2020-07-08 - The True Believer by Eric Hoffer ============================================= The True Believer by Eric Hoffer ================================ Contents ======== * My thoughts * Book quotes * Relevant blog quotes My thoughts =========== I found a forum post that basically claimed this book would shed light on recent politics in the USA. To me, this book seemed well structured but not very satisfying. The author classifies people involved in mass movements into a catalog of archetypes. It rings true to the degree that a horoscope does. A critical online review states: It is the type of book that congratulates the reader while pretending to challenge him; it is a mirror that reflects to the reader what he wants to hear... [much like a horoscope] It is written primarily in the form of aphorisms... [also like a horoscope] For the first few pages, the book seems insightful, but soon enough the reader starts to wonder where the meat is. Book quotes =========== Man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of love and esteem of men, and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt. The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults. —PASCAL, Pensées Part 1, The Appeal of Mass Movements ------------------------------------ Preface ------- This book deals with some peculiarities common to all mass movements, be they religious movements, social revolutions or nationalist movements. It does not maintain that all movements are identical, but that they share certain essential characteristics which give them a family likeness. All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance. All movements, however different in doctrine and aspiration, draw their early adherents from the same types of humanity; they all appeal to the same types of mind. Though there are obvious differences between the fanatical Christian, the fanatical Mohammedan, the fanatical nationalist, the fanatical Communist and the fanatical Nazi, it is yet true that the fanaticism which animates them may be viewed and treated as one. The same is true of the force which drives them on to expansion and world domination. There is a certain uniformity in all types of dedication, of faith, of pursuit of power, of unity and of self-sacrifice. There are vast differences in the contents of holy causes and doctrines, but a certain uniformity in the factors which make them effective. He who, like Pascal, finds precise reasons for the effectiveness of Christian doctrine has also found the reasons for the effectiveness of Communist, Nazi and nationalist doctrine. However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die for the same thing. This book concerns itself chiefly with the active, revivalist phase of mass movements. This phase is dominated by the true believer--the man of fanatical faith who is ready to sacrifice his life for a holy cause--an attempt is made to trace his genesis and outline his nature. As an aid to this effort, use is made of a working hypothesis. Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed: 1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of a true believer; 2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind. ... It is perhaps not superfluous to add a word of caution. When we speak of the family likeness of mass movements, we use the word "family" in a taxonomical sense. The tomato and the nightshade are of the same family, the Solanaceae. Though the one is nutritious and the other poisonous, they have many morphological, anatomical and physiological traits in common so that even the non-botanist senses a family likeness. The assumption that mass movements have many traits in common does not imply that all movements are equally beneficent or poisonous. This book passes no judgments and expresses no preferences. Chapter 2, The desire for substitutes ------------------------------------- There is a fundamental difference between the appeal of a mass movement and the appeal of a practical organization. The practical organization offers opportunities for self-advancement, and its appeal is mainly to self-interest. On the other hand, a mass movement, particularly in its active, revivalist phase, 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. People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement. ... Their innermost craving is for a new life—a rebirth—or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both. To the frustrated a mass movement offers substitutes either for the whole self or for the elements which make life bearable and which they cannot evoke out of their individual resources. Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat. Mass movements are usually accused of doping their followers with hope of the future while cheating them of the enjoyment of the present. Yet to the frustrated the present is irremediably spoiled. Comforts and pleasures cannot make it whole. No real content or comfort can ever arise in their minds but from hope. Part 2, The Potential Converts ------------------------------ The Creative Poor Poverty when coupled with creativeness is usually free of frustration. Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create; to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out. The Chinese sage Mo-Tzü who advocated brotherly love was rightly condemned by the Confucianists who cherished the family above all. They argued that the principle of universal love would dissolve the family and destroy society. The communal compactness of the Jews, both in Palestine and the Diaspora, was probably one of the reasons that Christianity made so little headway among them. The destruction of the temple caused, if anything, a tightening of the communal bonds. The synagogue and the congregation received now much of the devotion which formerly owed toward the temple and Jerusalem. Later, when the Christian church had the power to segregate the Jews in ghettos, it gave their communal compactness an additional reinforcement, and thus, unintentionally, ensured the survival of Judaism intact through the ages. Part 3, United Action and Self-Sacrifice ---------------------------------------- Chapter 12, Preface ------------------- The reader is expected to quarrel with much that is said in this part of the book. He is likely to feel that much has been exaggerated and much ignored. But this is not an authoritative textbook. It is a book of thoughts, and it does not shy away from half-truths so long as they seem to hint at a new approach and help to formulate new questions. "To illustrate a principle," says Bagehot, "you must exaggerate much and you must omit much." Chapter 13, Factors Promoting Self-Sacrifice -------------------------------------------- Identification With a Collective Whole To ripen a person for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity and distinctness. The most drastic way to achieve this end is by the complete assimilation of the individual into a collective body. The effacement of individual separateness must be thorough. In every act, however trivial, the individual must by some ritual associate himself with the congregation, the tribe, the party, etc. To be cast out from the group should be equivalent to being cut off from life. This is undoubtedly a primitive state of being, and its most perfect examples are found among primitive tribes. Mass movements strive to approximate this primitive perfection, and we are not imagining things when the anti-individualist bias of contemporary mass movements strikes us as a throwback to the primitive. The unavoidable conclusion seems to be that when the individual faces torture or annihilation, he cannot rely on the resources of his own individuality. His only source of strength is in not being himself but part of something mighty, glorious and indestructible. Make-believe Dying and killing seem easy when they are part of a ritual, ceremonial, dramatic performance or game. There is need for some kind of make-believe in order to face death unflinchingly. Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our mighty deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or "of those who are to be." We are ready to sacrifice our true, transitory self for the imaginary eternal self we are building up, by our heroic deeds, in the opinion and imagination of others. In the practice of mass movements, make-believe plays perhaps a more enduring role than any other factor. Things Which Are Not One of the rules that emerges from a consideration of the factors that promote self-sacrifice is that we are less ready to die for what we have or are than for what we wish to have and to be. It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have "something worth fighting for," they do not feel like fighting. The successful businessman is often a failure as a communal leader because his mind is attuned to the "things that are" and his heart set on that which can be accomplished in "our time." Doctrine Rudolph Hess, when swearing in the entire Nazi party in 1934, exhorted his hearers: "Do not seek Adolph Hitler with your brains; all of you will find him with the strength of your hearts." Chapter 14, Unifying Agents --------------------------- Hatred Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. When Hitler was asked whether he thought the Jew must be destroyed, he answered: "No... We should have then to invent him. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one." F. A. Voigt tells of a Japanese mission that arrived in Berlin in 1932 to study the National Socialist movement. Voigt asked a member of the mission what he thought of the movement. He replied: "It is magnificent. I wish we could have something like it in Japan, only we can't, because we haven't got any Jews." When we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness. The Effects of Unification It is of interest to note the means by which a mass movement accentuates and perpetuates the individual incompleteness of its adherents. By elevating dogma above reason, the individual's intelligence is prevented from becoming self-reliant. Economic dependence is maintained by centralizing economic power and by a deliberately created scarcity of the necessities of life... Thus people raised in the atmosphere of a mass movement are fashioned into incomplete and dependent human beings even when they have within themselves the making of self-sufficient entities. Though strangers to frustration and without a grievance, they will yet exhibit the peculiarities of people who crave to lose themselves and be rid of an existence that is irrevocably spoiled. Part 4, Beginning and End ------------------------- Chapter 15, Men of Words ------------------------ Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited. The discrediting is not an automatic result of the blunders and abuses of those in power, but the deliberate work of men of words with a grievance. There is apparently an irremediable insecurity at the core of every intellectual, be he noncreative or creative. Even the most gifted and prolific seem to live a life of eternal self-doubting and have to prove their worth anew each day. What de Rémusat said of Thiers is perhaps true of most men of words: "he has much more vanity than ambition; and he prefers consideration to obedience, and the appearance of power to power itself. Consult him constantly, and then do just as you please. He will take more notice of your deference to him than of your actions." To sum up, the militant man of words prepares the ground for the rise of a mass movement: * by discrediting prevailing creeds and institutions and detaching from them the allegiance of the people; * by indirectly creating a hunger for faith in the hearts of those who cannot live without it, so that when the new faith is preached it finds an eager response among the disillusioned masses; * by furnishing the doctrine and the slogans of the new faith; * by undermining the convictions of the "better people"--those who can get along without faith--so that when the new fanaticism makes its appearance they are without the capacity to resist it. They see no sense in dying for convictions and principles, and yield to the new order without a fight. Chapter 16, The Fanatics ------------------------ The most significant division between men of words is between those who can find fulfillment in creative work and those who cannot. The creative man of words, no matter how bitterly he may criticize and deride the existing order, is actually attached to the present. His passion is to reform and not to destroy. The man who wants to write a great book, paint a great picture, create an architectural masterpiece, become a great scientist, and knows that never in all eternity will he be able to realize this, his innermost desire, can find no peace in a stable social order—old or new. ... Only when engaged in change does he have a sense of freedom and the feeling that he is growing and developing. The danger of the fanatic to the development of a movement is that he cannot settle down. Once victory has been won and the new order begins to crystallize, the fanatic becomes an element of strain and disruption. Relevant blog quotes ==================== In Alchemy, Rory Sutherland paraphrases [Mercier's] paper, writing: "Mercier's argumentative hypothesis suggests reason arose in the human brain not to inform our actions and beliefs, but to explain and defend them to others... Reason is not as Descartes thought, the brain's science and research and development function--it is the brain's legal and PR department." In The Secret of Our Success, Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich showed that when toddlers and apes compete in a variety of cognitive tests, the only domain in which toddlers outperform apes is social learning, or mimicry. As Henrich writes, "Under uncertainty, toddlers used cultural learning." According to Henrich, we mimic "spontaneously, automatically, and often unconsciously." From: "As cognitive biases affect every single individual no matter their standing, academic credentials, authority or projected confidence, and produces the constant risk of wrong decision-making and subsequent conflicts, the advances and fairly peaceful state in not all, but a large number of societies is against all odds. This remarkable outcome became possible because over millennia, humanity discovered strategies and systems to reduce the impact of individual cognitive biases on the collective reasoning--often through painful and bloody trial-and-error. On an individual biological level, eliminating cognitive biases before they happen is impossible. For now, these biases are our evolutionary legacy and we're stuck with them. The best one can do is to be aware of one's failures in reasoning and make a deliberate effort to act against an initial thinking error." From: author: Hoffer, Eric detail: LOC: HM281 .H6 source: https://www.academia.edu/21464682/The_True_Believer_-_Eric_Hoffer tags: ebook,history,non-fiction,philosophy title: True Believer Tags ==== ebook history non-fiction philosophy