Thanks to reader Neunder for calling our attention to a piece that we missed from the Winter Issue of the Salisbury Review. That strange Anthony Daniels byline often trips us up. “Conservative Classic” is a regular feature of the magazine wherein a writer reviews a classic work of conservative thought, in Daniels’ case Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer:
Hoffer is not so foolish or simplistic as to suppose that no indignation, anger or dissatisfaction with the nature of political arrangements as they presently are can never be reasonable or justified. He makes a distinction between those movements that have a specific and limited end and those that have a quasi-religious goal whose real end is the eternal and unlimited power of the charismatic leader and his henchmen. He is not a quietist or immobilist who suggests an inner emigration to the world or garden of the pure self, or that nothing can ever be better than it is. There is a difference between wishing to rid oneself of a specific evil or obstacle, and straining after a kind of total liberation from all of life’s little difficulties.
You can access the piece by purchasing the Winter issue online.
This post made my day. I’ve often wondered what Dalrymple thought of Hoffer’s work.
There’s an ungated version.
http://www.salisburyreview.co.uk/complimentary_copy/mag.pdf
Matt, I apologize that we missed your comment and were so late in approving it.