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masque12From _The Ordeal of Change_, by Eric Hoffer:
"Individual resentment, however intense and widespread, is not likely to lead to any sort of active resistance so long as the disaffected cannot associate themselves in thought with some collective body or movement. It has been proved again and again in recent decades that the individual who stands wholly alone does not pit himself against a totalitarian tyranny, no matter how poignant his grievances and how confident he is of his own worth. His only source of strength is in not being himself but part of something mighty and eternal. The faith, pride, and desperate courage required to defy an implacable totalitarian machine are generated by such an identification. And since the secret police and mutual mistrust which pervades the population preclude the existence of a dissident body or movement inside a Communist regime, it follows that the emergence of active opposition will depend on the possibility of an identification with something impressive beyond the reach of the regime -- something either in the outside world or in the glorious past."
I had a great insight regarding this last night when I read it, but then I fell asleep and forgot it. I'll come back to this when I remember.
"Individual resentment, however intense and widespread, is not likely to lead to any sort of active resistance so long as the disaffected cannot associate themselves in thought with some collective body or movement. It has been proved again and again in recent decades that the individual who stands wholly alone does not pit himself against a totalitarian tyranny, no matter how poignant his grievances and how confident he is of his own worth. His only source of strength is in not being himself but part of something mighty and eternal. The faith, pride, and desperate courage required to defy an implacable totalitarian machine are generated by such an identification. And since the secret police and mutual mistrust which pervades the population preclude the existence of a dissident body or movement inside a Communist regime, it follows that the emergence of active opposition will depend on the possibility of an identification with something impressive beyond the reach of the regime -- something either in the outside world or in the glorious past."
I had a great insight regarding this last night when I read it, but then I fell asleep and forgot it. I'll come back to this when I remember.
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Date: 2003-03-21 06:35 pm (UTC)This poses interesting questions.
Does one have self worth outside of the collective?
Does one have a place in the hive (whether it be the blue hive, or the red hive)?
Must one belong to the hive?
How does the concept of Self Generated Strength arise in such a medium? Isolation?
Can one 'go it alone'?
Is the progession towards a group a natural tendency? Is it cyclic? Does it matter...
~Jaye