🤔

Ce qui importe aux bureaucrates, ce n’est pas de savoir si ce qu’ils font a du sens, mais si cela correspond à la routine. Sortir de la routine est à la fois gênant et dangereux, car cela implique d’assumer personnellement la responsabilité des conséquences. L’un des traits caractéristiques des bureaucrates est l’évitement de la responsabilité personnelle. Une chose que tous les bureaucrates ont en commun est l’idée que la bureaucratie n’a jamais tort. Si quelque chose a mal tourné, ce doit forcément être la faute de quelqu’un d’autre, de préférence celle de la personne qui se plaint de la bureaucratie. Toute preuve pouvant démontrer qu’ils ont tort est probablement dissimulée.

Hoffer said: “The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.” People who are fulfilled in their own lives and careers are not the ones attracted to mass movements: “A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding,” Hoffer said. “When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.” What Hoffer was describing was the political busybody, the zealot for a cause — the “true believer,” who filled the ranks of ideological movements that created the totalitarian tyrannies of the 20th century.

“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.” - Eric Hoffer

“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.” - Eric Hoffer