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“A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrines 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 this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.
It is obvious, therefore, that, in order to succeed, a mass movement must develop at the earliest moment a compact corporate organization and a capacity to absorb and integrate all comers. 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. Where new creeds vie with each other for the allegiance of the populace, the one which comes with the most perfected collective framework wins…..[T]he chief passion of the frustrated is “to belong,” and that there cannot be too much cementing and binding to satisfy this passion.”
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
“the most perfected collective framework wins”
These words were published in 1951 and I think are as true now as they were 60 years ago.
Context, however, changed substantially in those years. [Read more…]