The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1951

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Preface-Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, “The Appeal of Mass Movements”

Preface Summary

Eric Hoffer regards all mass movements as characterized not by their doctrines but by the fanaticism with which their adherents—the “true believers”—embrace both united action and self-sacrifice. He explains that this book deals with the “active, revivalist phase,” when the frustrated fanatic drives the movement (xii).

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “The Desire for Change”

Mass movements attract people who crave immediate and dramatic change. These tend to be deeply frustrated people who are not so destitute as to think themselves weak and incapable of exercising power, nor so brutalized as to be without hope. In fact, they must have a blind faith in the future.

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “The Desire for Substitutes”

Mass movements offer the frustrated a holy cause as a substitute for their purposeless lives. The frustrated “crave to be rid of an unwanted self” and thus develop a “passion for self-renunciation” (12). They become fanatical about selflessness.

Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “The Interchangeability of Mass Movements”

A mass movement’s specific doctrine does not usually matter even after the fanatic has committed to it, for rival mass movements often attract converts. This is because nearly all mass movements develop a combination of religious, revolutionary, and nationalist characteristics. Hoffer suggests emigration as a safe substitute for mass movements because it offers the same opportunity for new beginnings, though emigration also could spawn a mass movement by strengthening the feeling of united action in those who emigrate.

Preface-Part 1 Analysis

Hoffer uses these early chapters to establish the book’s basic approach, which is to examine mass movements from the perspectives of the individuals who join them—the true believers. The Preface and Part 1 identify what true believers crave and how mass movements satisfy those cravings.

Above all, true believers are susceptible to The Appeal of United Action and Self-Sacrifice. This is the book’s central theme, and Hoffer establishes it in the second paragraph of the Preface. United action and self-sacrifice mean surrendering one’s individual existence to become part of a collective whole. It is crucial for readers to understand, however, that the desire for united action and self-sacrifice does not mean that true believers are motivated by love, humility, or even true selflessness. According to Hoffer, the emotion that drives people to join mass movements is usually a wholly negative one.

Frustration turns ordinary people into true believers and makes them fanatical about their perceived selflessness. Here is the second of the book’s three major themes: The Role of Frustration. Frustrated men and women join mass movements to escape themselves and what they regard as the emptiness of an individual life. Hoffer is careful, however, not to suggest a kind of determinism: Not all frustrated people join mass movements. In fact, frustration must be accompanied by hope and a sense of power if it is to translate to fanaticism.

Mass movements of every kind have the potential to satisfy the desires of the frustrated by offering a refuge from the self. Here Hoffer establishes the third of the book’s three major themes: The Irrelevance of Doctrine. Hoffer argues that the content of a mass movement’s doctrine matters less than its capacity to provide united action and self-sacrifice to the frustrated. It is important to understand that frustrated people feel united action and self-sacrifice not as a momentary appetite but as a deep and intense longing. They wish to be led away from themselves and not necessarily toward a specific ideal.

Finally, Hoffer uses these brief chapters to explain that mass movements have phases. The True Believer focuses on a movement’s fanatic-led “active phase.” In Part 4, readers learn that there is an earlier phase led by “men of words” and a later phase dominated by “practical men of action.”