Eric Hoffer

From The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements:

"There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace ofthe righteous. They see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality."

"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...When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom -- freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse."

"The deindividualization which is a prerequisite for thorough integration and selfless dedication is also, to a considerable extent, a process of dehumanization. The torture chamber is a corporate institution."

"To ripen a person for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity and distinctness."

"To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair. Dostoyevsky gave words to this state of mind in Crime and Punishment: 'If one had to live on some high rock on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life whatever it may be!'"

"The same Russians who cringe and crawl before Stalin's secret police displayed unsurpassed courage when facing -- singly or in a group -- the invading Nazis. The reason for this contrasting behavior is not that Stalin's police are more ruthless than Hitler's armies, but that when facing Stalin's police the Russian feels a mere individual while, when facing the Germans, he saw himself a member fo a mighty race, possessed of a glorious past and even more glorious future."

"Almost all our contemporary movements showed in their early stages a hostile attitude toward the family, and did all they could to discredit and disrupt it...It is strange but true that he who preaches brotherly love also preaches against love of mother, father, brother, sister, wife and children. The proselytizer who says "Come and follow me" is a family wrecker."

"The discontent generated in backward countries by their contact with Western civilization is not primarily resentment against exploitation by domineering foreigners. 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 ot backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration...releasing him, in the words of Khomiakov, 'to the freedom of his own impotence.'"

"The policy of an exploiting colonial power should be to encourage communal cohesion among the natives...An effective division is one that fosters a multiplicity of compact bodies -- racial, religious, or economic -- vying with and suspicious of each other." [Me: An implicit endorsement of our Iraqi adventure, perhaps. Hoffer argues that individual frustration leads to the vulnerability of the individual vis-a-vis the siren songs of mass movements. Localize the individual's communal cohesion, and avoid his assimilation into a global jihadist movement.]

"A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves -- and it does htis by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole."

"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." [Me: If true, this does not bode well for our battle with Radical Islam. With the decentralized, solvent networks of the Mosque and Internet combined with the unifying status of the Muslim identity, Radical Islam is well positioned to be a continuously viable, adaptive and long-term threat to the West.]

"The most incurably frustrated -- and therefore, the most vehement -- among the permanent misfits are those with an unfulfilled craving for creative work."

"The more selfish a person, the more poignant his disappointments. It is the inordinately selfish, therefore, who are likely to be the most persuasive champions of selflessness."

"When opportunities are apparently unlimited, there is an inevitable deprecation of the present." [Me: Kierkegaard also touches on this. If freedom is the relation between possibility and necessity, too much freedom -- i.e. too much possibility -- can lead one to despair of all that could be, but is not.]

"Within a minority bent on assimilation, the least and most successful (economically and culturally) are likely to be more frustrated than those in between...Those of a minority who attain fortune and fame often find it difficult to gain entrance into the exclusive circles of the majority. They are thus made conscious of their foreignness. Furthermore, having evidence of their individual superiority, they resent the admission of inferiority implied in the process of assimilation...The least and most successful of the Blacks are the most race conscious."

"There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society's ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom...When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main fountainhead of boredom...Pleasure-chasing and dissipation are ineffective palliatives. Where people live autonomous lives and are not badly off, yet are without abilities or opportunities for creative work or useful action, there is no telling to what desperate and fantastic shifts they might resort in order to give meaning and purpose to their lives." [Me: We see this most often nowadays as the fallout of social welfare programs vis-a-vis the unemployment rate of young Muslim men. 50% of employable Muslim immigrants in Europe live off of government assistance -- i.e., they are "not badly off" minorities with no opportunities for useful action, with a strong identity with the aggrieved global status of Muslimness. In other words, an incredibly flammable admixture of frustrations.]

"All mass movements deprecate the present by depicting it as a mean preliminary to a glorious future; a mere doormat on the threshold of the millennium...When Tertullian proclaimed, 'And He was buried and rose again; it is certain because it is impossible,' he was snapping his fingers at the present."

"It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have something worth fighting for, they do not feel like fighting."

"The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude...It is obvious, therefore, that in order to be effective a doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand...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.' When a movement begins to rationalize its doctrine and make it intelligible, it is a sign that its dynamic span is over; that it is primarily interested in stability. For the stability of a regime requires the allegiance of the intellectuals, and it is to win them rather than to foster self-sacrifice in the masses that a doctrine is made intelligible."

"If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable."

"Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil...Every difficulty and failure within the movement is the work of the devil, and every success is a triumph over his evil plotting." [Me: This actually reconciles with cognitive science, in the recognition of agents as us-inside and other-outside, and the different emotional reactions one has for each respectively -- oddly, it's the same emotional reaction that explains why saliva in your mouth doesn't disgust you, but spit, once outside your mouth, does.]

"Where opinion is not coerced, people can be made to believe only in what they already 'know.'"

"The assertion that a mass movement cannot be stopped by force is not literally true. Force can stop and crush even the most vigorous movement. But to do so the force must be ruthless and persistent. And here is where faith enters as an indispensable factor. For a persecution that is ruthless and persistent can come only from fanatical conviction. 'Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook.'"

"Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts." [Me: this, at once, poses for us a problem and a solution. The solution it proposes is to have an army of fact checkers that would guard against any mass movement destroying America. The problem is that this solution will preclude all mass movements, even when one is necessary -- e.g. to ensure survival.]

"A dispensation of undoubted merit and vigor may be swept away if it fails to win the allegiance of the articulate minority...The emergence of an articulate minority where there was none before is a potential revolutionary step."

"There is a deep-seated craving common to almost all men of words which determines their attitude tot he prevailing order. It is a craving for recognition; a craving for a clearly marked status above the common run of humanity."

"There is a moment in the career of almost every fault-finding man of words when a deferential or conciliatory gesture from those in power may win him over to their side." [Me: Among many obvious examples, this has been seen most recently in the political blogosphere.]