The True Believer - Eric Hoffer

I'm on the mailing list for David Horowitz's www.frontpagemag.com. It's really worth a look.

Anyway, I tend to have a couple hundred emails piled up in my mailbox at any given time, and tried to catch up on some of the reading today. Sorry, Mr. Nigerian Banker -- your stuff is all rerouted to the spam file.

In a brief email from the David Horowitz people, one article mentioned Eric Hoffer's book, The True Believer. I read this sometime in the 1970s and totally forgot about it. Well, I didn't actually forget... more like the message from it has been internalized.

The True Believer should be required reading before anyone gets a high school diploma, and it should probably be read again in more depth before anyone gets to graduate from college.

Eric Hoffer was a stevedore on the docks in San Francisco for many years. (Shades of "On the Waterfront.") I don't think he had a formal education, though I think he did "sit in" on a lot of classes where he could get inside. As I recall, he discusses this. And this doesn't mean he was at all stupid or incapable of useful thought and logic. In fact, it probably means that he was able to think about issues and apply theory directly to reality, without the convoluted baggage of fallacious interpretation from self-serving political radicals.

At any rate, you need to read this book. Everyone needs to read this book. If you don't read anything else, you need to read this book.

It's only about 100 pages, as I recall, and written in a forthright style that just makes sense -- no black-is-really-white nonsense or heart-rending tales of the downtrodden.

Eric Hoffer passed away a good many years ago, too, so I'm not promoting his product to make him rich. He's way past worrying about it.

But you need to read this book. Whoever "you" are. It's not about communism or capitalism. It's about getting sucked into large social movements -- the upside and the downside.

Again -- The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer. I'm sure it's available nearly everywhere. Probably even pirated copies you can download for free or nearly so on the internet.

Before you read another thing, and especially if you're under 20 yrs old, you need to read this book.

And perhaps The True Believer should be used as the lesson plan to guide the discussion after the Comrade's speech to schoolkids, or whenever schoolkids are subjected to political harangues from anyone -- including their teachers.

Matter of fact, their teachers should also read this book.