The Pursuit of Happiness

By Dan Krotz – Eric Hoffer was among the most remarkable of Americans born in the 20th Century. Orphaned as a young teenager, and blind from ages seven to fifteen, he hitched his way to California after the First World War and spent the next 40 years as a migrant farmworker and then as a longshoreman on the docks in San Francisco.

Hoffer’s period of blindness gave him an unquenchable thirst for reading once he regained his sight. Entirely self-educated, Hoffer said, “When I wasn’t unloading bananas or coffee from the holds of freighters, I spent my time in public libraries.” In 1951, he wrote The True Believer, an abstract but lucid analysis of mass movements that was an instant critical success; it is a well-regarded classic and foretold our most recent political adventure with great accuracy.

Hoffer’s writing was aphoristic, meaning he would formulate a quote, then explain what he meant by the quote. For example, after retirement at age 65, he wrote, “At night I dream of unloading slow boats from China. Dreaming is the work of the retired.”

A Hoffer aphorism or quote I particularly like is. “The sign of a good society and a good government is not in what it builds, but in what it maintains.” Hoffer went on to explain that good maintenance applies to big and small things alike, from securing the intent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to assuring that our roads are smooth and public bathrooms are clean.

It is no secret that we’ve failed to maintain our various infrastructures over the past 50 years, or that our new federal leader has promised to make it right: new airports, safer harbors, speedier freeways, and even wayside rest areas are promised. The details are sketchy, but the main financing scheme weighs heavily toward partnerships between government and for-profit corporations. That means pay as you go toll roads, user fees, and sliding dimes and quarters into fitted slots for the privilege of “resting” along the highway.

I’m not sure that’s what Hoffer meant by his definition of a good society, but then, who knows what anything means anymore.