The True Believer ~ according to Eric Hoffer

 

The True Believer ~ according to Eric Hoffer *

by TPO

     Eric Hoffer came to public attention with the 1951 publication of his first book, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, which consists of a preface and 125 sections, which are divided into 18 chapters. Hoffer analyzes the phenomenon of "mass movements," a general term that he applies to revolutionary parties, nationalistic movements, and religious movements.  

     He summarizes his thesis in §113: "A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of actions."    

     Hoffer argues that fanatical and extremist cultural movements, whether religious, social, or national, arise when large numbers of frustrated people, believing their own individual lives to be worthless or spoiled, join a movement demanding radical change. But the real attraction for this population is an escape from the self, not a realization of individual hopes: "A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation."

     Hoffer consequently argues that the appeal of mass movements is interchangeable: in the Germany of the 1920s and the 1930s, for example, the Communists and National Socialists were ostensibly enemies, but sometimes enlisted each other's members, since they competed for the same kind of marginalized, angry, frustrated people. For the "true believer," Hoffer argues that particular beliefs are less important than escaping from the burden of the autonomous self.

      Harvard historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. said of The True Believer: "This brilliant and original inquiry into the nature of mass movements is a genuine contribution to our social thought." 

* WIKIPEDIA
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     In my opinion, "true believers" are crazed people who eventually realize the futility of their ideas or ideals and then become cynical counterrevolutionaries!  My best go-to poet, William Butler Yeats, forever put this little catchy poem in my head:
      The Great Day 

      Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
      A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
      Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
      The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.