The True Believer

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2010 (originally published 1951). 

A Substitute for a Failed Personal Life

The author proposes a theory of why some people join mass movements. Some people are dissatisfied with their personal lives. Hoffer describes them as believing that their self has become “spoiled”. Such people cannot find meaning and happiness in their personal lives, so they try to become part of something bigger than themselves, such as a mass movement, in the hope that it will give meaning to their lives.

Who is Vulnerable

Mass movements attract people who lack hope, faith, pride, purpose and excellence in their individual lives. They blame not their own failings, but the present state of society for their unhappiness. Potential converts to mass movements:

• misfits and outcasts,

• failed at creative work,

• people bored with their lives,

• criminals,

• the poor.