Talk:Eric Hoffer
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In Truth Imagined (posthumously published autobiography) Hoffer says that his mother and himself suffered from a fall (presumably on stairs or something of that nature) when he was young -- it was that fall that was the cause of his mother dying (I don't recall if it was one or two years later) and relates to his blindness.
Downchuck 09:16, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Collected Works
When will we see the Collected Writings of Eric Hoffer in one volume, with notes and index? Hoffer's TV appearance in the 1960s, when I was a teen, made him talked about for some years, but he since faded from the collective radar screen. I wonder when he will make his comeback.
The future will ask itself: why did the vast majority of Americans prove immune to the seductiveness of Marxism? The answer is that millions of ordinary Americans had gut reactions more or less like Hoffer's; behind Marxism they saw the ambition, even violence, of a certain segment of the educated middle class, whose pawns they rightly refused to be. Hoffer simply had the wide reading, and the personal gift, to articulate carefully what tens of millions of Americans knew in their guts: the world we all share has its ups and downs, but turning it over to eager bureaucrats with utopian agendas will not improve it.202.36.179.65 12:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] California Employment
Does anybody have more info on his working in California? If he indeed did (and for how long) work at the Naval shipyard? Some of the info in the 3rd paragraph seems to overlap some - but I donb't knwo enough to know how to rewrite it... And also, has there been any other references to his reason for enlisting?
[edit] Hoeffer Jewish
I would like to determine the source of Hoffer's Jewish ancestry. Sowell said he was but Hoffer said that he first learned of the Jewish tradition from an employer in Los Angeles. Of his unnamed father he merely referes to him as the "villige atheist. wsharp407@adelphia.net
[edit] criticism?
Where could I find some criticism of Hoffer?
[edit] Quotes
Do the quotes really need to be here? I believe that they should just be moved to wikiquote, then taken out of the page.-Hairchrm 20:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Disputed neutrality
I dispute the neutrality of this article. For example, consider the following passage:
He discovered that fanaticism and self-righteousness are rooted in self-hatred, self-doubt, and insecurity. As he describes in The True Believer, a passionate obsession with the outside world or with the private lives of other people is merely a craven attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life.
Hoffer did not "discover" such things; he formulated theories upon them. The article seems slanted towards an overly sympathetic view of Hoffer's theories. At the very least, it should contain some criticism of his ideas.
74.194.105.161 04:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)specific sandwich
