What would Eric Hoffer, The Longshoreman Philosopher, be thinking about now?

We did not need a longshoremen's strike to go with Helene

There have been a lot of stories of outrageous behaviour involving government ineptitude and even seeming hostility toward victims during Hurricane Helene and recovery efforts, including even preventing private citizens from helping with relief. And in the middle of this, we had a longshoremen's strike!

Coincidentally, I read a quote from Eric Hoffer, the Longshoreman Philosopher, from a social media friend, and I wondered what Hoffer might be thinking about recent developments both with the longshoremen (he thought a lot about societal change) and about the response to the hurricane.

There have been many ruinous governmental actions in response to Helene, but we may be about at this point now:

I am once again screaming that the govt is actually a full employment program for theatre kids with otherwise useless liberal arts degrees.

They latch onto useful sounding programs and demand to be paid off before anything can happen.

— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) October 5, 2024

So, here's the old quote from Eric Hoffer which my social media friend has been thinking about. Was Hoffer right decades ago?

Just one of a multitude of trends going on throughout the liberal (positive sense), west I've been trying to wrap my mind around.

Nothing is so unsettling to a social order as the presence of a mass of scribes without suitable employment and an acknowledged status…The explosive component in the contemporary scene is not the clamor of the masses but the self-righteous claims of a multitude of graduates from schools and universities. This army of scribes is clamoring for a society in which planning, regulation, and supervision are paramount and the prerogative of the educated.

They hanker for the scribe’s golden age, for a return to something like the scribe-dominated societies of ancient Egypt, China, and the Europe of the Middle Ages. There is little doubt that the present trend in the new and renovated countries toward social regimentation stems partly from the need to create adequate employment for a large number of scribes." - Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change

Published 2006 (essays on the duality and essentiality of change in man throughout history. (Restored to print by noted author Christopher Klim.)

What happens when the scribes can't read books anymore?

In 1967, government left a small footprint on the lives of individuals. In an interview from that year by CBS’s Eric Sevareid, longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer praises how America is country for the common man and warned about the corruptibility of the all-knowing intellectuals who seek to become puppet-masters.

Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor.

Eric Hoffer

The Longshoremen's Strike

The Longshoremen's strike promised to be a big headache for hurricane recovery and for the Biden/Harris Administration. The strike was put on hold for 3 months yesterday, but cargo is still stacked up. Ron DeSantis promised to keep Florida ports open using the national guard.

Ace has serious questions about the agreement to delay the strike. But don't comment on yesterday's thread.

Ed Morrissey:

Well, my my my. How coincidental is this date? In one fell swoop, Joe Biden and his team not only pushed USMX into increasing the costs of dock labor to end this strike before the election, they also kicked the can down the road long enough to make it a problem for the next president.

This kind of cuts in both directions, too. Obviously, Biden and Kamala Harris needed to deliver for union members while not impacting consumers with shortages and higher prices in the days before an election. But now Biden can wash his hands of the automation issue, and so can Harris if she loses the election. The suspension leaves a stinky turd for Donald Trump if he wins just as he's about to take office, assuming that ILA and USMX can't settle on automation restrictions. And the rapid increase in labor costs built into the wage agreement over the next six years will incentivize USMX to expand automation as much as possible, so don't expect this to get settled without another strike during Inauguration Week.

GayFamilyValues gives the credit to Mayor Pete for negotiating the delay with a conditional 62% pay raise and some sort of agreement to reject automation.

The truckers were not impressed with the strike.

The Daily Caller suggests that we look at foreign shipping companies, too.

Things seem more complex than they were when Eric Hoffer was writing.

Music and Dance

Perhaps

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, September 28, Why is communism rising again?

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

FEATURED COMMENT:

56 I haven't read it, but I want to plug KT's recommendation in the thread yesterday, of Sean McMeekin's The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism.

Posted by: Dr. T at September 29, 2024 09:18 AM
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I recommend reading it in tandem with Hillaire Belloc's The Great Heresies, which I believe is the right way to view Marxism. Certainly the contemporary Christian leaders saw it in that light.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 29, 2024 09:44 AM

Belloc's book, from 1938, is from a Roman Catholic perspective.

Interesting customer review.

posted by K.T. at 11:09 AM

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