Browsing via the internet this morning’s political nonsense. One article (I forget which website…American Thinker perhaps) showed a picture of a young woman standing in front of a crowd of protestors while reading into her microphone a list of companies that should be boycotted for supporting Israel. The list included Nike. And then there was a zoom photo of her shoes. Yes she was. She was wearing Nike tennis shoes.
The story moved on to the contradictions we find in the radical positions of the left. I was mentally nodding until the author called upon the writing of “Amateur Philosopher” Eric Hoffer and quoted Hoffer’s fine book The True Believer.
I object. There is nothing Amateurish about the True Believer. Hoffer simply said true believers such as our radical leftists are so dissatisfied with their lives they join mass movements to give them a sense of belonging. He also wrote it doesn’t matter the cause, even if it calls for personal martyrdom and death. The true believer’s behavior isn’t about the cause. It’s about self abnegation and a perverse desire to belong to something outside themselves, something larger. Logic plays no part in their behavior. (Think Jones Town.)
Hoffer also asserted that the first converts to communism in East Germany were former Nazis.
Hoffer had no university degrees, but he was not just a simple longshoreman. He was a voracious reader, a keen observer of life and people, and an extremely intelligent thinker who wrote well.
If you haven’t read “The True Believer” you might order a copy from Amazon. Read it. And please don’t call Hoffer an amateur philosopher.
Rod
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