Conversations with Eric Hoffer; 5; Man's Struggle for Uniqueness

We present the fifth in a series of six. Now if I were conversations between early coffer and James day. I had Eric Hoffer lived in a time and place other than this century and this country. He described it as the working man's paradise. He might well have become the very model of the frustrated fanatic he describes so chillingly in his book The True Believer. And intellectual despite a lack of formal schooling and a man of carefully chosen words Eric Hoffer has found the self esteem each individual seeks to be a free man not as an intellectual nor a man of words but as a working man loading and unloading ships on the docks of San Francisco from the time he recovered from a childhood blindness that kept him in solitary darkness for eight years and denied him an education. He has devoured books as a starving man takes food

for 40 of those years he has sought his living as a laborer much of the time among those he has described as the misfits of society. Since 1903 he has been a longshoreman on the waterfront. His first book The True Believer was published in 1951 followed shortly by the passionate state of mind and most recently by the ordeal of change. Mr. Hoffert in our last conversation you were explaining to me about man's struggle for uniqueness and the fact that freedom is not man's natural state. Well I don't know what I put it that way. You see. We were talking about the Montane and Prescott being sore terribly surprised at the difference between men and thinks especially Pascal who was a scientist and he was also interested in human nature.

He compared the complexity the involute And there's the unpredictability of men compared with the simplicity of things. And it occurred to me Mr day that these very natural illness of men is a clue to his ascent through the millennia. I see the ascent of men as an effort to get out from underneath the iron laws which dominate dominate nature. You know Thomas Hardy. Here's a sentence. That Men begins where nature ends. Men and nature can never be friends. And this used to you know all these seven sentimentality and the romantic talk you know all about men and nature. How and through the 19th century even men like I used to see that unless I'm in men's acts and so on are in

accord with nature then they are not right. This is poppycock. You see men's as central as a get it's nature to get a rig from the chair to be altogether different from things from animals from all those things who are who are and there are these laws of nature and to me the uniqueness the singularity of a human achievement is to be judged by how much it distinguishes by how much it makes different human nature from non-human nature and by this index there the attribute which is at the root of human uniqueness is that is freedom and freedom from want freedom from sickness freedom from death freedom from gravity. So on you know towards men has to pull their weight from the rest of creation is making itself. All together different from

the rest of from from from from the rest of the universe. And by the same index the attribute which was most contrary to men's uniqueness is absolute power. You'd be surprised Mr D. As I was surprised myself when I don't recognize that the essence of absolute power is the power to human eyes any day human eyes the human eyes to turn a man into I think to turn him into a puppet to turn him into an animal to turn him into a robot to turn him into a machine. So if you see every man wants to be unique Mr Lee and the illegitimate way of becoming unique by developing yourself by developing all your talents all your capacities then you become unique. But the man who has absolute power wants to become unique by being God. He meant he wants of all of humanity into non-humans he wants to be the only men and this is

these are the monsters wait by which absolute power wants to become unique. The possessor of absolute power. I don't think that you can really save power by moving mountains or by killing their rivers without a flaw. You gain you taste power only when you can turn when the human eye speed when you can turn him into obedient machines into robots into puppets. And this is why power corrupts Misty power the corruption of power stems not from its inhumanity but for meats and their humanity. Even in a free society Mr D. When a man processus power whether he knows it or not he'll try to eliminate you know the free vote to free work. If rethink your customers see it's automatic You can't help it. And sometimes when I see a girl that's loved very much by a boy

and she feels a sense of power. And of course this is not this book but she too wants to turn her now boyfriend into a puppet. She also wants to make him do whatever she wants him to do see how it has this. This impulse to the human eyes is inherent in power and you don't know what power means unless you recognize that. And if freedom ease the essence they mean moving force of human eyes and so then there can be no freedom unless the absolute limit of power is eliminated. Chick see and I've come on through the ordeal of change mistily I shore again and again that the only way to control power is by dividing it. By diversifying power I don't think that if you just make the individual militant enough so that he'll stand up on his

own that he you can really establish a free society the only way to have a free society is to have two more less equal power powers fighting each other and more or less not realizing each other. If right now for instance of all the the communist countries Poland is the only one where there is a real motivation of individual freedom these is not due to the fact that the holes are militant individuals know it's due to the fact that you have to actually want to see action every hour you have on one side a Communist Party on the other side the Catholic Church and I don't think neither of these two are really concerned with NGO or free with individual freedom and the two powers they're fighting each other and more or less not ising each other and this situation is an echo. Of this situation that prevailed towards the end of the Middle Ages when the church and the secular state were fighting each other not rising each other and civil liberty was born.

You saw to me the whole essence of a free society. And as I see you again again in free societies an unnatural society and natural society is a society of the Peter G society of court action. These is the magical thing there and all these romantics who are. Glorifying and enthusing about the men should approach nature and be in accord with nature. I didn't know what they were talking about. By the way these are also the same people who are afraid that their weak will corrupt humanity. I mean including Nietzsche and I'm including the H Lawrence where they wouldn't even know what they were talking about. It's the very presence of the weak it's a very survival of the weak it's the activities of the weak to make them humanity what do you see in all the order forms of life the weak perish. Do we. If it wasn't I always am convinced that there would be no civilization there would be no humanity at all except where you are not for the habit of

nursing the sick. I can I can see at all how anything could have come into existence without the presence of the week. I think Mr D of a tribe and warrior tribe. And the invalided warrior left behind while the man with the tribe goes out to fight. You can see how these invalid warrior will be the first teacher the first storyteller and the Sikhs were the first cooks. They needed cookie. They need them to hold the whole thing in there without the sick without that week there wouldn't have been the humanity would have been or not civilization. But to return to these. Power and its tendency to the human eyes I can't see how you can understand how you can understand Sterling how you can understand Russia without these affect absolute power means that they cannot create a society it creates a menagerie.

It creates as our logical environment. To me it seems self-evident that if I entered if I entered a society ruled by absolute power I would recognize I will recognize that any malady at the end the malady of the population I don't mean to say that it would be crude and cruel or anything nor But there would be many many of the peculiarities you know that are essential to to the animals you would you would see coming out there. Now for instance you read again and again that the Russians and the stallion could smell a perch from a far. The instincts were working there. And not only these not only are they all ruled deprived of humanity even the ruler is not seen as a human being anymore. The Russians looked on Stalin not as a man. They looked on him as as a law of nature as it Ehrenberg writing his memoirs it tried to justify his qualities there are committee there by saying that that Stalin

was a natural catastrophe an earthquake a flood. And of course if natural phenomenon. Humiliate you don't feel humiliated you don't feel you really really hate it when your fish gets on you. You don't feel humiliated when the wind forces you to your knees and you have to kneel. The Russians didn't feel humiliated by bitin by the natural nor acting on them. The laws of the Communist Party the rules of the governing body were laws of nature. If you read that one day in the life of. You'll be in there when a captain says they were talking about when is this right. Right on top of the Senate. Somebody said it's twelve o'clock he said nor the Soviet government has changed it. They they sign is that is anything now. At one o'clock it's assumed then that the absolute tyrant you know is power of nature. If he had the absolute power however in dehumanizing

human beings is able to mold them and thus make change. And for this reason you have argued that determinists those who say that men can be molded along a certain path all have a bit of misanthropy and absolutely I think. You know I I can't I can't explain it to myself at all. And maybe our ought to spend the last few years of my life trying to figure out you know during the last century just when me and just about got a first taste of real controlling nature when men could become as a God you know all of a sudden that he's there is a worm all around that many descended on the monkey that man is an animal and their glory is not only even in science in literature. Everywhere there is that the brick ation of man there is a heir. It almost said this dick attempt you know to the grave. So one I can't

explain that I can't explain in only the only reason it's a fantastic reason to believe that the investor of the revolution required malleable people you know. Flexible people see and that the professor is a scientist without knowing it. So you were being used you know without knowing it. But but but some outside force will in order to turn men into him in the way I think you know. Deprive him of his empathetic that ability off his feet. It's fantastic there against their will man thinks and the scientists were doing the same thing they wanted the return to nature to mean the want to return to nature is a return to door to brute creation to be a return to nature. Easy every treat for humanity. There it is and mean it I don't like the trees and the grass and all the stakes there see but but all these babbling you know about the men on the right when he's in a corner when they know all the thoughts how he was right when he said

that men and age are going to be friends but. You can see how the concept of power on one side missed a day and it considered freedom on the other side added to pools which I see the development of humanity and it's only with these two poles that I can judge a comedy story Jean for what three days. It's easy to say that they're like you're late to Mr. Arabin not sure about the history of the Russian Revolution that the Commons and the human race but but you gotta know why it's and a human because it can't stand you madly. To me it's quite logical that Stanley and all the others should have been sought fascinated you know by the by the experience of that life but love you know with dogs and so on and so forth. This is this experiment taught them politics this but is I see you really have no history in a society dominated by absolute force you have the ology there you have all the

materials all the fields all the slime all these things that their own voters you know all these confessions all these things you know all the side effects this of what absolute power once you absolute power once you think you where your humanity and turn you into a thing into something flexible into something pliable into something that you can press the button and you do what you do what you do. And as I said freedom needs these divisions the splitting of power and I can see the development of the of the Occident in diversification and division of power. Let me turn your thoughts on a different direction and you offer and specifically upon thought itself. The last conversation you spoke of a distinction between animals and said that some animals had the ability to play and man was among these animals and the ordeal of change you argued

under the title of the playful mood that some of the great sinking of the world has consists in the working out insights and ideas which come in playful moments not when man is intently thinking upon his problems. That's right. A. You see it comes with with this men being in and finished an unfinished animal that he has to finish himself. This means that men is epicures child actually a child that thinks this and that the ideal society to me is a society in which people remain young. Equally to say that people that Yong Yong to live they they die. Now this thinking business is very tricky to do me a you know I have been always interested in it in the

environment the media that that's optimal for thinking. Because he's a very hard thing. It it to me is the only way I can really think getting through is by hanging on you know like a drone loaning men hanging on to some piece of it. That's what they're going on. I always feel some similarity between it and the dog. We have none holding a bone enough noise in the morning when I move or I get to work. I check up on other things have to put my pack and so on and then I will always in my way of the boat. I have to have some thought on which I'm going to choose. All day long it doesn't mean that I'm going to elaborate it but it's my assignment I have to hang onto it and of course I'm quite convinced that you think while you are not even aware of it there is such a thing as self-conscious thinking. So hanging on is one of the things of thinking there and you will find in literature all along there see that when you were in some Newton when he

was asked how he is accomplished is that he says by hanging on to that thing all the time. Of course to hang onto a thought to a train of thought you you muscle your mind has to get one mustn't. Now when you get on well you get to be my age in the sixties there. The muscles get flabby. You can hold on to this very situation. But still that this is the thing I find that. That the best way for me to things used to be on the road to walk. I've written that through believe it actually will be a part. Starting from it's in you going down one place they're all to the beach the SE and I have the marks. I know exactly where this question will be formally and by the way the moment you formulate a question you almost have solved. Because this is the hardest thing to formulate your question you formulated your question and then I know will just Iraq where I'm going to have the first version and then I won't fire there by the time I got to the beach.

I have black and white. I can sit down and I write out that that is now I think Peace me you know when things get it than see and you can see in the in the audience of change to see. I I have broken up my problems they're broken up so much that you sometimes think that they don't belong together. But I think one thing it than working and working through of course to me the road is more than just a place of thinking I had no homes there. I don't know what homecoming is. And yet when I go out on the road I have that feeling of home coming. You almost feel like singing. And there are all these and these wonderfully patient doesn't mind what loads it carries and doesn't care where he goes. It's just my mood that's the way I want to feel. And. Of course the playfulness of you nor that. Newton discovered he's gravitation by just when he had a chance to

muse actually me to discover the law of gravity or whatever it is there by in his but that there are many many people who achieved immortality in their playful moment. I bring out the case of Clement saw I have a whole bunch of cards and a muscle and I didn't get him out of his books his books are boring his books are hard to read but you read them all. People who met from us or they would point his playful words you playful sayings there. And you'll be surprised. I get out more out of Clemenceau than I could get out of a whole shelf of books and historian sociology to see and I was tremendous tremendous I mean it was to me for instance if I want to know what the uniqueness of the Occident is and the Orient there I think of the muscle they tell a story about Clement saw travelling around the world in the early 1920s and he came to New Delhi. And he was taken to

see the new office buildings that were just then built by Edwin Newton you know huge björn of old buildings there. The officer was standing there. Mr. Quinn I saw was looking and not seeing your words were quite aware. Finally the officer asked What are you thinking of president. He says I was thinking what ruins this with me. Now you see To me this is that you know you talk about the mystery of the origin of the the end he came out of Russia so on to me the audience is not mysterious or Russia is not an enigma to me the real mystery is the Occident to me the real mystery is they they are hassling the continues Warrick. The continuous creation stagnation This is natural This is back to nature a ruling this is natural. Mr. Deeds the simple question of maintenance they want me. If I had the ability and I had the time I could write well humans on me.

These is something very precious something very right here. There is not such a thing as maintenance outside the box. Surprised they even have got there weren't funny to you you know tending to a thing you know we can see it here in San Francisco on the bridge painting the bridge maintaining the bridge you have a whole but people keeping it in shit. Beast. This is the test of nigger. If you want to know what a cite is vigorous yes. Any society can pull itself together and and build a pyramid or build something new something great and then let it go to rot the rest of the year when it's in a family unit society there is that main thing is to fix the roof to fix the door to fix a nail when you see a tremendous thing. How do I get into that I don't know but I'm still off limits so yes I don't care so why the life or motives that is the most what's the great thinking. Yeah well this is very simple.

See. When you are relaxed. Things that have been kept in separate compartments of your mind. To me I can almost see the sea. They are beginning to come out of the horrors there on the stage of the mind they're just doing each other and once in a while. They have a chemical combination you get something you get a new ID and any society where men cannot be in the situation of their lack of being able to let their minds play the way you want to have no original thinking and I showed in their article on their playful mood I showed that that all societies have been ingenious you know. In their playfulness in Tory's this force that sticks didn't have a wheel. But they make toys with the rollers for feet. See all the different machines that were built in in the accident to wear. Towing. I think the first machine was a buck that would work and

could work and could do all of our other functions. Nancy and it's a you know other words you're actually free. You're actively at it at your best you know when what you do is in consequential when you live in salt doesn't really matter. So this is when you are at your best you can do this in when you can let yourself go. And as I see it the very fact that many and finished animal The very fact that man has no fixed pattern of instincts the very fact that man has to learn all about what does it mean that a man has to learn all about it has to be a child a child is that one that learns these very fact their sense of the uniqueness of me. It will be the eternally young and I think the more creative a person the more at least two of him see that he remains young feel that the he that he doesn't see.

I suppose this is why also in the state of mind you've written that it's impossible to think clearly and understatement so I suppose the child thinks an exaggeration Absolutely and you know why. The wonderful thing that I'm not a professor and that I am not afraid that nobody looks over my shoulder when I write I can exaggerate anyhow at the beginning etc.. I just write out exactly what I think and then I think a bushel of perhaps maybes and I scavenged all the text and it's all fine. You know I want to fight. But first if you want to know what what you really have stated exactly is you don't qualify not to 150 feet and it is a given there you hit you have to be you have to be absolutely free to to to. And if you would ease in of it or to really think. And of course you get your insights in the playful mood. You get your intuitions in a playful mood and then you have to spend the rest of your life sweating blood to work out these intuitions. Then it's when you have to concentrate the new can formulate new questions you can't do it at the seriousness you

can't do when you're under pressure but afterwards comes the hard way. You have to work it out. Of course living is by itself is not enough. I've often wondered this today how come that many of our great writers in the present day have come from the south. So you see. Creativeness also needs sports and it's also needs free Vince's it needs and music needs memories and pleasant memories. You know it's a fine delicate distillate coming out like alchemy used to boil up in even in a you know an Alembic there see where you have grievances and dark thoughts and nightmares there and out of it comes the playfulness has to offer. In our next conversation I'm going to ask some personal questions of you and have you tell us something about the experience something about your own memories should be

let should be let me thank you. That was the fifth in a series of six half hour conversations between Eric Hoffer. And James day. General Manager of KQED San Francisco. This is any National Educational Television.