The True Believer Paperback – October 6, 1989

This book, while somewhat dated (written while Stalin still ruled), is still frighteningly accurate and applicable to events unfolding even now. I found it difficult to read only in the sense that I did not want to believe that words written a few years before I was born could still so accurately portray the world and events that I see today.

My first day in college, in the fall of 1964, the President of the college recommended a few books to help us become "critical thinkers." This was the first one on the list. Eric Hoffer was well-known at the time as the "Longshoreman philosopher." In this book he discusses the psychology and sociology of mass movements in a detailed, but understandable way. It is as relevant in today's world as it was over 50 years ago and I was glad to find it on Kindle so I could easily read it again. I recommend it highly.

If only this had been required reading for my European History class in 10th grade, instead of Crane Brinton's Anatomy of Revolution. The writing style is more ad hoc, but still engaging as it moves from topic to topic. When I first began, I was a bit turned off. However, by the end I found myself in agreement with the broad strokes of Hoffer's assessment of mass movements. His most interesting observation (to me) was that the desire to be part of something larger than yourself stems from individual failure. Perhaps this is clearest and most explicit when talking about religion, but I see now how it can apply to politics as well. While I still see the value of mass movements in achieving limited goals, I now also have a renewed confidence in what the individual can accomplish. This would also make great reading for those trying to put our current political situation into perspective.

Eric Hoffer was a San Francisco longshoreman who self-educated and left behind "The True Believer," an astonishingly insightful examination of the phenomenon of mass movements. Hoffer wrote the book in 1951, when two of the most malignant mass movements in human history, those that produced the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, sprung up, and the writing reflects that to an extent. His insights are timeless, though, and are applicable in examining mass movements of any era.

Hoffer observes that the type of person inclined to join a mass movement values equality and fraternity more than freedom, quoting one Nazi in Germany who stated that he "wanted to be free from freedom." Those who join mass movements respond to the promise of hope and belonging that such movements provide, and Hoffer notes the essentially religious nature of the Communist and Nazi movements, calling Stalinism another opiate of the people.

The author discusses how susceptible certain personality types are to joining mass movements and contrasts practical organizations (collections of individuals with healthy self-esteem) versus mass movements (agglomerations of those with low self-esteem who tend up end up behaving like mobs).

Hoffer asserts that there are conditions in societies that are favorable for the formation of mass movements, and talks of how movements arise, develop, and progress in stages. Men of words and men of action play distinct roles in the formation of mass movements, and the author describes types and roles of leaders in mass movements, who employ persuasion, coercion, and propaganda to psychologically bully those who cannot endure an autonomous existence into choosing self-immolation over healthy individuality.

Other topics touched on include the interchangeability of mass movements, antidotes to mass movements, attitudes of mass movements toward families, and why mass movements tend to lead to unrestrained violence. There are dozens of stunning insights into the human condition in this classic which is just as timely and important today as it was nearly seventy years ago.

Revolutions and other mass movements all have commonalities, chief among them are the people who start and promulgate them. This short, concise book breaks down and organizes the characteristics of these people: The True Believers - and the movements they promote. This is a book of genius, comparable to ‘The Prince’ or ‘Rules for Radicals,’ in its simplicity and insights into human nature and organized political action. Hoffer wrote this book after the Second World War while the memories and realities of Fascism and Communism were very present.

If you’ve ever been part of a mass movement, or ever contemplated participating in one, this book will open your eyes to what you can expect as a mass movement gets underway and develops through its active phase. It’ll provide you with an understanding of the motivations and designs of the movement’s leaders, and insight into your own and your fellow believers’ psychology. If you have the ambition to be the next Christ or Hitler to lead a mass movement, this is your blueprint.

In summary:

I. THE APPEAL OF MASS MOVEMENTS
The desire for change starts and lives in the hearts of frustrated people. Attached to this frustration these individuals possess a sense of power to accomplish great change. Faith in the future and the ability to project hope makes for receptivity to change. High hopes and dark endings incongruently go together. Belonging to a mass movement substitutes for deficiencies in the individual. Mass Movements compete with one another, and often are interchangeable. No movement is whole of a singular nature.

II. THE POTENTIAL CONVERTS
The best and worst of society often determine the course of history - over the heads of the great middle. A society without the dregs may be peaceful and complacent, but lacking in the seeds for change. Here are the ranks of mass movement fodder:

New Poor: Memory of better times puts fire in their bellies.

Abject Poor: Too occupied with survival to organize. Discontent is high, however, when misery is still bearable.

Free Poor: Freedom creates and alleviates frustration. Fanatics fear freedom more than persecution. Equality and fraternity are preferred over freedom.

Creative Poor: The ability to create mitigates frustration; however, those whose creativity is fading, or those who didn’t quite achieve creative satisfaction, may seek escape in mass movements.

Unified Poor: Compact or tribal groups are relatively free of frustration. Mass movements often try to break down family units to feed the movement. Compact structures, like families in decline are, however, fertile ground for mass movements.

Temporary Misfits: Adolescents, unemployed, veterans, and new immigrants are unreliable supporters of mass movements; their frustrations abate once circumstances improve.

Permanent Misfits: The incurably frustrated can never have enough of what they really do not want anyway. They are likely to become the most violent true believers.

Inordinately Selfish: Those who have lost faith in themselves, look to attach to a holy cause; In compensation, they become champions of selflessness.

Ambitious with Unlimited Opportunity: Current actions are never enough; they possess excessive readiness for self-sacrifice.

Minorities Intent On Preserving Their Identity: These persons act as tribal groups and lack frustration.

Minorities Bent On Assimilation: These frustrated cannot get in the door of the established order.

Bored: These people are required in quantity for a successful mass movement; they’re looking for fulfillment in a meaningless existence.

Sinners: For the irredeemable, salvation can be found in losing oneself in a holy cause; they are willing to go to extremes.

Mass movements attract and hold followers by offering refuge from anxiety. Mass movements aim to infect people with a malady, then offer a cure. Hope comes in two forms: one immediate and one distant.

III. UNITED ACTION AND SELF-SACRIFICE
The chief preoccupation of mass movements is to foster united action and self-sacrifice. For the individual to commit to self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity, and by ritual be associated with the movement.

To engage in dying or killing, the individual must suffer under the illusion of being a participant in a grand undertaking, or a solemn performance. Glory is theatrical.

The present must be deprecated, pushed off the stage, depicted as mean and miserable and held in utter contempt. In replacement, hope is assured for a better future. The frustrated individual is ready to die for what he wishes to have and wishes to be.

Mass movements strive to interpose a fact-proof screen between the movement’s faithful and the realities of the world, in a word: doctrine. The effectiveness of a doctrine is judged not on its validity or profundity, but on how well it insulates the individual from his self and the world.

The individual’s estrangement proceeds with intense passion and fanaticism. Mass movements prevent the achievement of internal balance for the fanatic individual, but perpetuate insecurity and incompleteness.

Unified individuals in a compact collective of a mass movement body are no longer frustrated. Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. Mass movements can rise without a belief in God, but never without a belief in evil.

Unreasonable hatreds emerge as an expression of the frustrated individual’s effort to suppress his own shortcomings and self-contempt. Self hate emanates from feelings of helplessness, inadequacy, and cowardice, rather than justified grievances. The object of hate is often those other than the ones who committed the perceived wrongs. Committing grave injustices upon the object of hate re-enforces and fuels hate. A guilty conscience lies behind such acts, which demands even greater effort to demonize the hated to suppress this guilty conscience.

Estrangement of the self is required for selflessness and assimilation into the whole of a compact group. The True Believer sees himself as one of ‘the chosen.’ Self-denial and group membership confers the right on them to be harsh upon others, and by which to be rid of personal responsibility. Violence is not the product of leadership, but of a unification of the whole.

Propaganda succeeds not with unwilling minds, but with frustrated individuals. Propaganda operates most effectively in conjunction with coercion. The mass movement requires the ability to make people believe, and by force as a last resort.

Leadership cannot create a mass movement out of thin air. There has to be grievances with intense dissatisfactions and an eagerness of the True Believers to follow and obey. Once the stage is set, however, an outstanding leader is indispensable. The leader personifies the certitude of the movement, as well as defiance and power. He must be able to steer the faithful and maintain its cohesion. To a large degree, charlatanism is required for effective leadership.

Action is a unifier of mass movements. Marching, for instance, kills thought and hastens the end of individuality. An inability to act breeds frustration with the movement, while successful action drains energy and commitment from the movement.

The mass movement must perpetuate the individual’s incompleteness and insecurity.

IV. BEGINNING AND END
Men of Words: Mass movements usually rise when a prevailing order has been discredited. This is the work of men of words with a grievance. They set the groundwork for the movement by undermining existing institutions, promoting the idea of change, and creating a new faith. Men of words may champion the downtrodden, but the grievance that animates them is personal. Their vanity is greater than their ambitions; recognition and the appearance of power is preferred over power itself. Often it’s the men of words who are the tragic figures of the mass movement, as at a certain point, the movement is hijacked by a power hungry clique which usually cheats the masses of the freedoms they seek.

Fanatics: A genuine mass movement is hatched by the fanatic. Men of words shrink before the outbreak of anarchy, they forget the troubled masses they set out to help, and run to the protection of strong ‘men of action.’ For the fanatic, chaos is his element. Fanatics come from the ranks of the non-creative men of words; unfulfilled, they can never be reconciled with their self, and they desire not a finality or a fixed order of things. Hatred becomes a habit, and when the outsiders are vanquished, the fanatics then turn on themselves and threaten to destroy what they have achieved.

Man of Action: The movement begins with men of words, materializes by fanatics, and consolidated by men of action. With a balanced faith in humanity, men of action save the movement from the fanatics, marking the end of the dynamic phase of the movement. Men of action fix and perpetuate the movement’s unity and readiness for self-sacrifice. The new order is founded on the ‘necks of the people, rather than in their hearts.’ The man of action is a man of the law. The movement now becomes a means of self-realization for the ambitious. Concern for the frustrated is still there, not to harness their discontent, but to reconcile them with it; to turn them meek and patient with visions of distance hopes and dreams.

Good and Bad Mass Movements: No matter what good intentions a mass movement starts off with, or what benefit may result, it is hard not to see the active phase as unpleasant, if not outright evil. On the other hand, mass movements are a miraculous instrument for raising societies and nations from the dead.

Recommended complementary reading: ‘The Anatomy of Revolution’ by Crane Brinton; compares the four greatest revolutions, providing much historical background that Hoffer refers to in ‘The True Believer.’