In November, Liberty Fund
hosted a virtual reading group on Eric Hoffer's short book,
The True Believer.
One topic of discussion was Hoffer's conservatism, which is implicit to his theories of mass movements. One place it’s implied is in his mistreatment of liberalism. In section 52, under “Deprecation of the Present”, Hoffer sums up his views of conservatives, skeptics, liberals, radicals, and reactionaries.
Here’s Hoffer on the first three:
“The conservative doubts that the present can be bettered, and he tries to shape the future in the image of the present.”[…]
“To the skeptic the present is the sum of all that has been and shall be…’there is no new thing under the sun.’”
[…]“The liberal sees the present as the legitimate offspring of the past and as constantly growing and developing toward an improved future: to damage the present is to maim the future.”
These, and his subsequent pairing of radicals and reactionaries, brought
Friedrich Hayek to mind.
Hoffer’s conception of liberalism strikes me as congenial to conservatives. The muddling of the line between conservatism and liberalism is what Hayek argued against in “Why I Am Not a Conservative” (an argument to which I lend support in
Hayek was not a conservative. Here’s why.).
The world had just seen what happens when radicals and reactionaries pair up and seize political power—the
Conservative Revolution movement formed part of Nazi thought. Hermann Rauschning, whom Hoffer quotes several times, wrote about the Conservative Revolution, and I strongly suspect Hoffer read him on it.
Hayek argues in
The Road to Serfdom not just that trying to pursue
socialism will lead to a reduction in individual liberty, but that it will
lead to fascism. So maybe it ought to be comforting to see the conservative, skeptic, and liberal all united against threats like the mass movements that brought Hitler and Stalin to power.
I think not, and I am not satisfied with Hoffer’s characterization of the liberal.
Liberals do not definitionally believe that the present is justified by the past, nor that the future will inevitably lead to progress. Per Hayek, the liberal is not under any such illusion that the present is justified—liberalism is a striving ideology that has never been realized. There are and have always been plenty of historical injustices that need to be addressed.
And, especially in the 20th century, liberals didn’t push anything like a “moral arc of history” as the way of thinking about the future. Instead, they often argued against that idea because they saw it as a dangerous one that would lead people to follow movements like progressivism and scientific socialism. (This is on my to-learn-more list, for which we might look to Hayek, Berlin, and Popper.[1])
I don’t have any reason to think that Hoffer was being cynical in his definition of liberalism. But I wonder how it affected his ability to think about mass movements from a liberal point of view, or about the political entrepreneurship that could help a movement motivated by liberal ideals to transition to liberal democracy at the end and not merely dissolve into a mob looking for a new movement.
---
If questions like these interest you, come read with us! Our virtual reading groups are free and open to all. They take place via set Zoom meetings or on message boards over a period of days. You must register to participate.
[1] Jacob T. Levy never tires of adding to my to-read list. These are his suggestions.
Related content: