THE AUTONOMOUS MAN'S MAN:

American Thinker Eric Hoffer (MONICA SHOWALTER, 3/2/2006, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY)

"The True Believer" was published in 1951. Its author, Eric Hoffer, was a self-educated longshoreman born in New York City to a German cabinetmaker and his wife. His keen observations helped him become one of the greatest American philosophers.

He wrote 11 terse, thoughtful interpretations of behavior for fanatics, misfits, intellectuals and practical men of action. His work was so powerful that he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan in 1982.

"You need only read one of his classics like 'The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements' to realize that you are seeing the work of an intellectual giant," wrote economist Thomas Sowell in a 2003 essay about Hoffer.

Though slightly wrong in a way that matters hugely, one of the most perceptive observationss he made, with particular bearing on the current crisis, was the following:

The manner in which a mass movement starts out can also have an effect on the duration and mode of termination of the active phase of the movement. When we see the Reformation, the Puritan, American and French revolutions and many nationalist uprisings terminate, after a relatively short active phase, in a social order marked by increased individual liberty, we are witnessing the realization of moods and examples which characterized the earliest days of the movements. All of them started by defying and overthrowing a long-established authority. The more clear-cut this initial act of defiance and the more vivid its memory in the minds of the people, the more likely is the eventual emergence of individual liberty.

The error here is that the French Revolution sought to establish tyranny, which is why its spawn -- Communism, Nazism, Socialism, etc. -- have been totalitarian. But consider the rule as applied to Judaism and Christianity, which were slave religions, as opposed to Islam, a conquerors faith. The former naturally and necessarily developed an understanding that Church and State can be/should be separate. The latter had no reason to develop a similar understanding -- except that is, for the Shi'a, who were oppressed by the Sunni.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 3, 2006 5:05 PM