Eric Hoffer - The Longshoreman Philosopher

At Ferrin Enterprises, we train the business owners of tomorrow.

Through experience we know that it is not always book learning that guarantees success. Indeed the ‘School of Hard Knocks’ is a great university, preparing future leaders to deal with challenges and hard work.

Sometimes the biggest challenge our trainees face is a lack of confidence in their own ability. Our first task as trainers then is to to open them up to the learning experience.

Have you guys ever heard of Eric Hoffer?
When the trainees come to us, it is often not straight out of school. Sometimes, they have been around the block a few times. For a few, their graduation was from the School of Hard Knocks If not, then you should know that he was an American writer and philospher. He was born in the Bronx in 1902, to Elsa and Knut Hoffer, immigrants from Alsace.

By the age of five, he could read in both German and English but then his mother fell down a set of stairs with Eric in her arms and as a result of that trauma he went blind. At 15, Eric’s eyesight returned and ever after he was a voracious reader, fearing that one day he may lost the precious gift of sight again.

Hoffer was a young man when his father, Knut, died. Knut had been a cabinetmaker and so the cabinetmakers union paid for the funeral and clubbed together to give young Eric three hundred dollars. The money got Eric to Los Angeles and there he spent the next ten years living on Skid Row, odd-jobbing and occasionally writing.

In 1931, at the age of 29, Eric decided he had had enough and attempted suicide by drinking a solution of oxalic acid. The attempt failed but the experience taught Eric how precious life was and from then on he determined to live life to the full.

Becoming a migrant worker he followed the harvests visiting the libraries in each town he passed and spending his time, as he said, “between the books and the brothels.”

In 1942, he tried to enlist but was denied because of a medical condition. He instead became a longeshoreman  and in between the hard phsical labor of loading and unloading ships he began, at last, to write.

Today Eric Hoffer is known not for his early life as a bum and a wanderer. His days as a migrant worker informed his writings and gave his words depth but it is not for the time in the fields, which shaped his philosophy, that he is respected. It is his words that he is remembered for, in books such as: The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements, The Ordeal Of Change and Truth Imagined.

Eric Hoffer died in 1983. He has had several dedications named after him including a bust by sculptor Johnathon Hirschfield and a Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by Ronald Reagan and in 2001, The Eric Hoffer Award for books and prose was launched internationally.
For us here at Ferrin Enterprises, where we want you to love to learn, our favorite saying from Eric Hoffer is:

“In times of change the learner shall inherit the earth, while the learned finds themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Think about that.