The True Believer: how “crazy people” radically change the world (they may be the only ones who do)

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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.

“He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary”

Still one of my favorite quotes:

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

A remarkable man and a remarkable book. Here were my notes (mostly quotes and excerpts).

Another Thoreau anecdote:

The war had barely begun, the summer of 1846, when a writer, Henry David Thoreau, who lived in Concord, Massachusetts, refused to pay his Massachusetts poll tax, denouncing the Mexican war. He was put in jail and spent one night there. […] His friend and fellow writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, agreed, but thought it futile to protest. When Emerson visited Thoreau in jail and asked, “What are you doing in there?” it was reported that Thoreau replied, “What are you doing out there?” – Howard Zinn, A People’s History

The majestic you versus the redemptive you (a story of two Adams)

Abreha_and_Atsbeha_Church_-_Adam_and_Eve_01For Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam is a very different and changed man between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. He explains this idea in an essay called The Lonely Man of Faith. I came across the concept in a David Brooks lecture.

Genesis 1’s Adam is majestic while Genesis 2’s Adam is covenantal. Adam 1 transforms the world, and is master of his domain, whereas Adam 2 is redemptive and sacrifices a rib to gain a companion in Eve.

“Adam I is the external Adam, it’s the resume Adam,” Brooks explained. “Adam I wants to build, create, use, start things. Adam II is the internal Adam. Adam II wants to embody certain moral qualities, to have a serene inner character, not only to do good but to be good. To live and be is to transcend the truth and have an inner coherence of soul. Adam I, the resume Adam, wants to conquer the world…. Adam II wants to obey a calling and serve the world. Adam I asks how things work, Adam II asks why things exist and what ultimately we’re here for.”

Within each of us are an Adam 1 and an Adam 2 fighting to control our personality, our decisions, our future.

Our Adam 1 wants more and greater, and our Adam 2 wishes to enjoy what we already possess.

Our Adam 1 wants to win, but Adam 2 doesn’t want life to be a competition.

Our Adam 1 wants to do things his way, no matter the cost. Our Adam 2 wishes to work in a team, to compromise and enjoy success together

“I think we mean that [Adam 2] is capable of experiencing large and sonorous emotions, they have a profound spiritual presence,” Brooks said. “In the realm of emotion they have a web of unconditional love. In the realm of intellect, they have a set, permanent philosophy about how life is. In the realm of action, they have commitments to projects that can’t be completed in a lifetime. In the realm of morality, they have a certain consistency and rigor that’s almost perfect.”

Thanks to Uri Friedman at The Atlantic for the above quotes.

Craving, desire, and attachment are the sources of suffering

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I’ve seen more dissatisfied 20 something’s in SoHo than their counterparts in rural Jodhpur. I know that there is real joy and meaning to be found outside the secular system of wealth, status and eternal youth. It’s not our fault; it’s our programming. But the answers can’t be found in accumulating more. You knew that already. – Chris Michel, The Puzzle

I read The Puzzle at least once a quarter. And I’ve saved quotes from it to my Personal Bible (an evolving ebook collection of my favorite writings and life advice).

From philosophers to grandparents, we’ve heard them countless times. But, hearing something isn’t quite the same as observing it. I won’t bore you with specifics. Suffice it to say, I think the Buddha had it right when he said craving, desire and attachment are the sources of suffering.

I don’t think you can fully remove craving, desire, and attachment from your life. I crave Ichiran ramen in Tokyo. I desire alone time to read books on my Kindle. And I’m attached to my iPhone and that glow of unread messages and new notifications.

We are animals, and animals have emotions. We can no more remove emotion than we can become computers. No one makes real life decisions purely, or even mostly, through logic.

But Buddha knows all this. Of course he does. I don’t think Buddha’s point is that we must eliminate craving, desire, and attachment. He knows it’s not possible. I think he just wants us to become aware of this truth. To treat it like a natural law, like gravity and the sun rising in the east. And, once we acknowledge this wisdom, there seem to be two paths which we can follow. On closer inspection, however, they both lead to the same destination:

Path one is to want less if we wish to suffer less. The fewer objects we crave, the fewer people we attach to, the less moments of pain we will endure. Similar to stoics & ascetics, monks & nuns, we slowly remove and eliminate and detach ourselves from the world. With time and patience and meditation, we stop feeling pain. We stop suffering.

Path two is more complicated. Maybe we’re ok with suffering. Maybe we want a lover or a dream job so bad that we’ll gladly take the pain. And for Buddha, that’s ok too. He just wants you to understand them, to understand yourself. Because as you recognize and unravel the nature of your cravings and desires, you will learn to let them go. You will see them for the temporary, silly flights that they are.

You will see that it’s not the world which causes you to suffer, but yourself.

And that is his ultimate point.

PS I’m writing a book I call The Soul Habit, about how anyone (everyone!) should study religion as a source of wisdom, self-help, life advice. More details here.

The world is becoming more religious, not less. And that’s a good thing

I wanted to share some conclusions from this Pew Research report on the world’s religions:

Islam is catching up to Christianity and, if present demographic trends persist (an important “if”), Muslims will become the world’s largest religious population before the 22nd century.

Among the major religions, Hinduism and Christianity will keep pace with population growth, while Buddhism and Judaism will decline.

The unaffiliated (including agnostics and atheists and the spiritual but not religious) will grow in America and Western Europe, but will actually decline as a percentage of the world’s population. It’s driven, in part, by two realities: we’re older, and we have fewer children. In the bubble that is my social and career circles we assume that the world is leaving religion, that atheism is winning, that to some degree people are ‘coming to their senses’. The numbers say otherwise. And I believe that’s a good thing. I’ll explain why in future posts.

This note was also interesting:

China’s 1.3 billion people (as of 2010) loom very large in global trends. At present, about 5% of China’s population is estimated to be Christian, and more than 50% is religiously unaffiliated. Because reliable figures on religious switching in China are not available, the projections do not contain any forecast for conversions in the world’s most populous country. But if Christianity expands in China in the decades to come – as some experts predict – then by 2050, the global numbers of Christians may be higher than projected, and the decline in the percentage of the world’s population that is religiously unaffiliated may be even sharper.

Full article here.