The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)

Upon reading Hoffer again, as a middle-aged and somewhat less idealistic professor, I find that several things have changed. First, Hoffer's observations seem even more keenly relevant today, post 9/11, than they did in the post-Vietnam era. Secondly, I now understand Hoffer's apparent brashness. In my youthful zeal I often rushed through the preface of a book, or skipped it entirely. But therein was Hoffer's justification: "The book passes no judgments, and expresses no preferences. It merely tries to explain; and the explanations--all of them theories--are in the nature of suggestions and arguments even when they are stated in what seems a categorical tone. I can do no better than quote Montaigne: 'All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.'" While I am generally no fan of blanket disclaimers, I understand why Hoffer did it this way. His words could have been too easily dismissed had they been continually tempered and restrained.

Hoffer revels in pointing out seemingly paradoxical situations and attitudes, such as "Discontent is likely to be highest when misery id bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach. A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed." His incisive comments cut to the nerve of his subject, treating in one stroke mass movements of every variety: "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."

But what I remember most vividly, and Hoffer has reaffirmed for me, are his chilling observations about indoctrination and self-sacrifice. "The readiness for self-sacrifice is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life. He who is free to draw conclusions from his individual experience and observation is not usually hospitable to the idea of martyrdom... All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth or certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ."

I will close with one further quote from "The True Believer": "...in order to be effective a doctrine must not be understood, but has to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand." It is in statements like these that Hoffer seems to speak from a vantage point that few others have attained. Hoffer's insights are timeless.


Hofferian Insights Bearing Upon September 11   November 3, 2001
Jonathan L. Widger (Ocean View, DE United States)
59 out of 62 found this review helpful

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."--Eric Hoffer, The true Believer

None of the terrorists of September 11 were destitute. Some even had wives and children. Nevertheless, they committed suicide for their cause. Anyone wanting to understand this horrible irony would do well to read Eric Hoffer's 1951 classic, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) was a self-educated US author and philosopher who was a migratory worker and longshoreman until 1967. He achieved immediate acclaim with his first book, The true Believer.

According to Hoffer, the early converts to any mass movement come from the ranks of the "frustrated," that is, "people who..feel that their lives are spoiled or wasted." The true believers' "Faith in [their] holy cause is to a considerable extent a subsitute for [their] lost faith in [themselves]." He says that we are prone to throw ourselves into a mass movement to "supplant and efface the self we want to forget." He then adds, "We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it."

Hoffer offers a general insight about mass movements, which seems to prophetically explain why there is currently widespread anti-Western sentiment within Islamic countries:

"The discontent generated in backward countries by their contact with Western civilization is not primarily resentment against exploitation by domineering foriegners. It is rather the result of a crumbling or weakening of tribal solidarity and communal life.

"The ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing West offers to the backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration. All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the sheltering and soothing anonymity of a communal existence. Even when the Westernized native attains personal success--becomes rich, or masters a respected profession--he is not happy."

Further along, Hoffer mentions those who "want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society."

Why should individualism, freedom, and self-advancement be hated? Again, I can do no better than quote Hoffer:

"Freedom aggravates as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably muliplies failure and frustration...Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden...We join mass movements to escape individual responsibility...."

In light of the above quotes, there is little wonder that the terrorists chose to destroy the Twin Towers. These were architectural symboles of individualism and self-advancement.

But Hoffer's book does more than give us insight into the psychology of the fanatic. It causes us to soberly contemplate ourselves. For who has not experienced failure, frustration, and a sense of futility at one time or another? The true Believer is one of those few books I consider to contain ideas approximating to true "wisdom."


A classic that can change the way you see the world   December 7, 1999
Doug Vaughn (Washington, Dc USA)
47 out of 51 found this review helpful

This little book is a remarkable achievement. Written by Eric Hoffer who, at the time, was a dock worker with no formal education, it is one of the best treatments of the nature and effects of ideological fanaticism ever produced. The presentation, in short chapters - each demanding to be thought about carefully - is a synthesis of years of careful reading and research on Hoffer's part. It is a book that can be read and reread with each new reading shedding new insight on political and social issues of our time.

That Hoffer went on to become something of an apologist for reactionary government response to many of the protest movements during the sixties - including the civil rights movement which he characterized as a 'racket' - should not blind anyone to the value of his first book. Its insights are still fresh and its wisdom is timeless. He, alas, didn't always take his own lessons to heart.


Eric Hoffer's finest work   April 3, 2001
21 out of 21 found this review helpful

Eric Hoffer developed an uncanny passion for absorbing and interpreting information; granted, the passion was borne of his fear of a relapse to the blindness of his youth, but it was this passion, the passion of all believers, that he truly understood. The ultimate expression of Hoffer's understanding was this book.

Hoffer's jumps between his cross-sections of movements, the primary people of movements, and the people whom may join a movement(s), without any regard for the overt differences on their faces. He sees beyond them to their similarities, and does an excellent job of displaying as much to the reader without bias for any particular one.

And that's the truly amazing factor of "The True Believer": the detached nature of Hoffer's writing, which was favorably compared to that of Machaivelli's writing of "The Prince." Many people find such abstractions of information and lack of favoritisms troubling, because it leaves so many unanswered questions, or more importantly, the question of who or which movements were or are right or wrong, unanswered.

But that's where the reader needs to think. Some people and indeed some movements may have been right or wrong, but Hoffer is not the one to make such a judgment. You have to make those distinctions for yourself. And when you do make those choices, consider the many similarities those movements have with movements closer to your heart. It forces you to consider things at their essence, which is the same.

"The True Believer" does not contain all the answers, but it shows the reader the way towards their personal choices and understanding in the matter. It's a book with potentially devastating prospects for the long closed-minded(who may risk shattering their belief/identity and being laid bare before themselves), but it leads many others to that higher sense of awareness needed to survive, even still in this day and age. Highly recommended.


A brilliant book   July 23, 2003
Lemas Mitchell (Zhuzhou,Hunan. China)
32 out of 35 found this review helpful

Because of constraints of space, I'll note that at least two things that he did that were brilliant in the overall writing were:

1. The use of specific historical examples to develop the general idea (deductive reasoning) and NOT vice versa (inductive reasoning). Many sociologists get so caught up in trying to make fine sounding phrases that they don't understand that there is a qualitative difference in going from examples to suppositions and not the other way around.

2. Succinctness. A great many books go on for a very long time and manage to assert very little. (Read anything by Ayn Rand lately?) This book is very to the point and short on words.

The way that we know that his predictions are with merit is that they have come true 50 years *after* the book was written.

Ten examples of things for which he gives good, mechanistic explanations/ predictions are:

1. Noting that movements for the rights of this group or that group often end with finished products/ governments that are WORSE than the formerly existing order. (Africa).

2. Explanations of why it is in the best interest of governments to have citizens that are less well educated. The less well informed are citizens, the less likely they are to hold government accountable for serious mistakes because they aren't aware of what's happening. (United States)

3. If there is no cause, people will invent one. (The Islamic world. Student protestors on university campuses).

4. When people stay caught in religious movements (or any movement too long), then it will divert other energy that could have been used for other more immediately useful tasks. The net result will be backwardness. (Islamic world again. Sub-Saharan Africa and tribal conflicts.)

5. This book makes a clean separation between the Dixiecrats in the American South and the Poor White Trash as the creators of problems for blacks. While he only devoted two sentences two it, it could have well been expanded to explain to explain the origin of the Segregation laws (which happened AFTER the Reconstruction governments).

6. He talks about the role of class in assimilation. (The Cubans in Miami have tried to recreate Cuba in Miami because the people the managed to get out were the richest people. But no other ethnic group has gone as far in creating an ethnic enclave because these people were from the lower echelons of their own respective home countries.)

7. Religious conversion is *incidental* to whatever conqueror there is gaining control of the government. (So Christianity was not taken up in Japan because the conquerors did not control the government. But in places where the rapport was made between the government and the colonizers, the subjects were converted almost as an afterthought.)

8. Shows that there is separation between men of action, men of words, and fanatics. Some people are actually capable of going out and getting things organized and done, but may not be the greatest speaker (George Bush). Others may speak very well, but be capable of nothing else (WEB DuBois). And others just like to stay inflamed and create chaos because that's what they do best (bin Laden).

9. Revolutions must take place in certain steps. And there must be people who are *looking* for something to change. (All the talk of radicalism in New England at Harvard and the other Ivy League Institutions may not amount to anything.)

10. Succesful governments befriend the "learned men" (intellectuals), so that they don't become mouthpieces against the governments/ catalysts for revolution. This system existed for centuries in Mainland China. It exists in some sense in the Western World (Universities. The tenure system. Intellectuals won't go *that* far in promoting the destruction of the system that ultimately keeps them employed.)

This book has many good things that can be learned. It's only 160 pages. But it should take at least two weeks to read if read properly. And I believe that it has more *authenticated* knowledge than most sociology degree courses.