In his book The True Believer, Eric Hoffer, introduces his take, on Page 119 to 121, as to how faith held by the true believer in his holy cause, makes the cause indomitable in its active phase. I quote him below and then comment on his content.
Hoffer (H after this): “Faith organizes and equips a man’s soul for action. To be in possession of the one and only truth and never doubt one’s righteousness; to feel that one is backed by a mysterious power whether it be God, destiny or the law of history; to be convinced that one’s opponents are the incarnation of evil and must be crushed; to exult in self-denial and devotion to duty—these are admirable qualifications for resolute and ruthless action in any field. Psalm-singing soldiers, pioneers, businessmen and even sportsmen have proved themselves formidable. Revolutionary and nationalist enthusiasms have a similar effect: they, too, can turn spiritless and inert people into fighters and builders. Here is another reason for the apparent indispensability of a mass movement in the modernization of backward and stagnant countries.”
My response: The enthusiasm and face that true believers possess and share together in their holy cause is what makes a mass movement so formidable and unstoppable, and doubtless, Hoffer is accurate in describing how mass movements help backward and stagnant people everywhere to modernize—I just complain that were the inert, sleepy masses, per person, energetic, activistic, rational and creative imaginers and doers, then we can modernize without the terrible suffering, upheaval, and destruction that are fearful, lethal side effects of mass movements on the march.
Hoffer does a fine job assembling, in the paragraph above, the pervasive and salient traits shared by true believers that populate and make possible a mass movement.
H: “However, the exceptional fitness of the true believer for a life of action can be as much a danger as an aid to the prospects of a mass movement. By opening vast fields of feverish action a mass movement may hasten its end. Successful action tends to become an end in itself. It drains all energies and fervors into its own channels. Faith and holy cause, instead of being the supreme purpose, become mere lubricants for the machine of action. The true believer who succeeds in all he does gains self-confidence and becomes reconciled with his self and the present. He no longer sees his only salvation in losing himself in the oneness of a corporate body and in becoming an anonymous particle with no will, no judgment and responsibility of his own. He seeks and finds his salvation in action, in proving his worth and in asserting his individual superiority. Action cannot lead him to self-realization, but he readily finds in it self-justification. If he still hangs on to his faith, it is but to bolster his confidence and legitimatize his success. Thus the taste of continuous successful action is fatal to the spirit of collectivity. A people steeped in action is likely to be the least religious. The social stability and the political and religious tolerance of the Anglo-Saxon peoples is due in part to the relative abundance among them of the will, skill and opportunities for action. Action serve them as a substitute for a mass movement.”
My response: I hardly know where to begin. How he came up with what he did on his own (his incomparable facility for using language clearly and articulately to state his case; his unparalleled love of people and instinct for decency as a moral standard, his profound, metaphysical love of truth, his genius and originality, his uncanny insight into human nature and the human condition) is incredible. It is all packaged, bow-wrapped, crystallized and delivered to the reader, all presented in this one paragraph. It is going to take me an arduous effort to unpack it.
First, Hoffer is warning the reader that the potency of the mass movement is realized in its active phase, the carrying out of its objective, bringing to realization its collectivized, mass activity towards a common end, (good) be that end a reform or (bad) visiting a bloody, genocidal holocaust upon a minority, or an ethnic group like Jews.
If the guru or demagogue loses control of the enthusiastic fanatics under his sway, and they become so active, productive, and thriving in carrying out their active assignments, success become their reward, their end, not implementing the designed holy cause.
If the true believer enjoys success after success (And gains material prosperity as did the early American zealots among the Puritans, so their united compact started to unravel, undercut by individual members gaining wealth, self-sufficiency, and independence.), he gains self-confidence and becomes reconciled to himself and to living in the present.
Were we to teach our young people to self-realize as supercitizens, as hard-working, enterprising capitalists or workers in our constitutional republic, we could have our cake and eat it too. We could enjoy what mass movements offer (meaning, a sense of belonging, companionship, something to live for and a chance to serve someone (God) or something, greater than oneself—a maverizer serves the Divine Couple—Maverizers both—a sense of social order, a crude, violent, wasteful vehicle for change, but change-agent is the a mass movement, nonetheless), without the evil loss of the sense of self, the tyranny and privation endured, and the bloody conflicts that grow out of the desperate ambition to take over the world—the poisonous byproducts of many mass movement unleashed against society and against humanity.
Hoffer could have written about Mavellonialism—if it existed 74 years ago (it did not)—when he advises that the individual can find salvation for himself, not just by losing himself in the oneness of a corporate body, in becoming an anonymous with no will, judgment and responsibility of his own—the blighted, truncated life of the servant of the state as envisioned by Rousseau, Hegel, Hitler and Stalin.
The ex-true believer can find in action, finding his worth and individualism in successful action, that his superiority is tangible and the product of his meritorious, prospering endeavoring.
Then this next sentence blows me away: “He seeks and finds his salvation in action . . . Action cannot lead him to self-realization, but he readily finds in it self-justification.” If I may translate that sentence into Mavellonialist argumentation: Hoffer implied and I believe people are born mostly depraved but with an innate smidgeon of inherent goodness that can be strengthened through self-discipline, consistent clean-living and developing a good will, a free will, and a plan for self-realization for a lifetime. As an individuating adult, that agent becomes a good person.
Let me describe and identify Hoffer’s technical adjectives which Hoffer utilized in The True Believer. Each person is born discontented (self-hating, selfless and burdened and held down and back by powerful, debilitating feelings of low self-esteem), but if he exists in a social order with a benevolent deity to worship, with a family, community and nation to enjoy and care for; if he works and stays busy and productive, gaining wealth and material security; if he is a good person within the confines of his society’s moral code (a Judeo-Christian morality that is altruistic-individualistic), then that agent, who is group-living, group-identifying, a sincere follower of collectivist morality, and supporter of his groups’ rights, he can lead a conventionally happy, normal life in spite of the huge aspect of self-loathing constantly simmering in and rotting out his soul—this explains why so much sin and evil occur in the quietest, most settled, peaceful societies existing—say Japan or Portugal.
If the discontented masses, are slapped, by unavoidable, incoming, upsetting, external, social earthquakes and upheavals, into cold, jarring awakeness and sudden awareness of their personal existence and defenselessness while facing the threat of aloneness as they encounter hostile, indifferent Being itself, the discontented agent is deprived of his group, his group values and entrenched cultural story, his immersion in a semi-collectivized social order and mode of existence, where he has effectively, victoriously gotten by, by not meeting up with himself or the Good Spirits, or brute Being itself.
Now his world of social fantasy and unity is shattered, and he is thrown out into being by harsh social and political change; his sense of group identity is upended and ended. He is now frustrated, and is now seeking a new, crude, radicalized, fast-moving social order a passing mass movement, a guru to serve and obey without reserve or hesitancy, and a holy cause to live for and die for. As a fanatic immersed in this new collective structure, he leaves behind his frustrated, irredeemably spoiled life and despicable self—he blends completely into the new collective unit and ceases to exist as a separate conscious person.
If the mass movement is victorious, then it could become the Soviet Union, or settle down into something like Germany or France, after World War II. The active phase of the mass movement is over, and people go back to group-living in a settle communal patter of non-individuating lives of discontent and quite despair.
In America, where materially rewarding and lots of action enjoyed and play out in the work lives of workers and owners, it is almost fatal to the spirit of collectivity. The constitutional republicanism and free market economy reward a fair degree of individualism among adults, but they are still held back by being discontented joiners, nonindividuators, group-livers, promoting group-identity and group rights over individual identifying and individual rights.
The third technical term that Hoffer never invented but hinted at or dabbled with leads right to Mavellonialist ethics. If Americans were taught egoist-altruist ethics practiced by them as individuating supercitizens, then they go from being naturally discontented, skip completely any need to be frustrated should their whole world collapse and implode, and skip right over to being contented.
Becoming and staying contented is my Mavellonialist, technical word for the individuating supercitizen making money and staying active in our free-market, constitutional republic. That mode of citizen existing will make for healthy self-love and high self-esteem, so maverizers of such impressive accomplishment and skill, are so contented and confident, that they will do other-care as well as self-care so that all sane, reasonable and health altruistic and collectivist (communal) needs are met and satisfied.
I am going to requote the last three sentences from that paragraph because it is a slightly different emphasis but is critical to point out where Hoffer and I actually disagree. Here is the quote: “A people steeped in action is likely to be the least religious, the least revolutionary and the least chauvinist. The social stability and the political and religious tolerance of the Anglo-Saxon peoples is due in part the relative abundance among them of the will, skill and opportunities for action. Action served them as a substitute for a mass movement.”
Let me contradict myself: I do not disagree, for the most part with what Hoffer wrote here, and I will show where we agree below. When he writes that a people steeped in action (He seems to be referring to Americans and the British with their democracies, their individualism, their political and religious tolerance and moderation, with their fabulous, capitalist opportunities to be active, make money and sublimate their frustration and discontent into lawful, productive, remunerative action that makes these people feel self-justified, so are thus immune to the allure of beckoning mass movements offering refuge and salvation for joiners suffering agonized, ruined lives which they seek feverishly to shed.), he is referring to people that remain individualistic and discontented, not reduced to frustrated selflessness.
Where I qualify what Hoffer writes is that he conflates people that are religious (Remember, Hoffer is a secular atheist and rugged individualist, blue-collar intellectual.) with being enthusiastic, frustrated, fanatical, irrational true-believing and selfless. Much of religious believers are true-believers, but I would offer an alternative. My Mavellonialist faith, a form of rational religion, a conservative Unitarian-Universalism and modest Christianity in emphasis, would allow for religious believers to be rational more than emotional, moderate more than fanatical, individualistic, individuating and individual-living in accordance with an egoist morality. Altruistic, selfless, collectivized, nonindividuating, discontented joiners are the kind of religious believer that Hoffer is wary of, due to their discontented orientation to rush into a passing mass movement when things collapse around them.
I would suggest that the religious orientation of my affluent, maverizing supercitizen, contented and at peace with herself, would not find joining a toxic mass movement an attractive option for her at all.
I wholly agree with Hoffer that that people, steeped in life-styles of rewarding, fulfilling action. remain discontented, but not so discontented that they will easily become frustrated in bad times: so religious, revolutionary, nationalist, creedal or religious mass movements will not much entice them.
The rationality, the love of science and secular living and its general importance, being proponents of democracy, (capitalism—endless choices for action and gain) tolerance, individualism and moderate, lawful, peaceful settlement of disputes—all of these Anglo-Saxon political, cultural and moral values are world-class, and work being in favor of being allergic to mass-movement solutions to social challenges. Action is a substitute for a mass movement.
H: “There is of course the constant danger that should the avenues of action be thoroughly blocked by a severe depression or a defeat in war the resulting frustration is likely to be so intense that almost any proselytizing mass movement would find the situation ready-made for its propagation. The explosive situation if Germany after the First World War was partly due to the inactivity forced upon a population that knew itself admirably equipped for action. Hitler gave them a mass movement. But what was probably more important, he opened before them unlimited opportunities for feverish, incessant and spectacular action. No wonder they heiled him as their Savior.”
My response: There is a crying need for the introduction of Mavellonialist morality: if we can introduce to Americans, and people anywhere, the moral and spiritual ideal for each individual to work towards, that she is to live her life productively in the service of the good deity of her choice, as a self-actualizing, individualistic supercitizen, then they are content and impervious to gurus and demagogues peddling their mass movements and holy causes for people to lose themselves in side of.
Hoffer the wise is warning that even among individualistic but still discontented Americans and the British, held down and back in sin and low self-esteem by the vestiges of the altruist-egoist Judeo-Christian morality, if war or depression smashes Western social structures, the people could become desperate, frustrated, and seek for and find refuge in corrupting mass movements.
Dennis Prager is obsessed with Leftism and he is enraged at its intellectuals’ ambitious plan to wipe out all things Western and American; they destroy all that they touch, and revolution for the West is their goal and they are close to being victorious with this mass movement that is about 60 years old. Cultural Marxism is their holy cause.
Christopher Rufo’s new book, America’s Cultural Revolution, explains how from the 1960s forward, the Progressives have so undermined American’s belief in their own country, their morality, their cultural, their identity, their metanarrative, that I would interpret this successful Leftist Revolution as destroyed by deconstruction the social unit, the culture story and values, to push discontented Americans into desperate frustration, so, that as true-believers they will be ripe converts to usher in the Leftist holy cause. When the active phase of this mass movement congeals and slows down, it will introduce totalitarian Marxist government and culture upon our people for decades going forward. They might yet pull it off.
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