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I’ve read it twice. I enjoyed the read.
Hoffer had an interesting journey in life.(Autodidact)
He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983.
I honestly dont see any possible solution to the division in this country. Although I definitely take a side in this national in-fighting I wish somehow some sort resolution could be had.
I need to reread that book. I read it shortly after high school, some 50 years ago, and I’m sure I didn’t understand much of it then. It seems to have more relevance today.
For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.
Review
Part 4 – Beginning and End
Hoffer states that three personality types typically lead mass movements: “men of words”, “fanatics”, and “practical men of action.” Men of words try to “discredit the prevailing creeds” and create a “hunger for faith” which is then fed by “doctrines and slogans of the new faith.” (p. 140) Slowly followers emerge.
Then fanatics take over. Fanatics don’t find solace in literature, philosophy, or art. Instead, they are characterized by viciousness, the urge to destroy, and the perpetual struggle for power. But after mass movements transform the social order, the insecurity of their followers is not ameliorated. At this point, the “practical men of action” take over and try to lead the new order by further controlling their followers.
In the end mass movements that succeed often bring about a social order worse than the previous one. (This was one of Will Durant’s findings in The Lessons of History.) As Hoffer puts it near the end of his work: “All mass movements … irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred, and intolerance.” (p. 141)
https://reasonandmeaning.com/2017/09/04/summary-of-eric-hoffers-the-true-believer/
Thank you for the reference. I’d heard of Hoffer, but never gotten around to reading him. Am on it, now.
The Table of Contents is worth the price of admission (your time, since it is free online, or can be purchased paperback for a nominal amount.)
Our problem today is not so much from people who want more and are frustrated for not having, but by “affluenza” - that’s the disease that causes a person to not appreciate what they have and where it comes from.
The political fight today is between those who demand that we do with less and those who want to keep what they have.
The environutsie, the climate scientologists, the one-worlders (WEF) - they’re the ones setting the agenda, and they all demand that we must do with less - and want to impose that by force.
So today’s political war is mostly between these human-hating elitists and their millions of useful idiots followers versus normals who just want to go about their lives.
You will own nothing and you WILL be happy.
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“The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought. And when you suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot of your humanity. You will do things in the name of a group that you would never do on your own. Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking are all part of it, because you’ve lost your identity, because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that’s bigger than you are and that controls you.”
-George Carlin
Read later. Article. Dunno if I will read the book.
“Every great cause,” wrote the philosopher Eric Hoffer, “begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Our GOP.