seeing the disruptive effects of what contact with our civilization brings, and we must minimize such contacts whenever possible.

Of course we must be ruthless in our drive to prevent modern weapons of mass destruction from falling into their hands, because unlike our former adversary, the Soviet Union, these immature and poorly furnished (Hoffer's words) people, do not view these weapons as a means of deterrence but as a means to lash out irrationally against that which they do not understand and which in the near future they cannot hope to emulate or achieve. Were it not for our appetite for oil, we would be having no trouble with these people because we would not be dealing with them on any sustained basis that would create such cultural and religious shocks for them, nor - I might add - would we be supporting many of the present elites within these countries and territories who operate repressive and tyrannical regimes that we abhor.

If only we in the West were smart enough or should I say brave enough to see these differences and to understand that the third world is best left to their own demise or better yet their own prosperity.

Were it not for our appetite for oil.....

Oh, puke

Aren't you sick of hearing this guilt trip laid on us because we enjoy driving cars and burning gas & oil?
This is America - the land of the free.
We're the envy of the world (that is why the low-lifes among the losers want to destroy us),
in part, because we are free to TRAVEL anywhere in our great land.
Our "appetite" for oil has allowed us to live a wonderful - uniquely American way of life.
It has also raised the standard of living for almost every country in the world -
especially the so-called Islamic countries.
Without US dollars (mostly paid for their cheap oil), they'd have remained the miserable hellholes
of poverty and disease that they have been throughout history.
Without America, and our "appetite for oil", the whole world would be worse off.
Cars & freedom are as American as apple pie.
Those who want to make us feel guilty about that can go to hell.

The terrorist hijackers were all or mostly from well off homes.

Oil is not the culprit. Human nature is. All countries run on a resource, an energy source, and this argument would be about corn or whale blubber if that were the source of the energy.

This is about military power. We have power. They have less. This is about king of the hill. Whoever is on top is the target. It used to be Britain, then France, then Britain, then the Soviets versus the U.S.

No matter who runs those countries, they will still want to sell us oil, as that is their resource, and source of income. China sells us Walmart toys, TONS and TONS of them because cheap labor is their resource.

Our disagreements with China are not about TOYS. They are about power. They want to be king of the hill.

I agree. Unfortunately, the Left will never see it this way. When you see the world through Marx-colored lenses, all poverty and discontent in the world is due to class struggle between haves and have-nots. As long as we have large numbers of Americans practicing the false religion that is socialism, we will always have a sizable crowd who will blame America for everything wrong in the world.

Our civilization and cultural heritage was forged over thousands of years beginning with the ancient Greeks, and we cannot expect these third world countries to adopt our ways and values in a fortnight.

Didn't the Egyptians have some contact with the Greeks?

, and to isolate and contain them until they develop a cultural and religious rationale to deal with us on a peaceful basis

Just like Keenan's containment policy with the previous "evil empire". Change that man's name to X!

I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with our appetite for oil.

The point I was making is that without our present need for OPEC oil, we would not have much to do with these Arab countries. Our 'presence' in these countries would be minimual. It is we who have 'awakened' them, by discovering and building and maintian the oil fields and the machinery necessary to extract oil - and we sustain our presence and engagement there now out of our own self-interest because such oil is now vital to our economy. Unfortunately, the bulk of the oil revenue goes to a few families in the Arab countries who have grown fabulously oil rich, and little of this wealth filters down to uplift the living standard of the common man. Our solution to our present engagement would be to find either a new source of oil or a new energy source. The former is more likely than the later in the short run.

"Without US dollars (mostly paid for their cheap oil), they'd have remained the miserable hellholes of poverty and disease that they have been throughout history."

You make Eric Hoffer's point precisely - mass movements and true believers arise not when the people are in grinding poverty and have little expectations, but when change has come into their lives and their lot has been improvement to the extent that they then demand more. From Hoffer's Ordeal of Change: "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."

Cars & freedom are as American as apple pie. Those who want to make us feel guilty about that can go to hell.

And I'll help you wave goodbye to them. My main frustration is that all those dinosaurs had to die over there. A few died in the midwest and Texas, but not nearly enough. ;-)

Our contacts with these people serves to highlight their weaknesses and imbue in them a craving for power. Hoffer wrote: "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."

It would appear that we need to imbue these third worlders with a sense of fear. Invade them, take the oil, pound their "culture" into the sand. Violence and power is what they understand, so speak to them in their language.

We tried it the other peaceful way already...

"It would appear that we need to imbue these third worlders with a sense of fear. Invade them, take the oil, pound their "culture" into the sand. Violence and power is what they understand, so speak to them in their language."

Well, I suppose (at least with Iraq) we are going to see shortly whether you are correct. The campaign against Iraq will be rather swift and brutal. It will be an "example" for the entire Islamic world. I suspect the present twilight period is to buy time - not to line up additional allies, but to build necessary ordinance and get position the required assets. I do not think Mr. Bush can let the Palestinian-Israeli situation run on much longer, but he must wait until the U.S. assets are in place, and Israel will be unleashed when we are able to shield Israel from Iraqi and possibly Iranian strikes. The question always is: do we get bogged down administering to these people after the war. All of that depends upon whether Saddam uses weapons of mass destruction. There will be little to administer if he does.

It is we who have 'awakened' them, by discovering and building and maintian the oil fields and the machinery necessary to extract oil - and we sustain our presence and engagement there now out of our own self-interest because such oil is now vital to our economy

And if they throw off their monarchies/dictatorships, they will still want to sell oil on the world market, which means sell it to us through intermediaries, as that is a resource for making their countries more like they want. What we have done there in changing their economies cannot be undone.

Self-determination is the other bugaboo we have introduced into their societies. The suicide bombers are not Islamic (submission to God and to the way things are, "it is written") in tone, the are American corruptions (believing in self determination, that the free will act of individuals matter.).

The American "corruption" is unstoppable. The yeast has been introduced, and the fermatation is underway. And as they struggle against their fate and blow themselves up, we are already winners. It is a Seldon crisis. The forces of human nature and History are moving inexorably against them.

Thanks for the Hoffer quotes. They really are worth reading and reflecting on.

I'm not so sure about the conclusions you want to base on them though. These countries are all rather different from each other, with different internal forces, characters, institutions, and relations to other states. I'm not sure a hard and fast rule can be drawn. In any case, many of the important actors are not states or nations or peoples, but non-state groups. So prescriptions would differ on that account too. The situation now is very different from what it was facing Hitler or Stalin.

You are right that non-Western societies can't be simply and easily integrated into Western system and ways of life, but I don't think the situation is as dire as you imply. A lot of our relations with states and peoples can't be categorized in friend/enemy love/hate terms, but involve both amity and hostility or neither.

I've got no doubt that Hoffer would support this war were he still alive. Perhaps he might even side with the more extreme hawks. I'm not sure I'd go that far, though.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.