The legacy of Eric Hoffer

The twentieth anniversary of the death of Eric Hoffer, in May 1983, passed with very little notice of one of the most incisive thinkers of his time -- a man whose writings continue to have great relevance to our times.

How many people today even know of this remarkable man with no formal schooling, who spent his life in manual labor -- most of it as a longshoreman -- and who wrote some of the most insightful commentary on our society and trends in the world?

You need only read one of his classics like The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements to realize that you are seeing the work of an intellectual giant.

Having spent several years in blindness when most other children were in school, Hoffer could only do manual labor after he recovered his sight, but was determined to educate himself. He began by looking for a big book with small print to take with him as he set out on a job as a migratory farm worker.

The book that turned out to fill this bill -- based on size and words -- was the essays of Montaigne. Over the years, he read many landmark books, including Hitler's Mein Kampf, even though Hoffer was Jewish. If ever there was a walking advertisement for the Great Books approach to education, it was Eric Hoffer.

Among Hoffer's insights about mass movements was that they are an outlet for people whose individual significance is meager in the eyes of the world and -- more important -- in their own eyes. He pointed out that the leaders of the Nazi movement were men whose artistic and intellectual aspirations were wholly frustrated.

Hoffer said: "The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."

People who are fulfilled in their own lives and careers are not the ones attracted to mass movements: "A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding," Hoffer said. "When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."

What Hoffer was describing was the political busybody, the zealot for a cause -- the "true believer," who filled the ranks of ideological movements that created the totalitarian tyrannies of the 20th century.

In a comment very relevant to the later disintegration of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe and the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union itself, he observed that totalitarian governments' "moment of greatest danger is when they begin to reform, that is to say, when they begin to show liberal tendencies."

Mikhail Gorbachev's place in history was secured by his failure to understand that and his willingness to believe that a decent and humane Communist society was possible. But, once the people in Eastern Europe no longer had to fear tanks or the gulags, the statues of Lenin and Stalin began being toppled from their pedestals, like the governments they represented.

Contrary to the prevailing assumptions of his time, Eric Hoffer did not believe that revolutionary movements were based on the sufferings of the downtrodden. "Where people toil from sunrise to sunset for a bare living, they nurse no grievances and dream no dreams," he said. He had spent years living among such people and being one of them.

Hoffer's insights may help explain something that many of us have found very puzzling -- the offspring of wealthy families spending their lives and their inherited money backing radical movements. He said: "Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities."

What can people with inherited fortunes do that is at all commensurate with their unlimited opportunities, much less what their parents or grandparents did to create the fortune in the first place, starting from far fewer opportunities?

Like the frustrated artists and failed intellectuals who turn to mass movements for fulfillment, rich heirs cannot win the game of comparison of individual achievements. So they must change the game. As zealots for radical movements, they often attack the very things that made their own good fortune possible, as well as undermining the freedom and well-being of other people.

I received the True Believer along with Ortega de Gasset-Revolt of the Masses.

My parents, with no college, had long ago read & had a copy of Bastiat, The Law.

Also got P.A. Sarokin, The Crisis of our Age at the same time. Sarokin is fascinating-secretary to Alexander Karensky-the White's in 1917! Came to US. My three children were shocked & amazed to read the work-the first 30 pages alone tell all of history. Cycles. Repetative cycles, described by 'compartments' of society ( law,criminal activity, science & invention, the family, art, etc ) demonstrated by events easily traced in recorded history. A simple plan that worked when he did the research.

One man's view of this issue, not entirely in line with Sarokin: [ I am not sure he read Sarokin, but he repeats some factual matter ]
The Crisis of Our Age, a 1941 work by Pitirim A. Sorokin, a Russian-born sociologist who founded Harvard University’s department of sociology in 1930. Although influential in his day, Sorokin’s work is largely neglected by modern sociologists. [ NEGLECTED-NO, IGNORED because he was CONSERVATIVE ]
The professor’s work was steeped in “the older, more prophetic school of sociology,” an approach that relied more on “intuition, prediction, and rebuke” than on statistical analysis and public opinion surveys, Baue notes [ WRONG< WRONG< W$RONG!! Sarokin did just that-numbers only-what happened during what era-gave him clear charts & he invented the concept of sociology ]. The Crisis of Our Age and other writings by Sorokin were “broader and deeper — and more prophetic — than anything I had yet encountered,” Baue explains. “His work, along with independent reading in theology and literature, began to unlock for me an understanding of why the twentieth century had been so turbulent and where our culture might be headed next.” [ Yes it did THIS with NUMBERS ]

With The Spiritual Society, Baue describes a future scenario in which the nebulous spirituality already in vogue becomes even more prominent in the culture. He also works hard to restore Sorokin’s credibility — in 1944, Sorokin lost his Harvard chairmanship to Talcott Parsons, “a rising academic star who expounded the newer, more statistical/descriptive approach to sociology” — by building his book on Sorokin’s theory of cultural dynamics.

Sorokin viewed Western civilization as a kind of oscillating progression of two modes: the “Sensate,” periods in which material values predominate, and the “Ideational,” times when spiritual values prevail. The oscillation between the two recurring eras can be seen throughout history. The Roman Empire, for example, with “[i]ts focus ... on practical matters such as efficient systems of government, the military, transportation, communication, sanitation, and so forth,” epitomizes the Sensate culture, while the Christian Middle Ages, with its monastic life, centralized church authority and grand cathedrals, typifies Ideational culture. The Middle Ages eventually gave way to the Sensate period known as the Modern Age, and today that era is giving way to a new Ideational period.

In Baue’s view, what we call postmodernism is not the coming spiritual era. It is the transitional period between the Sensate era of modernism and the coming spiritual period. Such transitional periods occur throughout history, and “are like the shorter transitional seasons of Spring and Fall — partly warm and partly cool — that move us from the longer, more unified seasons of Winter and Summer.” In the same way, Baue writes, we see the Sensate aspects of modernism in our culture today, alongside a growing interest in spirituality. He cites examples from literature and the arts — “cultural change registers first in the arts, and there among the poets before others” — to fortify his position and amplify Sorokin’s view of historical change.

While Baue’s concise analysis of cultural change is enlightening and serves as a good introduction to the issues discussed among postmodernist thinkers, The Spiritual Society includes at least two aspects that may unsettle readers accustomed to a more optimistic view of postmodernism. First, Baue writes from an unabashedly Lutheran perspective. On occasion, you may have to wade through a few sections of rather heavy-handed Lutheran theology, but the end result is worth the effort. Second, if Baue’s conclusions about the coming spiritual society are on the mark, it does not bode well for Christianity. He does, however, offer some suggestions on how the church can prepare for a global spirituality that is hostile to Christianity, and whether or not you agree with the author’s final assessment, it should serve as a cautionary tale for the church. If nothing else, The Spiritual Society should give hope to those of us who haunt library book sales and church bazaars. Perhaps we too will uncover a rare find among the stacks of musty texts.

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