Maybe it’s just the times we live in, but I’ve gotten some terse, simmering emails from readers of my 1-page summary of Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer. People are upset about…stuff. Trump. Radical Islam. Other stuff.
True Believer explains how mass movements arise and succeed (or fail). Prompted by the emails and my renewed interest in religion, I began to re-read the book. Boy am I glad I did. Powerful, perceptive, punchy writing.
So I wanted to share again my summary and recommend the original book.
A few of my favorite excerpts:
For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power. They must also have an extravagant conception of the prospects and potentialities of the future. Finally, they must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Experience is a handicap.
The Japanese had an advantage over us in that they admired us more than we admired them. They could hate us more fervently than we could hate them. The Americans are poor haters in international affairs because of their innate feeling of superiority over all foreigners. An American’s hatred for a fellow American (for Hoover or Roosevelt) is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners. It is of interest that the backward South shows more xenophobia than the rest of the country. Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves. Thus when the frustrated congregate in a mass movement, the air is heavy-laden with suspicion. There is prying and spying, tense watching and a tense awareness of being watched. The surprising thing is that this pathological mistrust within the ranks leads not to dissension but to strict conformity.
And I wrote a follow-up essay on how every mass movement requires 3 types of leaders (sometimes embodied in one exceptional person): the Intellectual, the Fanatic, and the Man of Action.