thoughts on the nature of mass movements

The True Believer?the first and most famous of his books?was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences.

A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. Journal) by the legendary San Francisco longshoreman. Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed: 1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of the true believer 2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind.?Its theme is political fanaticism, with which it deals severely and brilliantly.?New Yorker The famous bestseller with ?concise insight into what drives the mind of the fanatic and the dynamics of a mass movement? (Wall St. As an aid in this effort, use is made of a working hypothesis. This phase is dominated by the true believer-the man of fanatical faith who is ready to sacrifice his life for a holy cause-and an attempt is made to trace his genesis and outline his nature. “This book concerns itself chiefly with the active, revivalist phase of mass movements. In the Introduction Hoffer describes his book. As the book’s title suggests, it is about two things – the true believer and mass movements. While the book definitely has structure and a narrative, it is primarily a series of thoughts in 125 sections. And, its application to the issue of fanatical, radical fundamentalism internationally is quite obvious. His thoughts provide some insight on this issue. In America we have become irreconcilably polarized on a number of factors important to our future. Even though this book is 60 years old, it is perhaps more relevant now than it ever was. Eric Hoffer published this book in 1951 (There have been 23 editions published.) after studying and reflecting on the mass movements of his recent past.

Thoughts on the nature of mass movements