The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
Author:Eric Hoffer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780062029355
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1951-09-02T10:00:00+00:00
68
We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate.
It is understandable that we should look for others to side with us when we have a just grievance and crave to retaliate against those who wronged us. The puzzling thing is that when our hatred does not spring from a visible grievance and does not seem justified, the desire for allies becomes more pressing. It is chiefly the unreasonable hatreds that drive us to merge with those who hate as we do, and it is this kind of hatred that serves as one of the most effective cementing agents.
Whence come these unreasonable hatreds, and why their unifying effect? They are an expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt and other shortcomings of the self. Self-contempt is here transmuted into hatred of others—and there is a most determined and persistent effort to mask this switch. Obviously, the most effective way of doing this is to find others, as many as possible, who hate as we do. Here more than anywhere else we need general consent, and much of our proselytizing consists perhaps in infecting others not with our brand of faith but with our particular brand of unreasonable hatred.
Even in the case of a just grievance, our hatred comes less from a wrong done to us than from the consciousness of our helplessness, inadequacy and cowardice—in other words from self-contempt. When we feel superior to our tormentors, we are likely to despise them, even pity them, but not hate them.11 That the relation between grievance and hatred is not simple and direct is also seen from the fact that the released hatred is not always directed against those who wronged us. Often, when we are wronged by one person, we turn our hatred on a wholly unrelated person or group. Russians, bullied by Stalin’s secret police, are easily inflamed against “capitalist warmongers;” Germans, aggrieved by the Versailles treaty, avenged themselves by exterminating Jews; Zulus, oppressed by Boers, butcher Hindus; white trash, exploited by Dixiecrats, lynch Blacks.
Self-contempt produces in man “the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults.”12
Download
The True Believer by Eric Hoffer.epub
The True Believer by Eric Hoffer.pdf
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Should I Stay or Should I Go? by Ramani Durvasula(7427)
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker(6350)
Fear by Osho(4491)
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi(4486)
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker(4190)
Rising Strong by Brene Brown(4190)
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan(4112)
Too Much and Not the Mood by Durga Chew-Bose(4088)
The Hacking of the American Mind by Robert H. Lustig(4081)
Lost Connections by Johann Hari(3914)
He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo(3711)
Evolve Your Brain by Joe Dispenza(3500)
The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga(3252)
Crazy Is My Superpower by A.J. Mendez Brooks(3201)
What If This Were Enough? by Heather Havrilesky(3196)
Resisting Happiness by Matthew Kelly(3194)
Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio(3163)
The Book of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith(3138)
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote(3134)
