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69 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still vibrant, after all these years., July 7, 2003
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.
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200 of 214 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, October 30, 2001
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.
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64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hofferian Insights Bearing Upon September 11, November 3, 2001
"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 BelieverNone 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."
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