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The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

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When I first read Hoffer's classic book, "The True Believer", as a graduate student twenty years ago, I was shocked. I was astonished that a writer could openly suggest parallels among Christianity, Islam, fascism, and the KKK, and survive to write another book. Yet I was riveted by Hoffer's observations, which seemed to jump off the page in spite of his straightforward and unembellished prose. But I also recall thinking that Hoffer was a bit too brash in his assertions; that he ought to have tempered nearly every statement with a qualifier--a disclaimer that left open the possibility that he was mistaken.

Upon reading Hoffer again, as a middle-aged and somewhat less idealistic professor, I find that several things have changed. First, Hoffer's observations seem even more keenly relevant today, post 9/11, than they did in the post-Vietnam era. Secondly, I now understand Hoffer's apparent brashness. In my youthful zeal I often rushed through the preface of a book, or skipped it entirely. But therein was Hoffer's justification: "The book passes no judgments, and expresses no preferences. It merely tries to explain; and the explanations--all of them theories--are in the nature of suggestions and arguments even when they are stated in what seems a categorical tone. I can do no better than quote Montaigne: 'All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.'" While I am generally no fan of blanket disclaimers, I understand why Hoffer did it this way. His words could have been too easily dismissed had they been continually tempered and restrained.

Hoffer revels in pointing out seemingly paradoxical situations and attitudes, such as "Discontent is likely to be highest when misery id bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach. A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed." His incisive comments cut to the nerve of his subject, treating in one stroke mass movements of every variety: "It is futile to judge the viability of a new movement by the truth of its doctrine and the feasibility of its promises. What has to be judged is its corporate organization for quick and total absorption of the frustrated."

But what I remember most vividly, and Hoffer has reaffirmed for me, are his chilling observations about indoctrination and self-sacrifice. "The readiness for self-sacrifice is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life. He who is free to draw conclusions from his individual experience and observation is not usually hospitable to the idea of martyrdom... All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth or certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ."

I will close with one further quote from "The True Believer": "...in order to be effective a doctrine must not be understood, but has to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand." It is in statements like these that Hoffer seems to speak from a vantage point that few others have attained. Hoffer's insights are timeless.

Written 50 years ago this classic book has been dusted off in the wake of the Taliban's bombing of the Pentagon in Washington DC and the WTC in NYC. The book concerns itself with the active phase of mass movements which are dominated by a true believer, a man of fanatical faith who is ready to sacrifice his life for a holy cause. The 19 suicide bombers who have wreaked so much havoc on America are fanatics of this sort. Eric Hoffer attempts to trace the fanatic's genesis and to outline his nature.

Hoffer doesn't dance around the subject like a behavioral therapist billing by the hour. He assumes, in a very straight forward fashion, that frustration with one's life is a peculiarity of fanatics, and assumes that this mindset is necessary for techniques of conversion to achieve their deepest penetration and most desirable results with regard to the fanatic's twisted adherence to his new faith.

Hoffer allows that to understand the various facets of the fanatical personality requires an understanding of the practices of contemporary mass movements. Written circa 1951, he studied the Nazi's, the Fascist's, and the Communist's because it was here where the successful techniques of conversion had been perfected and applied.

This is a book of ideas and as such it offers up theories. It suggests that through amplifying the negative feelings of its frustrated fanatic's a movement advances its interests by seconding their propensities. Hoffer also posits the thought that all not mass movements are bad, however the central point of the book is to explain the composition of the mindsets of a movement's collective of True Believers.

At 168 pages followed by 9 pages of notes, the book is not difficult nor is it an arduous task to read. In fact it's pithy. It has short punchy sections, 125 of them. The work is to be found in the reader's reflections on Hoffer's assertions. He covers the appeal of mass movements and the desire for change found in potential candidates, the personality traits of potential converts, the unity and self sacrifice of the members that is necessary for the movement to achieve its ends, and the factors which determine the length of its active phase. I would offer here that lengthy reflection is suggested if the reader is to derive the full benefits of Hoffer's insights.

Hoffer's beginning notion is that "people with a sense of fulfillment think the world is good while the frustrated blame the world for their failures. Therefore a mass movement's appeal is not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. He continues by saying that the true believer "cannot be convinced, only converted". This basic tenet of the story is about human nature and its susceptibility to totalitarianism both secular and sectarian. To wit, he writes that "all mass movements strive to impose a fact proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. And, that that faith becomes the things the fanatic declines to see. He avers how startling it is to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible, and that faith manifests itself not in moving mountains, but in not seeing mountains move. He say's that in the context of mass movement's faith should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity, or truth but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from himself and the world as it is."

If you have any familiarity with the story of Jim Jones and his Jonestown Kool-Aid mass suicide, or of the group suicide of the members of the cult who found new meaning in the passage of the Hale Bop comet, or of the mental make up of those who bought into the seven seals dogma of David Koresh in the fatal Waco fiasco, then you will recognize that of which Hoffer describes. Read this book for further insight into the fanaticism of the holy warriors of the taliban and perhaps it will steel your resolve for the long struggle we are all in for.

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."--Eric Hoffer, The true Believer

None of the terrorists of September 11 were destitute. Some even had wives and children. Nevertheless, they committed suicide for their cause. Anyone wanting to understand this horrible irony would do well to read Eric Hoffer's 1951 classic, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) was a self-educated US author and philosopher who was a migratory worker and longshoreman until 1967. He achieved immediate acclaim with his first book, The true Believer.

According to Hoffer, the early converts to any mass movement come from the ranks of the "frustrated," that is, "people who..feel that their lives are spoiled or wasted." The true believers' "Faith in [their] holy cause is to a considerable extent a subsitute for [their] lost faith in [themselves]." He says that we are prone to throw ourselves into a mass movement to "supplant and efface the self we want to forget." He then adds, "We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it."

Hoffer offers a general insight about mass movements, which seems to prophetically explain why there is currently widespread anti-Western sentiment within Islamic countries:

"The discontent generated in backward countries by their contact with Western civilization is not primarily resentment against exploitation by domineering foriegners. It is rather the result of a crumbling or weakening of tribal solidarity and communal life.

"The ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing West offers to the backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration. All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the sheltering and soothing anonymity of a communal existence. Even when the Westernized native attains personal success--becomes rich, or masters a respected profession--he is not happy."

Further along, Hoffer mentions those who "want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society."

Why should individualism, freedom, and self-advancement be hated? Again, I can do no better than quote Hoffer:

"Freedom aggravates as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably muliplies failure and frustration...Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden...We join mass movements to escape individual responsibility...."

In light of the above quotes, there is little wonder that the terrorists chose to destroy the Twin Towers. These were architectural symboles of individualism and self-advancement.

But Hoffer's book does more than give us insight into the psychology of the fanatic. It causes us to soberly contemplate ourselves. For who has not experienced failure, frustration, and a sense of futility at one time or another? The true Believer is one of those few books I consider to contain ideas approximating to true "wisdom."

It is no accomplishment to trash a book. Many, who clearly do not understand what Hoffer is writing about or what he is saying, have criticised him over the forty plus years since first publication of "The True Believer". Hardly any of Hoffer's critics have a single accomplishment that equals the book.

Let me tell you a little about this unique man. Eric Hoffer did not finish elementary school. A rare disease struck him blind. Possessing an insatiable curiosity, Hoffer studied on his own, getting anyone he could corner to read to him. He developed powerful memory skills to compensate for his blindness and limited resources. He wrote his books entirely in his mind while laboring and set them to paper when he was done. He could recite verbatim any page of any of his books. (Bill Moyers of PBS had him demonstrate this profound memory skill.)

A new medical proceedure reclaimed Hoffer's sight when he was about 19. It was too late for schooling. He had to work. Hoffer lived much of his adulthood as a drifting laborer. At different times, he worked as a miner, a prospector, a dishwasher, a longshoreman. He never stopped learning. This unusual man, who understood his fellow Longshoreman and respected the common man, was able to engage fellow laborers in deep philosophical discussions. That is something no professor can do with a classroom full of university students. Like a Socrates of the docks, Hoffer learned much from orchastrating discussions with his humble work mates. I suspect he got the idea from the works of great thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle, ageless thinkers most professors want students to ignore.

Hoffer was dedicated to a life of learning. A practical, rugged man, Hoffer understood the wisdom of seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge. He read only the best: Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Locke, Mills, books of science. With his contemporary, Mortimer J. Adler, Hoffer detested text books & abridged works of literature.

Everything interested him. Nothing escaped his observant mind. One story should give you the flavor of this career autodidact. Hoffer had a few questions no one could answer to his satisfaction. One invloved 'why does grass grow up, not down or sideways.' He drifted to California, rented a sleeping room near a major library and took a job nearby as a dishwasher. He worked just enough to eat, buy shelter and basic supplies. Hoffer invested the rest of his time there studying in the huge library.
"True Believer" (1951) was Hoffer's first book. It proved a best seller and it brought him fame. It is a well written, thin book, as are all five of his books. "True Believer" brought Hoffer to the attention of President Eisenhower, and before Hoffer died, another president awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor bestowed on few people.

UCLA was so impressed with Hoffer's Essays, prose style & independent mind that he was offered a full Professorship in Psychology. Hoffer accepted but resigned a few years later, prefering the streets to the more comfortable campus. He left so he could think.
"True Believer" has never been out of print. Some publisher, somewhere kept the book available. Hoffer's other books have been in and out of print several times over the years. Hoffer wrote exceptionally well. He was a prose stylist. Late in life, Bill Moyers asked Hoffer how he wanted to be remembered. Hoffer chuckled & replied: "He could write a good sentence". Hoffer could do more than write good sentences. He wrote powerful, thought provoking essays, which is what his thin books amount to, powerfully written essays.
The basic observations of "True Believer" remain compelling. There is a social type who gravitates to extreme ideologies and extreme political movements. the basic personality of fanatics on the extreme left and fanatics on the extreme right are similar, if not the same. It is equally true that it is a marked tendency of this type to migrate from one extreme to the other.

If you seek insight into what makes the extreme mind tick, you will not find all the answers here. Hoffer never claimed you would. You will leave satisfied that you gained something valuable from reading "The True Believer."

By the way, more than a few people have learned to write well by studying Hoffer's prose, an American Cavalier prose, consisting of simple, unaffected, clear, honest sentences. Hoffer would advise us: 'begin and end each sentence with a punch.' He did exactly that.

I was given this book by my new Stepfather at age 19 in 1967. He had observed my flirtation, if not the beginning of a slide, with radical social activism. Mr Hoffer helped me to see that my attractions to these movements, which have largely been abandoned by even their most ardent proponents, were largely projections of unresolved and indeed unfaced inner coflicts.

Thanks Dad. Thanks Mr Hoffer. You saved me and those around me a lot of grief.

I think this simple book would go a long way toward social sanity if it were read by High School students.

Because of constraints of space, I'll note that at least two things that he did that were brilliant in the overall writing were:

1. The use of specific historical examples to develop the general idea (deductive reasoning) and NOT vice versa (inductive reasoning). Many sociologists get so caught up in trying to make fine sounding phrases that they don't understand that there is a qualitative difference in going from examples to suppositions and not the other way around.

2. Succinctness. A great many books go on for a very long time and manage to assert very little. (Read anything by Ayn Rand lately?) This book is very to the point and short on words.

The way that we know that his predictions are with merit is that they have come true 50 years *after* the book was written.

Ten examples of things for which he gives good, mechanistic explanations/ predictions are:

1. Noting that movements for the rights of this group or that group often end with finished products/ governments that are WORSE than the formerly existing order. (Africa).

2. Explanations of why it is in the best interest of governments to have citizens that are less well educated. The less well informed are citizens, the less likely they are to hold government accountable for serious mistakes because they aren't aware of what's happening. (United States)

3. If there is no cause, people will invent one. (The Islamic world. Student protestors on university campuses).

4. When people stay caught in religious movements (or any movement too long), then it will divert other energy that could have been used for other more immediately useful tasks. The net result will be backwardness. (Islamic world again. Sub-Saharan Africa and tribal conflicts.)

5. This book makes a clean separation between the Dixiecrats in the American South and the Poor White Trash as the creators of problems for blacks. While he only devoted two sentences two it, it could have well been expanded to explain to explain the origin of the Segregation laws (which happened AFTER the Reconstruction governments).

6. He talks about the role of class in assimilation. (The Cubans in Miami have tried to recreate Cuba in Miami because the people the managed to get out were the richest people. But no other ethnic group has gone as far in creating an ethnic enclave because these people were from the lower echelons of their own respective home countries.)

7. Religious conversion is *incidental* to whatever conqueror there is gaining control of the government. (So Christianity was not taken up in Japan because the conquerors did not control the government. But in places where the rapport was made between the government and the colonizers, the subjects were converted almost as an afterthought.)

8. Shows that there is separation between men of action, men of words, and fanatics. Some people are actually capable of going out and getting things organized and done, but may not be the greatest speaker (George Bush). Others may speak very well, but be capable of nothing else (WEB DuBois). And others just like to stay inflamed and create chaos because that's what they do best (bin Laden).

9. Revolutions must take place in certain steps. And there must be people who are *looking* for something to change. (All the talk of radicalism in New England at Harvard and the other Ivy League Institutions may not amount to anything.)

10. Succesful governments befriend the "learned men" (intellectuals), so that they don't become mouthpieces against the governments/ catalysts for revolution. This system existed for centuries in Mainland China. It exists in some sense in the Western World (Universities. The tenure system. Intellectuals won't go *that* far in promoting the destruction of the system that ultimately keeps them employed.)

This book has many good things that can be learned. It's only 160 pages. But it should take at least two weeks to read if read properly. And I believe that it has more *authenticated* knowledge than most sociology degree courses.

This little book is a remarkable achievement. Written by Eric Hoffer who, at the time, was a dock worker with no formal education, it is one of the best treatments of the nature and effects of ideological fanaticism ever produced. The presentation, in short chapters - each demanding to be thought about carefully - is a synthesis of years of careful reading and research on Hoffer's part. It is a book that can be read and reread with each new reading shedding new insight on political and social issues of our time.

That Hoffer went on to become something of an apologist for reactionary government response to many of the protest movements during the sixties - including the civil rights movement which he characterized as a 'racket' - should not blind anyone to the value of his first book. Its insights are still fresh and its wisdom is timeless. He, alas, didn't always take his own lessons to heart.

Eric Hoffer developed an uncanny passion for absorbing and interpreting information; granted, the passion was borne of his fear of a relapse to the blindness of his youth, but it was this passion, the passion of all believers, that he truly understood. The ultimate expression of Hoffer's understanding was this book.

Hoffer's jumps between his cross-sections of movements, the primary people of movements, and the people whom may join a movement(s), without any regard for the overt differences on their faces. He sees beyond them to their similarities, and does an excellent job of displaying as much to the reader without bias for any particular one.

And that's the truly amazing factor of "The True Believer": the detached nature of Hoffer's writing, which was favorably compared to that of Machaivelli's writing of "The Prince." Many people find such abstractions of information and lack of favoritisms troubling, because it leaves so many unanswered questions, or more importantly, the question of who or which movements were or are right or wrong, unanswered.

But that's where the reader needs to think. Some people and indeed some movements may have been right or wrong, but Hoffer is not the one to make such a judgment. You have to make those distinctions for yourself. And when you do make those choices, consider the many similarities those movements have with movements closer to your heart. It forces you to consider things at their essence, which is the same.

"The True Believer" does not contain all the answers, but it shows the reader the way towards their personal choices and understanding in the matter. It's a book with potentially devastating prospects for the long closed-minded(who may risk shattering their belief/identity and being laid bare before themselves), but it leads many others to that higher sense of awareness needed to survive, even still in this day and age. Highly recommended.

Eric Hoffer (1902-83) was born in New York City. At the age of seven he went blind, and after he mysteriously regained his sight at the age of 15 he began to read voraciously. In 1951, the same year that the Rosenbergs were convicted, that the Korean War was at its height, and that Joseph McCarthy was at his height, Mr. Hoffer produced this book.

In this book, Mr. Hoffer examines mass movements, and the true believers that fill them. While the movements change from generation to generation, the believers stay the same - people who suffer from self-hatred and self-doubt, and who join a mass movement (any mass movement) that promises to build a better future. The true believers are obsessed with the outer world, and with the private lives of others, seeking to create some sort of meaning for their own lives.

Overall, I found this to be one of the most fascinating books that I have ever read. The author's thoughts often seem to come in a stream of consciousness, but they explain so much about believers and the movements that they get behind. This is a riveting read, full of a great deal of food for thought. If you really want to understand the world around you, and the fanatics that fill so many different movements, then this is the book for you.

This is a book that every thinking person should read and ponder. I highly recommend it to you!

It is an acknowledged fact that revolutions and most mass movements are not ignited by those on the lowest steps of society's ladder, but usually by middle-class intellectuals with intellectual weapons and leisure time. In order to gain supporters, these people idealize the masses and portray the poor and the meek as full of spirituality and virtues forgotten or perverted by the rich and successful. Sadly, the fact is there is no more spirituality in poverty than in wealth. At least not necessarily. Of course, the jet-set lifestyle may give you opportunities for expensive drugs or sophisticated sexual perversions, but in general where you can find the most depravity, promiscuosness and general spiritual misery is within the poorest classes. Now, you don't have to be poor to be frustrated, and it is with the latter that this book is concerned. One of its major attractions lies in the fact that it was written, alas, not by a middle-class intellectual but by a proletarian philosopher, a man who did physical labor all his life, mostly as a longshoreman at the docks of San Francisco. So, contrary to Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot, this particular philosopher knows what he's talking about.

"Thoughts on the nature of mass movements" is the subtitle of this classic of social thought, first published in 1951 but never as extant as today. Exactly 50 years after being published, this book acquired a new relevance when some loonies blew up the WTC in NY, and then when middle-class, Britain-born youths boomed themselves -and a host of innocents- in the Lonodon subway. Many people thought then: What kind of people ruin their lives and those of others in such a gruesome way? Who are they? What can make you do that in the name of invisible gods or crazy doctrines? You need look no futher, the answer lies in this slim volume where no sentence is wasted, for all of them are full of wisdom.

They are called the frustrated. Those who can not find their place in this world and hence they hate it. Who, by the way, as said before, are not the poorest of the poorest. The latter are more occupied looking what to eat and where to find shelter. As Hoffer says, they lead purposeful lives. It is rather those who have a glance at success, happiness and balance, but don't know how to achieve them and so hate the ones who manage to do so. In the words of Howard Bloom, the frustrated are the cells in the social tissue who, by not contributing, don't receive. The true believer is the empty individual -"the hollow men, the stuffed men" of T.S. Eliot-, who desperately cling to fallacious doctrines which give them a sense of belonging and a mission in life. The rest of us are busy looking after ourselves, our families and our social circles, and we move on with our lives. The rest of us fill our lives with knowledge, pleasures, personal aspirations, and we somehow surmount the obstacles according to our resources and capabilities. We believe, do, belong, but we also reflect, question, doubt, and refuse to give our lives to crazed tyrants. We are not fanaticals, but guys inserted in several communities, for better or for worse.

One of the best books on philosophy that came from the wonderful but also terrible XX Century, its voice is more pertinent today than ever. Get this: for all his wealth and cunning, Osama is one big frustrated poor (...).