1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,120 Speaker 1: If you want to support the show and get the 2 00:00:02,160 --> 00:00:06,559 episodes early and ad free, head on over to Freemanbeyond 3 00:00:06,599 --> 00:00:10,359 the Wall dot com forward slash Support. I want to 4 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:15,000 explain something right now. If you support me through substack 5 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:19,719 or Patreon, you have access to an RSS feed that 6 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:24,239 you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll 7 00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:27,239 be able to listen to the episodes through there. If 8 00:00:27,239 --> 00:00:31,120 you support me through subscribe, star gum Road, or on 9 00:00:31,199 --> 00:00:34,719 my website directly, I will send you a link where 10 00:00:34,759 --> 00:00:37,079 you can download the file and you can listen to 11 00:00:37,119 --> 00:00:41,439 it any way you wish. I really appreciate the support 12 00:00:41,520 --> 00:00:44,759 everyone gives me. It keeps a show going. It allows 13 00:00:44,799 --> 00:00:47,960 me to basically put out an episode every day now, 14 00:00:48,439 --> 00:00:51,119 and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going to accelerate. 15 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:53,799 I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two 16 00:00:54,600 --> 00:01:00,079 even three a day, and yeah, can't do it without you, 17 00:01:00,759 --> 00:01:02,840 So thank you for the support. Head on over to 18 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:07,159 Freeman Beyond the Wall dot com, forward slash Support and 19 00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:11,519 do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone 20 00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:15,640 back to part three of my reading of The True 21 00:01:15,640 --> 00:01:19,760 Believer by Eric Hoffer. Before I start, I just want 22 00:01:19,799 --> 00:01:23,920 to remind everyone that Thomas and I have been watching 23 00:01:23,959 --> 00:01:27,599 movies and commenting on them. It's over on my website 24 00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:31,640 Freeman Beyond the Wall dot com forward slash movies. Last 25 00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:36,159 one we did for Halloween was in the nineteen seventy 26 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:43,799 nine horror quote unquote horror sci fi, really pretty versatile 27 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:47,799 movie called Fantasm, and we're planning out the next one, 28 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,040 so check that out over on my website. All right, 29 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:55,560 let's get to this. Let's see what mister Hoffer has 30 00:01:55,599 --> 00:01:58,159 in store for us, picking up where we left off. 31 00:01:59,280 --> 00:02:03,319 The milu the milieu most favorable for the rise and 32 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:06,560 propagation of mass movements is one in which a once 33 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:10,360 compact corporate structure is, for one reason or another, in 34 00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:14,840 a state of disintegration. The age in which Christianity rose 35 00:02:14,879 --> 00:02:18,319 and spread was one when large numbers of men were uprooted, 36 00:02:18,719 --> 00:02:22,080 the compact city states had been partly merged into one 37 00:02:22,159 --> 00:02:25,919 vast empire, and the old social and political groupings had 38 00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:30,800 been weakened or dissolved. Christianity made its greatest headway in 39 00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:35,680 the large cities where lived thousands of derascinated individuals, some 40 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:39,800 of them slaves, some freedmen, and some merchants who had 41 00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:44,439 been separated by force or voluntarily from their hereditary miliu 42 00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:53,039 as opposed to those who would seek to deracinate. Seems 43 00:02:53,080 --> 00:02:59,280 like there might be a difference in the countryside where 44 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,719 the communal pattern was least disturbed. The new religion found 45 00:03:02,759 --> 00:03:08,280 the ground less favorable the villagers pagani, and the heath 46 00:03:08,319 --> 00:03:12,719 dwellers heathen clung longest to the ancient cults. A somewhat 47 00:03:12,759 --> 00:03:15,439 similar situation is to be observed in the rise of 48 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:18,039 nationalists and socialist movements in the second half of the 49 00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:23,360 nineteenth century. The extraordinary mobility and urbanization of population served 50 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:28,120 to create during those decades an extraordinary number of persons 51 00:03:28,199 --> 00:03:33,520 upradged from ancestral soil a soil and local allegiance, experiencing 52 00:03:33,599 --> 00:03:41,280 grave economic insecurity and psychological maladjustment maladjustment mal adjustment. These 53 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:47,159 were very susceptible to demagogic propaganda socialist or nationalists or both. 54 00:03:49,599 --> 00:03:53,360 The general rule seems to be that as one pattern 55 00:03:53,400 --> 00:03:58,400 of corporate cohesion weakens, conditions ripen become ripe for the 56 00:03:58,479 --> 00:04:02,080 rise of a mass movement and the eventual establishment of 57 00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:05,800 a new and more vigorous form of compact unity. Or 58 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:08,599 another way you can say that is is that man 59 00:04:09,039 --> 00:04:20,240 naturally is collective, and when he is derascinated and torn apart, 60 00:04:21,319 --> 00:04:27,680 it is very natural for him to seek to recollectivize. 61 00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:31,680 When a church, which was all embracing relaxes its whole, 62 00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:36,199 new religious movements are likely to crystallize. HG. Wells remarks 63 00:04:36,199 --> 00:04:39,560 that at the power of the Reformation people objected not 64 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:43,720 to church the church's power, but to its weaknesses. There 65 00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:47,839 are movements against the church within and without. Were movements 66 00:04:47,879 --> 00:04:50,519 not for release from a religious control, but for a 67 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:56,199 fuller and more abundant religious control. If the religious mood 68 00:04:56,240 --> 00:05:00,519 is undermined by enlightened by enlightenment, the rise of movements 69 00:05:00,519 --> 00:05:05,839 will be socialist, nationalist, or racist. The French Revolution, which 70 00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:10,000 was also a nationalist movement, came as a reaction not 71 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:12,480 against the vigorous tyranny at the Catholic Church and the 72 00:05:13,399 --> 00:05:20,319 ancient regime, but against their weakness and ineffectuality. When people 73 00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:23,480 revolt in its totalitarian society, they rise not against the 74 00:05:23,519 --> 00:05:32,759 wickedness of the regime, but its weakness. I'm thinking of 75 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:40,959 this of Spain up to the Spanish Civil War. I 76 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:51,759 don't know the let's keep reading where the corporate pattern 77 00:05:51,839 --> 00:05:54,000 is strong, it is difficult for a mass movement to 78 00:05:54,120 --> 00:05:58,480 find a footing. The communal compactness of the Jews, both 79 00:05:58,480 --> 00:06:01,040 in Palestine and the diaspora, was probably one of the 80 00:06:01,079 --> 00:06:08,040 reasons that Christianity made so little headway among them. The 81 00:06:08,079 --> 00:06:20,240 destruction of the Temple caused or I don't even we 82 00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:23,920 could do whole episodes in series. We've talked about this before, 83 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:29,920 Michael Jones saws about this. I mean, there's plenty of 84 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:37,639 reasons other than because they're a collective. The destruction of 85 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:41,000 the Temple caused, if anything, a tightening of the communal bonds. 86 00:06:41,439 --> 00:06:44,839 The synagogue and the congregation received now much of the 87 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:49,680 devotion which formerly flowed toward the Temple in Jerusalem. Later, 88 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:52,279 when the Christian Church had the power to segregate the 89 00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:57,920 Jews in ghettos, it gave their communal compactness and additional reinforcement, 90 00:06:58,279 --> 00:07:02,720 and thus unintentionally ensured the survival of Judaism intact through 91 00:07:02,759 --> 00:07:15,240 the ages. I'm Jews had power in Spain pretty much 92 00:07:15,279 --> 00:07:21,279 all through the Moorish Conquest, all through the Moorish Empire. 93 00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:30,600 They were given power over Christians. What are we talking 94 00:07:30,600 --> 00:07:33,720 about here? When the Christian Church had the power to 95 00:07:33,759 --> 00:07:38,480 segregate the Jews and ghettos. Are we talking about the 96 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:44,399 palest settlement? Are we saying that the Czars were doing 97 00:07:44,439 --> 00:07:51,240 this because of their Orthodoxy. I'm trying to understand this here. 98 00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:54,800 Like I said, I don't know if I've said this, 99 00:07:54,920 --> 00:07:58,920 but this book has been recommended to me for years. 100 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:01,160 You know. It's one of those one of those books 101 00:08:01,199 --> 00:08:07,680 it's supposed to explain what happened during Covid. Okay, well, 102 00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:16,480 I'm not getting where this is going. The coming of 103 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:21,160 Enlightenment undermined both Orthodoxy and ghetto walls. Suddenly, and perhaps 104 00:08:21,199 --> 00:08:24,199 for the first time since the days of Job and Ecclesiastes, 105 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:27,560 the Jew found himself an individual, terribly alone in a 106 00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:30,920 hostile world. There was no collective body he could blend 107 00:08:30,959 --> 00:08:34,559 with and lose himself in the synagogue, and the congregation 108 00:08:34,639 --> 00:08:38,799 had become shriveled, lifeless things, while the traditions and prejudices 109 00:08:38,840 --> 00:08:43,320 of two thousand years prevented his complete integration within the 110 00:08:43,399 --> 00:08:48,759 gentile corporate bodies. Thus, the modern Jew became the most 111 00:08:48,759 --> 00:08:53,000 autonomous of individuals, and inevitably two the most frustrated. It 112 00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:55,879 is not surprising, therefore, that the mass movements of modern 113 00:08:55,919 --> 00:09:00,720 times often found in him a ready convert. Okay, so 114 00:09:02,519 --> 00:09:06,120 in my reading of Israel Shahak's Jewish History Jewish Religion, 115 00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:13,600 he mentions that when laws eventually were passed in certain 116 00:09:13,639 --> 00:09:21,360 countries that basically like in Russia, where well you couldn't 117 00:09:21,399 --> 00:09:27,559 be or certainly it doesn't have to be Russia. But 118 00:09:27,639 --> 00:09:32,559 Jews took advantage of not being tied to the synagogue anymore, 119 00:09:33,080 --> 00:09:36,480 and they went out into the world and they because 120 00:09:36,519 --> 00:09:41,399 they had been taught only what the rabbis wanted them 121 00:09:41,399 --> 00:09:44,519 to know, they went out and they took in as 122 00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:51,919 much information as possible. I believe that. And you can 123 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:55,600 study like the Jews that came to America and went 124 00:09:55,759 --> 00:10:00,759 into like the American South, the German Jews, and they 125 00:10:02,399 --> 00:10:07,200 became Southerners, and people can complain, oh, Judah Benjamin, was 126 00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:09,600 this that you just don't know the history of the war, 127 00:10:09,639 --> 00:10:12,000 you don't know the history of the South. You're working 128 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:18,759 off of presuppositions. They very much became Southerners. It really 129 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:24,519 wasn't until you know, the war and reconstruction that they 130 00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:32,679 felt like they had to collective ze. It wasn't. It 131 00:10:32,759 --> 00:10:37,240 was the They were part of a society, and then 132 00:10:37,320 --> 00:10:43,480 that society got torn, so they collectivized because that's what 133 00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:52,320 people do. So I don't just this this argument here. 134 00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:58,720 I don't see it. Yeah, sure, many became the most 135 00:10:58,759 --> 00:11:04,960 autonomous of individual wolves, but frustration, I mean, I don't. 136 00:11:07,159 --> 00:11:10,559 He seems to think that the frustration was what may 137 00:11:10,600 --> 00:11:17,120 have led people to become revolutionary Bolsheviks and Marxist Jews, 138 00:11:17,159 --> 00:11:23,840 specifically in Russia. And so what's the excuse for the 139 00:11:23,919 --> 00:11:37,080 Russian Revolution? What's the excuse for nineteen seventeen? It's they weren't. 140 00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:41,919 This wasn't because they were aous, the most autonomous of 141 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:48,200 individuals that they decided to become revolutionaries. A major part 142 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:53,840 of that in Russia was revenge was what and what 143 00:11:54,039 --> 00:11:57,440 you know? Michael Jones calls the revolution the Jewish revolutionary spirit. 144 00:11:59,159 --> 00:12:02,639 So I don't. I don't agree with this, so let 145 00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:06,480 me keep going. The Jew also crowded the roads, leading 146 00:12:06,519 --> 00:12:10,639 to palliatives of frustration, such as hustling and migration. He 147 00:12:10,679 --> 00:12:12,960 also threw himself into a passionate effort to prove his 148 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:17,440 individual work by material achievements. In creative work. There was, 149 00:12:17,759 --> 00:12:20,519 it is true, one speck of corporateness. He could create 150 00:12:20,559 --> 00:12:24,519 around himself by his own efforts naming the family, and 151 00:12:24,600 --> 00:12:26,799 he made the most of it. But in the case 152 00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:31,399 of the European Jew, Hitler chewed and scorched this only 153 00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:35,679 refuge in concentration camps and gas chambers. Thus, now more 154 00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:38,639 than ever, the Jew, particularly in Europe, is the ideal 155 00:12:38,679 --> 00:12:43,080 potential convert, and it almost seems providential that Zionism should 156 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:46,759 be on hand in the Jew's darkest hotur to unfold 157 00:12:46,840 --> 00:12:49,759 him in its corporate embrace and cure him of his 158 00:12:49,879 --> 00:12:54,039 individual isolation. Israel is indeed a rare refuge at his 159 00:12:54,159 --> 00:12:58,639 home and family, synagogue and congregation, nation, and revolutionary party 160 00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:06,440 all in one. Jews. There were boatloads of Jews that 161 00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:08,639 were sent to the United States that were sent back. 162 00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:16,039 Why were they sent back? Nobody wants to talk about 163 00:13:16,039 --> 00:13:23,919 the fact that they because of the narrative surrounding the 164 00:13:23,919 --> 00:13:29,240 Holocaust is basically why so many were eager to go 165 00:13:29,279 --> 00:13:39,759 to Israel, and still most didn't. So I'm of the 166 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:44,720 opinion that international Jewry and international Zionism. Let's say that, 167 00:13:45,519 --> 00:13:51,759 let's say Zionism was more than happy to allow anything 168 00:13:51,879 --> 00:13:57,080 to happen to Jews, and they were willing to sacrifice them, 169 00:13:59,039 --> 00:14:04,559 so that then this narrative of you know, a homeland 170 00:14:04,759 --> 00:14:11,279 would be something that many would want to hear escaping persecution. 171 00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:19,120 So yeah, I mean, let's remember in nineteen thirty three, 172 00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:23,039 you know, I think it's the Daily Mirror, So Judea 173 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:28,639 declares war on Germany. There was no country at the 174 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:39,600 time there was. That implies a collective So saying that, 175 00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:47,799 making the argument that there was individual isolation seems to go. 176 00:14:48,679 --> 00:14:54,559 I mean, this just seems to either be intentionally ignoring 177 00:14:55,159 --> 00:14:58,919 the facts of what happened or being completely ignorant, as 178 00:14:59,399 --> 00:15:04,039 most even Americans are even now, most people in the 179 00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:12,679 world are even now. So the argument for collectivization here 180 00:15:13,639 --> 00:15:19,519 because of individual isolation, that doesn't to me, that doesn't 181 00:15:19,559 --> 00:15:25,240 hold up. The recent history of Germany also furnishes an 182 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:29,240 interesting example of the relation between corporate compactness and a 183 00:15:29,279 --> 00:15:32,559 receptivity to the appeal of mass movements. There was no 184 00:15:32,799 --> 00:15:38,039 likelihood of a genuine revolutionary movement arising in Wilhelmian Germany. 185 00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:42,360 The Germans were satisfied with the centralized, authoritarian Kaiser regime, 186 00:15:42,399 --> 00:15:45,000 and even defeat in the First World War did not 187 00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:49,720 impair their love for it. The revolution in nineteen eighteen 188 00:15:49,840 --> 00:15:53,320 was an artificial thing with little popular backing. The years 189 00:15:53,320 --> 00:15:57,200 of the Weimar Constitution which followed were for most Germans 190 00:15:57,240 --> 00:16:01,799 a time of irritation and frustration. Used as they were 191 00:16:02,039 --> 00:16:05,440 used to I guess he's said, used as they were, 192 00:16:05,559 --> 00:16:09,440 to commands from above and respect for authority. They found 193 00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:14,240 the loose, irreverent democratic order all confusion and chaos. They 194 00:16:14,279 --> 00:16:18,039 were shocked to realize they had they had, that they 195 00:16:18,200 --> 00:16:21,919 had to participate in government, choose a party, and pass 196 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:26,000 judgment upon political matters. They longed for a new corporate, 197 00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:33,519 more monolithic, all embracing and glorious to behold than even 198 00:16:33,559 --> 00:16:38,200 the Kaiser regime had been, and the Third Reich more 199 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:43,159 than answered their prayer. Hitler's totalitarian regime, once established, was 200 00:16:43,159 --> 00:16:45,840 never in danger of mass revolt. So long as the 201 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:51,360 ruling national socialist hierarchy was willing to shoulder all responsibilities 202 00:16:51,399 --> 00:16:54,240 and make all decisions, there was not the least chance 203 00:16:54,279 --> 00:16:58,919 for any popular antagonism to arise. Let me keep reading 204 00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:03,559 this before I comment. A danger point could have been 205 00:17:03,639 --> 00:17:08,680 reached had the national socialist discipline and its totalitarian control 206 00:17:08,759 --> 00:17:13,079 been relaxed. What to Toauville says of a tyrannical government 207 00:17:13,160 --> 00:17:16,960 is true of all totalitarian orders. Their moment of greatest 208 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:19,599 danger is when they begin to reform, that is to say, 209 00:17:20,079 --> 00:17:25,680 when they begin to show liberal tendencies. He basically just 210 00:17:26,559 --> 00:17:31,079 passes over Weimar as an annoyance because there was liberty 211 00:17:32,960 --> 00:17:34,839 and that the German people weren't used to that and 212 00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:41,480 they didn't want it, not that they were being basically 213 00:17:41,519 --> 00:17:51,039 attacked and socially engineered from the outside. That they were 214 00:17:51,079 --> 00:17:58,240 supposed to become an international type of Paris. That's what 215 00:17:58,319 --> 00:18:01,880 Berlin was supposed to become, with a transgender clinic and 216 00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:08,440 open prostitution, mother daughter prostitution, teams, male prostitution all over 217 00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:16,000 the place, children and pornography just showing up for no reason, 218 00:18:16,799 --> 00:18:25,319 seemingly no reason. And that is according to mister Hoffer, 219 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:31,880 that's just they couldn't handle this type of liberalism, so 220 00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:35,680 they had to choose to go back into it stalitarianism. 221 00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:47,759 It's this is this is folly, this is like sophomore thinking. 222 00:18:48,519 --> 00:18:57,160 It's either intentionally ignoring what happened or just complete ignorance. 223 00:19:01,720 --> 00:19:07,400 I will say that when a totalitarian regime or what 224 00:19:07,519 --> 00:19:10,240 would be like a one man regime, I mean any 225 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:12,960 Hafer or anyone like this is going to call any 226 00:19:13,599 --> 00:19:18,799 kind of top down totalitarian does start to show liberal tendencies. 227 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:26,720 I can see where people would because it's if twenty 228 00:19:26,759 --> 00:19:28,720 twenty taught us anything. People just want to be told 229 00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:31,559 what's doing what to believe. If they're not being told 230 00:19:31,559 --> 00:19:33,920 what's doing what to believe anymore, they're going to look elsewhere. 231 00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:39,839 Another and final illustration of the thesis that effective collective 232 00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:43,559 bodies are immune to the appeal of mass movements, but 233 00:19:43,599 --> 00:19:47,000 that a crumbling collective pattern is the most favorable milieu 234 00:19:47,759 --> 00:19:50,079 for their rise is found in the relation between the 235 00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:53,519 collective body we know as an army and mass movements. 236 00:19:54,079 --> 00:19:56,839 There is hardly an instance of an intact army given 237 00:19:56,920 --> 00:20:00,960 rise to a religious, revolutionary or nationalist movement. On the 238 00:20:00,960 --> 00:20:04,279 other hand, a disintegrating army, whether by the orderly process 239 00:20:04,319 --> 00:20:09,240 of demobilization or by desertion due to demoralization, is fertile 240 00:20:09,279 --> 00:20:12,640 ground for a proselytizing movement. The man just out of 241 00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:16,079 an army is an idea potential convert, and we find 242 00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:19,519 him among the early adherents of all contemporary mass movements. 243 00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:22,680 He feels alone and lost in the free for all 244 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:26,960 of civilian life, the responsibilities and uncertainties of an autonomous 245 00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:31,359 existence weigh and prey upon him. He longs for certitude, camaraderie, 246 00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:35,440 freedom from individual responsibility, and a vision of something altogether 247 00:20:35,519 --> 00:20:39,160 different from the competitive free society around him. And he 248 00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:44,680 finds all of this in the brotherhood and revivalist atmosphere 249 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:51,680 of a rising movement. So again, what he appears to 250 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:58,960 be arguing is that competitive free societies are at the top, 251 00:20:59,359 --> 00:21:06,119 that's what you want, and anything below it is just 252 00:21:06,519 --> 00:21:12,960 an excuse for people who can't compete. Not that it's 253 00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:20,680 in many people's nature not to want that. So if 254 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:22,799 it's not in their nature to want that, and it's 255 00:21:22,839 --> 00:21:29,400 being forced upon them, if it's being socially engineered into 256 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:34,640 a collective a society that's always been collective, then of 257 00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:38,480 course that person is going to once he realizes that 258 00:21:39,039 --> 00:21:43,079 everything is being torn apart, they're going to seek to collect, 259 00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:48,640 recollect of us. And you have societies right now where 260 00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:53,720 that individualism has been preached for one hundred years, and 261 00:21:53,759 --> 00:21:58,279 now people are seeking to recollective us. And the people 262 00:21:58,319 --> 00:22:02,119 who have most bought into it and cheerlead it are 263 00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:08,200 scared as I'm sure as as apparent, mister Hoffer is 264 00:22:08,279 --> 00:22:10,559 you know when he considers considering. He wrote this in 265 00:22:10,599 --> 00:22:21,279 fifty one What he just Saw, Part six. Misfits. The 266 00:22:21,319 --> 00:22:25,119 frustration of misfits can vary in intensity. There are first 267 00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:27,960 to temporary misfits, people who have not found their place 268 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:31,359 in life but still hope to find it. Adolescent youth, unemployed, 269 00:22:31,359 --> 00:22:35,400 college graduates, veterans, new immigrants, and the like of this category. 270 00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:38,720 They are restless, dissatisfied, and haunted by the fear that 271 00:22:38,759 --> 00:22:41,440 their best years will be wasted before they reached their goal. 272 00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:45,000 They are receptive to the preaching of a proselytizing movement, 273 00:22:45,039 --> 00:22:48,960 and yet do not always make staunch converts, for they 274 00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:52,839 are not irregavably strange from the self. They do not 275 00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:56,119 see it as irredeemably spoiled. It is easy for them 276 00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:59,680 to conceive an autonomous existence that is purposeful and hopeful. 277 00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:03,799 The slightest evidence of progress and success reconciles them with 278 00:23:03,839 --> 00:23:08,440 the world and their selves. The role of veterans in 279 00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:10,599 the rise of mass movements has been touched upon in 280 00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:14,160 section thirty five. A prolonged war by national armies is 281 00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:16,799 likely to be followed by a period of social unrest 282 00:23:17,319 --> 00:23:20,960 for the victors and vanquished alike. The reason is neither 283 00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:25,240 the unleashing of passions and the taste of violence during wartime, 284 00:23:25,559 --> 00:23:27,720 nor the loss of faith in a social order that 285 00:23:27,799 --> 00:23:31,319 could not prevent so enormous and meaningless a waste of 286 00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:34,359 life and wealth. It is rather due to the prolonged 287 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,200 breaking the civilian routine of the millions enrolled in the 288 00:23:37,279 --> 00:23:41,519 national armies. The returning soldiers find it difficult to recapture 289 00:23:41,519 --> 00:23:45,000 the rhythm of their pre war lives. The readjustment to 290 00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,240 peace and home is slow and painful, and the country 291 00:23:48,319 --> 00:23:52,240 is flooded with temporary misfits. Thus, it seems that the 292 00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,559 passage from war to peace is more critical from an 293 00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,359 established order than the passage from peace to war. I mean, 294 00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:02,079 the implication he's making here is that people who are 295 00:24:02,079 --> 00:24:06,039 born into a deracinated society, if they go into and 296 00:24:06,319 --> 00:24:10,359 using the example of the military, where they are hyper 297 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:15,519 collectivized when they get out, he's basically calling them misfits 298 00:24:16,519 --> 00:24:29,160 or temporary misfits. It's yeah, I'll keep going. The permanent 299 00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:31,680 misfits are those who, because of a lack of talent 300 00:24:31,799 --> 00:24:35,880 or some irreparable defect in body or mind cannot do 301 00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:40,119 the one thing for which their whole being craves. No achievement, however, 302 00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:43,200 spectacular in other fields can give them a sense of fulfillment. 303 00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:48,680 Whatever they undertake becomes a passionate pursuit, but they never arrive, 304 00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,000 never pause. They demonstrate the fact that we can never 305 00:24:52,079 --> 00:24:55,160 have enough of that which we really do not want, 306 00:24:55,599 --> 00:24:58,359 and that we run fastest and farthest when we run 307 00:24:58,759 --> 00:25:02,599 from ourselves. The permanent misfits can find salvation only in 308 00:25:02,599 --> 00:25:05,720 a complete separation from the self, and they usually find 309 00:25:05,759 --> 00:25:08,519 it by losing themselves in the compact collectivity of a 310 00:25:08,559 --> 00:25:13,720 mass movement. So basically, he's saying that if you're somebody 311 00:25:13,759 --> 00:25:19,200 who feels compelled to be a part of a collective, 312 00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:29,119 you're considered a permanent misfit, and there's no other thing here. 313 00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:33,559 The most incurably frustrated and therefore the most vehement among 314 00:25:33,559 --> 00:25:36,519 the permanent misfits are those with an unfulfilled craving for 315 00:25:36,599 --> 00:25:41,400 creative work, both those who try to write, paint, compose, etc. 316 00:25:41,799 --> 00:25:45,440 And fail decisively and those who, after tasting the elation 317 00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:48,599 of creativeness, feel a drying up of the creative flow 318 00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,240 within and know that never again will they produce aught 319 00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:57,519 aught worthwhile are alike in the grip of a desperate passion. 320 00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:02,640 Neither fame, nor power, nor riches, or even monumental achievements 321 00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:06,359 in other fields can still their hunger. Even the wholehearted 322 00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,720 dedication to a holy cause does not always cure them. 323 00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:15,319 Their unappeased hunger persists, and they are likely to become 324 00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,680 the most violent extremists in the service of their holy cause. 325 00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:28,839 All right, Part seven. The inordinately selfish. The inordinately selfish 326 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,519 are particularly susceptible to frustration. The more selfish a person, 327 00:26:32,559 --> 00:26:37,440 the more poignant his disappointments. It is the inordinately selfish, therefore, 328 00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:41,240 who are likely to be the most persuasive champions of selflessness. 329 00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,119 The fiercest fanatics are often selfish people who were forced 330 00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,359 by innate shortcomings or external circumstances to lose faith in 331 00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:53,039 their own selves. They separate the excellent instrument of their 332 00:26:53,039 --> 00:26:56,599 selfishness from their ineffectual selves and attaches to the services 333 00:26:56,599 --> 00:27:00,559 some holy cause. And though it be a f of 334 00:27:00,599 --> 00:27:04,160 love and humility they adopt, they can be neither loving 335 00:27:04,599 --> 00:27:10,119 nor humble. Basically, what I'm getting out of all this 336 00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:20,839 is that he is properly diagnosing. He's making a picture, 337 00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:24,079 painting a picture of the of what the world looks like, 338 00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:31,799 of what how people act. But I don't how he 339 00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:37,039 says they get there seems to just ignore human nature. 340 00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:43,440 It seems to be the very I hate to bring 341 00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:48,680 this up because I always do libertarian and nature. Everybody 342 00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,839 wants to be free, everybody. If I could just teach 343 00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:56,640 everybody about liberty, about individual liberty, they'd want to be free. 344 00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:05,160 Well that's not true. It's just patently false. So he is. 345 00:28:05,839 --> 00:28:09,960 I mean, he's basically calling people who seek to collectivize 346 00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,400 and be part of a group. You know, he's talking 347 00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:18,519 about mass movements here, and he seems to be thinking 348 00:28:18,599 --> 00:28:21,440 that the reason people join mass movements is because they're 349 00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:29,160 frustrated in their failures in being individuals in an individual society. 350 00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:40,799 Not what's a more I mean logical and empirical reason 351 00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:47,240 that people want to collective us. People exist in groups, 352 00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,920 and they always have, they always will. And any kind 353 00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:55,440 of radical individualism where you're trying to just tear people 354 00:28:55,480 --> 00:29:01,079 apart from one another, is going to be some kind 355 00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:05,599 of movement to get back to where where they believe 356 00:29:06,319 --> 00:29:13,720 they naturally belong in my opinion, Part eight, the ambitious 357 00:29:13,759 --> 00:29:20,319 facing unlimited opportunities. Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a 358 00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:25,400 cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities. 359 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,720 I assume paucity. I'm not familiar with that word, but 360 00:29:29,079 --> 00:29:31,200 looks like pauper to me, so it would be like 361 00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:40,240 a severe just not having. I think lack of opportunities 362 00:29:40,359 --> 00:29:47,319 explains it better poor. When opportunities are apparently unlimited, there 363 00:29:47,359 --> 00:29:50,920 is an inevitable depression of the present. The attitude is 364 00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,039 all that I am doing or possibly can do is 365 00:29:54,119 --> 00:29:58,759 chicken feed compared to what is left undone, such as 366 00:29:58,759 --> 00:30:02,200 the frustration which broods over gold camps and haunts taught 367 00:30:02,319 --> 00:30:07,000 minds in boom times. Hence the remarkable fact that, joined 368 00:30:07,039 --> 00:30:10,000 with the ruthless self seeking which seems to be the 369 00:30:10,039 --> 00:30:14,079 main spring of gold hunters, land grabbers, and other get 370 00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,720 rich quick enthusiasts, there is an excessive readiness for self 371 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:23,599 sacrifice and united action. Patriotism, racial solidarity, and even the 372 00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:27,000 preaching of revolution find a more ready response among people 373 00:30:27,039 --> 00:30:31,599 who see limitless opportunities spread out before them than among 374 00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,240 those who move within the fixed limits of a familiar, 375 00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:42,000 orderly and predictable pattern of existence. Someone explained this to 376 00:30:42,039 --> 00:30:44,279 me because I have no clue what he's talking about. 377 00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,480 So gold hunters, land grabbers and other get rich quick 378 00:30:50,599 --> 00:31:01,920 enthusiasts are more susceptible to collectivize and patriotism, racial solidarity, 379 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:13,839 and even the preaching of revolution. I I'm not part 380 00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:18,680 nine minorities. A minority is in a precarious position, however 381 00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:23,119 protected it be by law or force. The frustration engendered 382 00:31:23,119 --> 00:31:26,799 by the unavoidable sense of insecurity is less intense in 383 00:31:26,839 --> 00:31:30,759 a minority intense on preserving its identity than in one 384 00:31:30,839 --> 00:31:36,279 bents upon dissolving in and blending with the majority. A 385 00:31:36,319 --> 00:31:40,920 majority which preserves its identity is inevitably a compact whole, 386 00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,119 which shelters the individual, gives them a sense of belonging, 387 00:31:44,279 --> 00:31:48,920 and immunizes him against frustration. On the other hand, and 388 00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:54,359 a minority bents on assimilation, the individual stands alone, pitted 389 00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,000 against prejudice and discrimination. He is also burdened with the 390 00:31:58,079 --> 00:32:02,680 sense of guilt, however vague or of a renegade. The 391 00:32:02,799 --> 00:32:07,000 orthodox Jew is less frustrated than the emancipated Jew. The 392 00:32:07,039 --> 00:32:10,119 segregated Negro in the South is less frustrated than the 393 00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:17,440 non segregated Negro in the North, because they're among their people. 394 00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:25,039 They're in their where nature wants them, where God wants them. 395 00:32:25,599 --> 00:32:32,559 Use whateverever rationalization you want. Again. With a minority bents 396 00:32:32,599 --> 00:32:37,359 on assimilation, the least and most successful economically and culturally 397 00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,160 are likely to be more frustrated than those in between. 398 00:32:41,039 --> 00:32:44,279 The man who fails sees himself as an outsider, and 399 00:32:44,359 --> 00:32:46,480 in the case of a member of a minority group 400 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:49,680 who wants to blend with the majority, failure intensifies the 401 00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:54,920 feeling of not belonging. A similar feeling crops up at 402 00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,960 the other end of the economic and cultural scale. Those 403 00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,480 of a minority who it's fortune and fame often find 404 00:33:01,519 --> 00:33:04,519 it difficult to can entrance into the exclusive circles of 405 00:33:04,559 --> 00:33:10,440 the majority. They are thus made conscious of their foreignness. Furthermore, 406 00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:13,960 having evidence of their individual superiority, they resent the admission 407 00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:20,880 of inferiority implied in the process of assimilation. Thus, it 408 00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,160 is to be expected that the least and most successful 409 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,599 of a minority bent on assimilation should be the most 410 00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:34,279 responsive to the appeal of a proselytizing mass movement. Least 411 00:33:34,279 --> 00:33:39,519 and most successful of minority bents on a similiation. The 412 00:33:39,599 --> 00:33:42,559 least and most successful among the Italian Americans were the 413 00:33:42,559 --> 00:33:46,440 most ardent admirers of Mussolini's Revolution. The least and most 414 00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,759 successful among the Irish Americans were the most responsive to 415 00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,720 the de valorous call. The least and most successful among 416 00:33:53,759 --> 00:33:57,480 the Jews are the most responsive to Zionism. The least 417 00:33:57,519 --> 00:34:01,559 and most successful among the Negroes are the most race conscious. 418 00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:08,079 I'm the least and most successful among the Jews are 419 00:34:08,119 --> 00:34:15,360 the most responsive to Zionism. Rothschild, who was probably in 420 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:22,039 nineteen seventeen the richest man in the world. Arguments could 421 00:34:22,039 --> 00:34:27,000 be made one of at least controlled banking in many countries. 422 00:34:29,599 --> 00:34:35,159 He's the least responsive Desionism as he's getting the mandate 423 00:34:35,199 --> 00:34:42,559 for Palestine. This doesn't make any sense to me. The 424 00:34:42,639 --> 00:34:44,920 least and most successful among the Negroes are the most 425 00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:55,880 race conscious. Okay, maybe because all of these groups have 426 00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:02,119 been you know, the group have been deracinated, have had 427 00:35:02,119 --> 00:35:15,760 their collectivism attacked, have been propagandized with individualism, and their 428 00:35:16,119 --> 00:35:21,360 main response is to return to the collective. And I 429 00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,760 know there's grifters out there in all of these but 430 00:35:28,079 --> 00:35:35,199 there I think as underlying premises are just wrong ten 431 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:39,679 the board. There's perhaps no more reliable indicator of a 432 00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,400 society's ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of 433 00:35:42,679 --> 00:35:47,039 unrelieved boredom. In almost all the descriptions of the periods 434 00:35:47,079 --> 00:35:49,920 preceding the rise of mass movements, there is reference to 435 00:35:50,039 --> 00:35:55,559 vast anui. In anui and in their earliest stage, mass 436 00:35:55,599 --> 00:35:58,800 movement are more likely to find sympathizers in support among 437 00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:03,320 the board than the exploited and oppressed. To a deliberate 438 00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:07,599 fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored 439 00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:11,000 stiff should be at least as encouraging as they are 440 00:36:11,519 --> 00:36:18,159 suffering from intolerable economic and political abuses. People weren't bored 441 00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:23,559 until industrial society. People had to work, people had to 442 00:36:23,599 --> 00:36:28,280 provide for themselves, They worked with their own hands. Industrial 443 00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:34,719 society what some might call capitalism. I think industrial society. 444 00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,280 And you know, Thomas said this, and I agree one 445 00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:41,679 hundred percent, and we're just going off of what Ted 446 00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:48,679 Kaczynski wrote. Yeah, this industrial society is probably a better term. 447 00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:55,480 People weren't bored. People weren't sitting around doing nothing until 448 00:36:56,320 --> 00:37:00,760 industrial society and all these riches came along and governments 449 00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:06,239 could give hand. I mean, these are modern problems. This 450 00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:14,760 is the problems of modernity. This isn't the natural state 451 00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:20,000 of things. Is people on their family farms, working their 452 00:37:20,039 --> 00:37:25,760 whole lives until they die. Maybe they buy some more land, 453 00:37:26,159 --> 00:37:29,039 they maybe they do some traveling, but they always come home. 454 00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:33,800 And we've been so propaganda as to believe that that's 455 00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:42,800 backwards or you know, or you know how the Industrial 456 00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:54,239 Revolution just basically created jobs, wage jobs that were city 457 00:37:54,400 --> 00:38:00,639 jobs and jobs and great zip codes where people didn't 458 00:38:00,679 --> 00:38:03,039 have to work on the farm anymore. It didn't have 459 00:38:03,039 --> 00:38:05,199 to work their only didn't have to work with their hands, 460 00:38:06,519 --> 00:38:09,000 or were socially engineered to believe that that was the 461 00:38:09,039 --> 00:38:14,239 way we were supposed to go. There's a bigger problem 462 00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:19,559 here that mister Hoffer is not addressing. When people are bored, 463 00:38:19,599 --> 00:38:22,199 it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. 464 00:38:23,679 --> 00:38:26,400 The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main 465 00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,679 fountain head of boredom. People who are not conscious of 466 00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,679 their individual separateness, as is the case with those who 467 00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:37,119 are members of a compact tribe, church, party, etc. Are 468 00:38:37,119 --> 00:38:43,920 not accessible to boredom. The difference to all of a sentence, 469 00:38:45,199 --> 00:38:48,320 The differentiated individual is free of boredom only when he 470 00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:52,119 has engaged either in creative work or some absorbing occupation, 471 00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,039 or when he is wholly engrossed in the struggle for existence. 472 00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:03,320 I mean this is opposite world Pleasure chasing and dissipation 473 00:39:03,599 --> 00:39:08,519 are ineffective palliatives. Where people live autonomous lives and are 474 00:39:08,519 --> 00:39:12,039 not badly off yet or without abilities or opportunities for 475 00:39:12,119 --> 00:39:15,079 creative work or useful action, there is no telling to 476 00:39:15,119 --> 00:39:18,599 what desperate and fantastic shifts they might resort in order 477 00:39:18,639 --> 00:39:24,119 to give meaning and purpose to their lives. Again, I'm 478 00:39:24,159 --> 00:39:30,440 just seeing industrial society in its future right here. It's 479 00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:36,079 well what do they do? What do people do? Certain people, 480 00:39:36,079 --> 00:39:40,119 if they have, if they're pre disposed to it, become 481 00:39:41,119 --> 00:39:46,119 over socialized, meaning that they see the government as to 482 00:39:46,199 --> 00:39:51,159 be all in, all of everything, and that has nothing 483 00:39:51,199 --> 00:39:59,199 to do with that that was engineered. And people can say, well, 484 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:01,920 the government is collective, so being part of the government, 485 00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:03,440 you know, wanting to be on the side of the 486 00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:07,079 government or looking towards the government is you know a way. Yeah, 487 00:40:07,079 --> 00:40:15,440 but that's artificial. It's not something that's natural, especially the 488 00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:20,119 modern government. I could even see monarchies in the past, 489 00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:27,440 or you know, Holy Roman Empire or Spain under the 490 00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:35,360 Catholic Church. Sure no boredom accounts for the almost invariable 491 00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,880 presence of spinsters and middle aged women at the birth 492 00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,599 of mass movements. Even in the case of Islam and 493 00:40:42,639 --> 00:40:46,159 the National Socialist movement, which found upon feminine activity outside 494 00:40:46,199 --> 00:40:48,679 the home, we find women of a certain type playing 495 00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,239 an important role in the early stage of their development. 496 00:40:53,159 --> 00:40:56,400 Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement. 497 00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,000 It offers them a new purpose in life, a future, 498 00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,920 and a new identity, a new name. The boredom of 499 00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:06,400 spinsters and of women who can no longer find joy 500 00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,280 and fulfillment and marriage stems from an awareness of a barren, 501 00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:14,880 spoiled life. By embracing a holy cause, in dedicating their 502 00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,880 energies and substance to its advancement, they find a new 503 00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,159 life full of purpose and meaning. Hitler made full use 504 00:41:21,199 --> 00:41:24,119 of the society ladies thirsting for adventure, sick of their 505 00:41:24,159 --> 00:41:26,960 empty lives, no longer getting a kick out of love affairs. 506 00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,360 He was financed by the wives of some of the 507 00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:34,639 great industrialists, long before their husbands had heard of him. 508 00:41:34,639 --> 00:41:37,440 Miriam Beard tells of a similar role played by boared 509 00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:41,679 wives of businessmen before the French Revolution. They were devastated 510 00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:46,760 with boredom and given to fits of the vapors. Restlessly, 511 00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:52,800 they applauded innovators, and I hope he's I hope he's 512 00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:57,840 making the argument here that marriage and they say marriage 513 00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,800 has for many women equivalents of joining up mass movement. 514 00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:10,960 I mean, what argument are you trying to make? This 515 00:42:11,079 --> 00:42:16,519 is to argue anything different, and to argue against marriage 516 00:42:16,559 --> 00:42:24,639 is to argue against our history of humanity. Part eleven, 517 00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:28,719 The Sinners. The sardonic remark that patriotism is the last 518 00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:33,440 refuge of scoundrels has also a less derogatory meaning. Fervent patriotism, 519 00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,800 as well as religious and revolutionary enthusiasm, often serves as 520 00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:41,039 a refuge from a guilty conscience. It is a strange 521 00:42:41,079 --> 00:42:43,880 thing that both the injurer and the injured, the sinner 522 00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:46,400 and he who is sinned against, should find in the 523 00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:50,239 mass movement and escape from a blemish life. Remorse and 524 00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:52,880 a sense of grievance seems to drive people in the 525 00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:58,320 same direction. It sometimes seems that mass movements are custom 526 00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:01,079 made to fit the needs of the criminal, not only 527 00:43:01,119 --> 00:43:03,280 for the catharsis of his soul, but also for the 528 00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:09,119 exercise of his inclinations and talents. The technique of a 529 00:43:09,199 --> 00:43:13,239 proselytizing mass movement aims to evoke in the faithful the 530 00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:17,079 mood and frame of a mind of a repentant criminal 531 00:43:18,119 --> 00:43:21,159 self surrender, which is, as will be shown in Part three, 532 00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:23,800 the source of a mass movement's unity and vigor is 533 00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:27,440 a sacrifice, an act of atonement, and clearly no atonement 534 00:43:27,559 --> 00:43:29,760 is called for unless there is a poignant sense of 535 00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:38,280 sin is elsewhere. The technique of a mass movement aims 536 00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:40,880 to infect people with a malady and then offer the 537 00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:45,000 movement as a cure. A what if there actually is 538 00:43:45,199 --> 00:43:50,960 a malady? What if there actually is a sickness? And 539 00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:58,320 what if that sickness is liberalism? And I'm not talking 540 00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:05,280 about you know, blue haired, I'm talking about liberalism, classical 541 00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:08,679 put whatever you want on in front of him. What 542 00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,480 a task confronts the American clergy, laments in American divine 543 00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:15,559 preaching the good news of a savior to people who, 544 00:44:15,599 --> 00:44:18,000 for the most part, have no real sense of sin. 545 00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:22,360 An effective mass movement cultivates the idea of sin It 546 00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:25,360 depicts the autonomous self not only as barren and helpless, 547 00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:29,719 but also as vile to confess and repents, to slough 548 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:35,960 off one's individual distinctness and separateness, and salvation is found 549 00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,400 by losing oneself. In the holy oneness of the congregation, 550 00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:43,239 there is a tender spot for the criminal and an 551 00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:47,119 ardent wooing of him in all mass movements. Saint Bernard, 552 00:44:47,119 --> 00:44:50,880 the moving spirit of the Second Crusade, thus appealed for recruits, 553 00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:54,199 for what is it but an exquisite and priceless chance 554 00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,360 of salvation due to God alone, that the omnipotent should 555 00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,960 deign to summon to his service as though they were 556 00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:06,880 innocent murderers, ravishers, adulterers, perjurers, and those guilty of every crime. 557 00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:12,000 Revolutionary Russia too had a tender spot for the common criminal, 558 00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:18,599 though it is ruthless with the heretic the ideological deviationist. 559 00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:21,679 It is perhaps true that the criminal who embraces a 560 00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,239 holy cause is more ready to risk his life and 561 00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,960 go to extremes in its defense than people who are 562 00:45:27,039 --> 00:45:30,760 awed by the sanctity of life and property. Or if 563 00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,480 you know that you have and every society has them, 564 00:45:35,079 --> 00:45:37,360 people who are prones of violence. People who are prone 565 00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:40,320 to murder, Yeah, I might want to throw them into 566 00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:47,079 the military. I'm not saying psychopaths. I'm talking about people. 567 00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:52,360 There are people who are just natural warriors. I mean, 568 00:45:52,400 --> 00:46:02,320 he's talking about criminals here. Well, it's this just doesn't 569 00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:08,039 A lot of what he's talking about doesn't comport with reality. Sure, 570 00:46:08,039 --> 00:46:11,440 if you're going to war, you want people, and you're 571 00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:16,239 looking for volunteers, you want people who not only believe 572 00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:22,639 in the cause, but have the ability to do what 573 00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:35,440 war is meant to do, to kill. I mean Jie 574 00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:42,599 mentions the Russia, the revolutionary Russia. Of course, crime is 575 00:46:42,639 --> 00:46:46,760 to some extent a substitute for a mass movement where opinion, 576 00:46:47,039 --> 00:46:50,199 where opinion and law enforcement are not too stringent, and 577 00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:54,159 poverty not absolute, the underground pressure of malcontents and misfits 578 00:46:54,199 --> 00:46:56,920 often leaks out in crime. It has been observed that 579 00:46:56,960 --> 00:46:59,760 in the exultation, in the exultation of mass movements, whether 580 00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:06,239 pay tratic, religious, or revolutionary, common crime declines. All right, 581 00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:09,599 got up to part three, United Action and self sacrifice, 582 00:47:09,639 --> 00:47:17,159 And I'm gonna stop right there. Ah comments in on 583 00:47:17,199 --> 00:47:20,239 this probably more than any other book I've read for you, 584 00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:24,639 just because I mean I people are told to read 585 00:47:24,639 --> 00:47:27,360 this book all the time. Oh, read this book. You know, 586 00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:33,719 it's great about read this book. It you know, tells 587 00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:40,519 you why people do. Maybe this book explains why thrascinating 588 00:47:40,599 --> 00:47:45,360 people from their culture causes people to want to seek 589 00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:53,480 to get back into collective groups. All right, that's it. 590 00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,599 See on part four. Thank you, take care of everyone.