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Hoffer touches upon a simple but ever-present truth about the human condition and perhaps about everything. If we reach for something, we tend to overreach because (A) our knowledge is always imperfect and (B) our vision is distorted by self-interest. Ignorance and bias; that’s the way we are. Then, when we realize our error, we reverse and try to recover what we had cast away or left behind. That is the way of humans, individually and collectively.

Hoffer (1898-1983) was thinking not about individuals but about mass movements. He was considering chiefly fascism and communism in different countries, how they began as dreams but became nightmares. He was thinking about politics, but the principle prevails everywhere.  It could even appear in our own land.

For instance, does Hoffer’s concern tell us anything about today, about the so-called “polarization” in public opinion between different ideas of government? 

Is the push to reduce various rules and regulations a move, by some, a desire to restore individual freedoms? Or is it something else? Is the objection to that by others based on a desire to maintain order?  Or something else? What of the cultural divisions regarding marriage, abortion, and various life styles? Do they raise freedom verses order issues? (And other issues as well.)  

Can there be a balance between freedom and order?   Individually and collectively? Or must there always be ‘polarization’?