Eric Hoffer Quotes
To the old, the new is usually bad news.
Hoffer, Eric. Reflections on the Human Condition. Harper & Row, 1973.
5th Earl of Rosebery. At this point in history, America was growing rapidly, but had not yet become a dominant superpower. Rosebery was prescient enough to realize that although England was the great superpower of the time, the very conservative values were holding the nation back. He saw America as the model, even when England was still the dominant empire in the world.
While this is often true, it is another Mises exaggeration using the word “every” in this quotation. Darwin’s theory of evolution was immediately accepted by most other scientists and intellectuals. The opponents then were the religious fundamentalists. The same is true today. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was accepted by most other scientist as soon as they read it and worked out the mathematics. That was before there was any physical or experimental evidence, which did not come till 1919.
Eric Hoffer was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer (1951), was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that The Ordeal of Change was his finest work.
