Great Thinkers Volume 2 (part 2)

True Believer by Eric Hoffer

In my previous article (it has been a while) I analysed the work of Eric Hoffer in ‘The True Believer’. Here I will complete this analysis, as before with a specific focus on the relevance of this work to the mass movements of today.

Having begun with a focus on the appeal of mass movements, and the characteristics of those who might be drawn to them, we now turn our attention to the workings of the movement, and what defines their success or otherwise.

 “The vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice”

What makes a person willing to undergo this self-sacrifice? Hoffer argues that to “ripen” a person for this, they first must lose their individuality, be subsumed in the group utterly. Mass movements must be anti-individualist. Consider the environmental and Covid mass movements and their disgust at ‘selfish individualism’. All the blandishments to stay at home, wear a mask, take a vaccine, reduce your carbon footprint, urge us to see ourselves as part of a mass, to tie our fortunes to the wider whole.

But of course, identification with a collective can be noble and lead to betterment. Hoffer points out that the greatest resistance to tyranny comes from organised groups with a sense of unity, not from individuals with no desire for self-sacrifice.

“The same Russians who cringe and crawl before Stalin’s secret police displayed unsurpassed courage when facing….the invading Nazis”

“The reason for this contrasting behaviour……when facing Stalin’s police the Russian feels a mere individual while, when facing the Germans, he feels himself a member of a mighty race, possessed of a glorious past and even more glorious future.”

The importance of time, the sense of the past and the future and the meaning they have for the present, is of fundamental importance. Whilst a mass movement may begin with some focus on there hear and now, the true success in galvanising the believer, is in the promise for the future. To make the future shine all the brighter, the present should deliberately be presented, or actually made, to be dull, unimportant, unpleasant. In these conditions self-sacrifice for a better future becomes easier. Think of the promises in 2020-21 that we must sacrifice the now, for the promise of a virus-free future, that some weeks, or months or years of sacrifice would all be worth it, eventually……

Hoffer makes an interesting comparison between the views of the radical and the reactionary to the present, arguing that both groups revile the present, the radical wanting to do away with the present system in the reaction of something new and better, the radical to do the same, but in a return to a glorious past. The difference in Hoffer’s view is their opinion of the malleability of man, radicals believing in the “infinite perfectibility of human nature”. However the two groups are more similar than they seem, reactionaries imagining a past that was never wholly there and so yearning for something radical, and radicals having to use models from the past that make them more like the reactionary.

I find this distinction illuminating when thinking of my own views as they are now. Part of me imagines a recent past where we were freer, when trust was higher, and wishes to return to that, but how much of that is imagined, and how much like a radical would I look to most people in proposing a path to return to that place?

A further ingredient to inculcate a willingness to sacrifice oneself is doctrine:

“All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world.”

Facts must be claimed not from observation and experience of reality, but from ”holy writ”. How many arguments in our modern era have effectively become doctrinal debates with little or no reference to our actual experiences of life? How much will you ever achieve trying to persuade the other side of an argument with facts and logic when faith is the more powerful tool? How many of our own views are truly established as fact and are not articles of faith?

If you were to think that an answer to extinction rebellion or similar movements is for more jail time for them, or fines, or punishment, or anything else to act as a deterrent, we would be wrong.

If a mass movement has the ingredients for fostering self-sacrifice amongst its adherents, then it also requires unifying agents, the first of which Hoffer identifies, is hate.

“Mass movements can rise and spread without a belief in God, but never without a belief in a devil.”

The devils of our era are numerous; oil companies; populists; ‘fascists’; ‘Terfs’; anti-vaxxers, and their opposites for those on the other side.

Whilst Hoffer believes wider conditions are necessary to create the setting for a successful mass movement, he also recognises the part played by the individual brilliance of leaders who are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

“Once the stage is set, the presence of an outstanding leader is indispensable. Without him there will be no movement.”

It is here perhaps that I find Hoffer’s point hardest to apply to the modern day. Few if any of our current mass movements seem to have the decisive and charismatic leaders of genius. The very lack of clear and open leaders creates a whole strain of thought about who is really in charge, with a variety of shadowy figures from finance, NGOs and the deep-state being identified as potential culprits. Perhaps this reflects changes due to modern technology or simply the evolution of how these things work in line with ideas about the ‘managerial class’ that have had a lot of discussion recently. Perhaps the lack of these true leaders will stymy the ability of our modern mass movements to truly take hold in the way that that Fascism, Communism or earlier religious movements did, or maybe that leader is still waiting in the wings.

An aspect that has many examples in our current time is the need for action as a unifying force.

“A mass movement’s call for action evokes an eager response in the frustrated. For the frustrated see in action a cure for all that ails them.”

The examples I have chosen throughout this are shaped to a large degree by the action they inspire, thus affecting day to day reality in a way that potential movements that are simply ideas and discussion for now (and perhaps forever) do not.

Having said that, Hoffer argues that the action and effect of a mass movement can only be fully realised once the ‘old’ order’ has been discredited, and this discrediting is down to men of words.

The action of a movement like extinction rebellion, and the willingness of it’s adherents to make some sacrifice, only happens once the idea that carbon is evil, and that we must taking radical steps to preserve life on earth, has been formed. This was done over a period of decades until it is now mainstream dogma across much of the world.

The man of words also helps create the doctrine of belief needed for the success of the movement, the slogans that will be repeated by the faithful. However they are not enough:

“The stage is now set for the fanatics”

“He alone knows the innermost craving of the masses in action: the craving for communion, for the mustering of the host, for the dissolution of cursed individuality in the majesty and grandeur of the mighty whole.”

Hoffer finishes his book by discussing ‘Good and Bad Mass Movements’. Whilst most of the book paints mass movements in largely pejorative terms, Hoffer also points to the reinvigoration of a society that a mass movement can engender when it is otherwise sinking into depression and stagnation.

So much of what Hoffer discusses feels relevant to this time. All of the mass movements I have used in my examples may fade away, or may only be in their infancy. None of them are welcome, but would it be better to have a counter mass movement to restore sanity as I see it, or to welcome sterility and decline of our societies? I do not have the answer, but Hoffer offers a valuable frame for much of what we see around us.