"Behind the Curtain" Book #4: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer.
An all-time favorite book on influence and culture.
An all-time favorite book on influence and culture.
The simple formula for a mass movement: appeal to the frustrated by providing near term hope, while uniting them against a common devil. The discarded and rejected are often the raw material of a nation’s future.
There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves. Success and failure are unavoidably related in our minds with the state of things around us.
Hence it is that people with a sense of fulfillment think it a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change.
A mass movement appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self.
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.
In the past, religious movements were the conspicuous vehicles of change. The conservatism of a religion—its orthodoxy—is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap. A rising religious movement is all change and experiment—open to new views and techniques from all quarters.
To plunge headlong into vast change, people must:
-be discontented yet not destitute
-feel they have access to a source of irresistible power
-have deep hope for future potential.
-must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking.
-be discontented yet not destitute
-feel they have access to a source of irresistible power
-have deep hope for future potential.
-must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking.
The frustrated are most frequent in the following categories: (a) the poor, (b) misfits, (c) outcasts, (d) minorities, (e) adolescent youth, (f) the ambitious (whether facing insurmountable obstacles or unlimited opportunities)...
(g) those in the grip of some vice or obsession, (h) the impotent (in body or mind), (i) the inordinately selfish, (j) the bored, (k) the sinners.
This always makes me think of the Statue of Liberty
This always makes me think of the Statue of Liberty
Among the frustrated, it is less about breeding discontent, or demonstrating the reasonableness and desirability of the intended changes, or coercing people into a new way of life. Instead leaders must know how to kindle and fan an extravagant hope.
There is a hope that acts as an explosive, and a hope that disciplines and infuses patience. The difference is between the immediate hope and the distant hope. A rising mass movement preaches the immediate hope that prompts people to act.
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.
The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ. “To illustrate a principle,” says Bagehot, “you must exaggerate much and you must omit much.”
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil.
The ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent. We do not look for allies when we love, But we always look for allies when we hate.
Among movement leaders, the main requirements: audacity and a joy in defiance; an iron will; a fanatical conviction that he is in possession of the one and only truth; faith in his destiny and luck; a capacity for passionate hatred; contempt for the present...
a cunning estimate of human nature; a delight in symbols (spectacles and ceremonials); unbounded brazenness which finds expression in a disregard of consistency and fairness...
a recognition that the innermost craving of a following is for communion and that there can never be too much of it; a capacity for winning and holding the utmost loyalty of a group of able lieutenants.
The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the single-handed defiance of the world.
A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of action.
Men of thought seldom work well together, whereas between men of action there is usually an easy camaraderie.
Men of thought seldom work well together, whereas between men of action there is usually an easy camaraderie.
Summing up: a leader cannot create the conditions for a movement, they can only capitalize on existing conditions.
Find a frustrated mass, dangle imminent hope, blame a devil, simplify the message.
Find a frustrated mass, dangle imminent hope, blame a devil, simplify the message.
