Steal This Book Style

Steal This Book Style

Zeitgeist

The German term zeitgeist means "the spirit of the time." It is often possible to relate the time in which an author was working to the moral and intellectual trends that prevailed when she or he was writing. For instance, the wealth and hedonism of the jazz age are important clues to understanding The Great Gatsby. In the case of Steal This Book, it would be almost impossible to separate the zeitgeist of 1960s America from Hoffman's writing style. The book is disorganized, repeating some advice and straying off its stated mission at what appears to be the author's whim. For instance, the section on "knife fighting" has little to do with the political subject of fighting off police oppression, assuming that no police anywhere use knives to attack criminal suspects; it is more likely a subject Hoffman had experienced and felt like including in this guide, despite the irrelevance. Because the spirit of the time gravitated toward freedom and rebellion, the book is free to drift toward the sort of irrelevancies that would be considered distractions if included in books written for a different audience.

Tone

Almost as important as the advice given in Steal This Book is the tone that Hoffman takes throughout the work. It is his tone that conveys his attitude. Though the practicality of many of his tips might be questioned, what is clear is that he takes a consistent attitude throughout. This book offered some useful tips and many ideas that were not even realistic when it was first published. Over time, many of the corporate interests Hoffman encourages readers to "rip off" have refined their security measures in order to avoid being victimized by the kinds of malicious crimes he describes. Still, this is a useful document because it conveys through its tone a way of looking at the world that was prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s.

The book's tone is set by the use of the word "pig." Though the word later came to be used mainly as an insult toward police, Hoffman uses it here to describe anyone who is greedy, lazy, and small-minded. His assumption is that these are the attributes shared by those in power, making anyone who is part of the economic system a "pig," and thereby a fair victim of robbery, "trashing," and violence. The word is frequently used to refer to members of the police force, but that is because they are the members of the establishment with which readers would most likely come into contact if they followed the book's guidelines. In general though, the police, corporate employees, politicians, and business owners are all workers for what Hoffman refers to as the "Pig Empire."

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