Maverick Philosopher

Seriousness as Camouflage of the Nullity of Our Lives

Substack latest. I assess some thoughts of the stevedore and autodidact, Eric Hoffer. 

Man as Onion?

Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind and Other Aphorisms (New York: Harper & Bros., 1955), p. 62, Aph. # 96: 

Man's being is neither profound nor sublime. To search for something deep underneath the surface in order to explain human phenomena is to discard the nutritious outer layer for a nonexistent core. Like a bulb man is all skin and no kernel.

I disagree completely. Man is no onion or bulb, surface all the way down, with a nonexistent core. "Man is a stream whose source is hidden." (R. W. Emerson, "The Over-Soul") The central task of life is not to write merely clever aphorisms, but to return to the Source.

Or perhaps I should say that what the stevedore says is true -- of extroverts.

Related: Seriousness as Camouflage of Nullity.  (On the topic of death.)

Seriousness as Camouflage of Nullity

Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, Harper, 1955, p. 61, #93:

The fact of death and nothingness at the end is a certitude unsurpassed by any absolute truth ever discovered.  Yet knowing this, people can be deadly serious about their prospects, grievances, duties and trespassings.  The only explanation which suggests itself is that seriousness is a means of camouflage:  we conceal the triviality and nullity of our lives by taking things seriously.  No opiate and no pleasure chase can so effectively mask the terrible truth about man’s life as does seriousness.

Summary

It is certain that we become nothing at death. We all know this. Yet we take life with utmost seriousness. We are aggrieved at the wrongs that have been done to us, and guilty at the wrongs we have done. We care deeply about our future, our legacy, and many other things.

What explains our intense seriousness and deep concern given (i) the known fact that death is annihilation of the person and (ii) the fact that this unavoidable annihilation renders our lives insignificant and not an appropriate object of seriousness?

There is only one explanation. The truth (the conjunction of (i) and (ii)) is terrible and we are loathe to face it. So we hide the triviality and nullity of our lives behind a cloak of seriousness. We deceive ourselves. What we know deep down we will not admit into the full light of consciousness.  

Evaluation

There is an element of bluster in Hoffer's argument.  It is not certainly known that death is annihilation, although it is reasonably conjectured. But even if death were known to spell the end of the person, why should this render our lives insignificant? One could argue, contra Hoffer, that our lives are significant in the only way they could be significant, namely, in the first-personal, situated, and perspectival way, and that there is no call to view our lives sub specie aeternitatis.  It might be urged that the appearance of nullity and insignificance is merely an artifact of viewing our lives from outside.  

So one rejoinder to Hoffer would be: yes, death is annihilation, but no, this fact does not render life insignificant. Therefore, there is no tension among:

1) Death is annihilation of the person.

2) Annihilation implies nullity and insignificance.

3) People are serious about their lives.

We don't have to explain why (3) is true given (1) and (2) since (2) is not true.

A second type of rejoinder would be that we don't need to explain why (3) is true given (1) and (2) because (1) is not known to be true.  This is the line I take. I would argue as follows

A. We take our lives seriously.

B. That we take them seriously is prima facie evidence that they are appropriately and truly so taken.

C. Our lives would not be serious if death were annihilation. Therefore:

D. Death is not annihilation.

This argument is obviously not rationally compelling, but it suffices to neutralize Hoffer's argument. The argument is not compelling because once could reasonably reject both (B) and (C).  Here is Hoffer's argument:

A. We take our lives seriously.

C. Our lives would not be serious if death were annihilation.

~D. Death is annihilation. Therefore:

~B. That we take our lives seriously is not evidence of their seriousness, but a means of hiding from ourselves the terrible truth.

Hoffer and I agree about (C).  Our difference is as follows. I am now and always have been deeply convinced that something is at stake in this life, that it matters deeply how we live and comport ourselves, and that it matters far beyond the petty bounds of the individual's spatiotemporal existence. Can I prove it? No. Can anyone prove the opposite? No.

Hoffer, on the other hand, is deeply convinced that in the end our lives signify nothing despite all the sound and fury.  In the end death consigns to meaninglessness a life that is indeed played out entirely within its paltry spatiotemporal limits.  In the end, our care comes to naught and seriousness is but camoflage of our nullity.

I can't budge the old steveodore and he can't budge me.  Belief butts up against belief. There's no knowledge hereabouts.

So once again I say: In the last analysis you must decide what to believe and how to live.  Life is a venture and and adventure wherein doxastic risks must be taken. Here as elsewhere one sits as many risks as he runs. 

The Prescient Eric Hoffer

On p. 176 of Working and Thinking on the Waterfront, a journal he kept from June 1958 to May 1959, Eric Hoffer complains that ideas do not gush from his mind, that his writing "lacks the quality of catharsis."  "Yet only writing -- any sort of writing -- can justify my existence."

He was an amazing man, perhaps the purest example of the autodidact in the 20th century.  He had no formal education whatsoever.  His analysis of the true believer enjoys currency again, 60 years after his first book appeared, in the age of militant Islam, or rather the present age of militant Islam.  Islam has been on the march before.  The barbarians are once again at the gates.  Is Rome the new Vienna?

More on the thinking stevedore in the aptly appellated Eric Hoffer category.

Related articles

I'm a Loser, Baby, So Why Don't I Kill Me?:

Eric Hoffer, Contentment, and the Paradox of Plenty

Eric Hoffer as quoted in James D. Koerner, Hoffer's America (Open Court, 1973), p. 25:

I need little to be contented. Two meals a day, tobacco, books that hold my interest, and a little writing each day. This to me is a full life.

And this after a full day at the San Francisco waterfront unloading ships.  And we're talking cheap tobacco smoked after a meal of Lipton soup and Vienna sausage in a humble apartment in a marginal part of town.  Hoffer, who had it tough indeed, had the wisdom to be satisfied with what he had. 

Call it the paradox of plenty: those who had to struggle in the face of adversity developed character and worth, while those with opportunities galore and an easy path became slackers and malcontents and 'revolutionaries.'   Adding to the paradox is that those who battled adversity learned gratitude while those who had it handed to them became ingrates.

Eric Hoffer on the 'Root Causes' of Crime

Eric Hoffer as quoted in James D. Koerner, Hoffer's America (Open Court, 1973), p. 57:

Poverty causes crime! That is what they are always shoving down our throats, the misbegotten bastards! What crap! Poverty does not cause crime. If it did we would have been buried in crime for most of our history . . . .

Why is common sense like this incomprehensible to liberals? Poverty no more causes crime than wealth causes virtue.

Eric Hoffer on Contentment

Eric Hoffer as quoted in James D. Koerner, Hoffer's America (Open Court, 1973), p. 25:

I need little to be contented. Two meals a day, tobacco, books that hold my interest, and a little writing each day. This to me is a full life.

And this after a full day at the San Francisco waterfront unloading ships.  And we're talking cheap tobacco smoked after a meal of Lipton soup and Vienna sausage in a humble apartment in a marginal part of town.  Hoffer, who had it tough indeed, had the wisdom to be satisfied with what he had.  Call it the paradox of plenty: those who had to struggle in the face of adversity developed character and worth, while those with opportunities galore and an easy path became slackers and malcontents and 'revolutionaries.'   Adding to the paradox is that those who battled adversity learned gratitude while those who had it handed to them became ingrates.

Good Old Eric Hoffer

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, p. 161: "In the eyes of the true believer, people who have no holy cause are without backbone and character -- a pushover for men of faith."

The True Believer was published in 1951. I read chunks of it in the '60s and returned to it in December of 2003. Hoffer had Osama bin Laden and his fatal mistake pegged fifty years before the events of 9/11/01. The prescience of this autodidactic stevedore is truly remarkable. Has there ever been a more independent independent scholar?

From Reflections on the Human Condition (Harper and Row, 1973):

He who proselytizes in the cause of unbelief is basically a man in need of belief. (p. 34)

It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it. (p. 34)

Hoffer uses 'native Americans' above correctly as opposed to in the PeeCee manner. You may enjoy my Proof that I am a Native American.  The first quotation applies quite presciently to the New Atheists.

Sorry to offend my European readers, but it must be said:

We are told that the paradise of the masses in America is a 'pig heaven.' Granted; but the Europe the masses left behind was a pigsty. (p. 32)

I'd quote more but another library patron has recalled the book from which I am quoting. The audacity of the fellow!