Eric Hoffer wrote The True Believer in 1951. One prefers to think of the hippie 60’s, or the raging 70’s, or the majorly moral 80’s, when they discuss mass movements. But all of those preyed on the same kinds of people, and followed similar patterns to, the Beatniks and the Birchers. It also immediately shifts us away from the more popular model of “economic dissatisfaction”. I don’t mean to imply that poverty is unimportant for mass movements – economic discontent is one of the primary drivers – but that it’s not alone capable of explaining their rise. The ’50s were horrifically unequal in other ways, but they aren’t a by-word for mass poverty. Perhaps more telling: neither the Beats nor the Birchers arose from the impoverished classes. (...)
Hoffer is most famous for (what’s now called) “Horseshoe Theory”, which postulates that extremes are always closer to one another than to moderates on either side. He thinks something similar, although I’m not sure he would agree with our common use. I’ve heard basically two arguments for horseshoe theory, one better and one worse: 1) the bad one, that “extremism is extremism” which is tautologically true but explains approximately nothing and, 2) that effective tactics will be adopted by extremist parties, making their actions the same if not their intentions. This is not exactly true, but with some qualifications it’s a lot closer.
What Hoffer thinks extremes share is neither ideology nor praxis. He thinks they share a hatred of the present, a desire for some vague future, and that their behavior is predicated on this. Here’s the passage that gets the most play:
This state is what Hoffer calls frustration. (...)
Hoffer doesn’t mean to explain precisely why humans get frustrated psychologically or politically. He’s more interested in what happens after it exists. Frustration is useful because it’s the only common factor among the disparate groups that make up an early mass movement. This is apparent from his taxonomy of the frustrated (Part II), and I’ll give you the chapter titles without going into detail: The Poor (subdivided into The New Poor; the Abjectly Poor; the Free Poor; the Creative Poor; the Unified Poor); Misfits; The Inordinately Selfish; The Ambitious Facing Unlimited Opportunities; Minorities; The Bored; The Sinners, i.e. quite a wide array of people.
The impetus to join a movement appears among the poor and the wealthy, so it can’t be strictly economic (the abjectly poor aren’t actually frustrated: the chapter is instead about why they aren’t). It appears among the unemployed and the ambitious, so it can’t just be “a job”. It appears among the smart and the stupid, so it’s not simple intelligence. What these groups instead share is dissatisfaction with the self and an attempt to substitute their self for a larger group identity. Or, this:
Hoffer often talks about “substituting”, and the above passage is an example of it. One of the drives of the frustrated is to substitute an unsatisfactory self for some other thing. The dissatisfaction is not merely self-image, but fundamentally about action. You can tell yourself that you’re “good and perfect and beautiful” all day every day, but that’s not going to make you hate yourself less. At least the larger group you choose does something, or can do something.
Again, this might be justified or not: Perhaps you really do have the best start-up idea ever and Those Bastards are keeping the capital from you and destroying your life. Or maybe you have a notion that you’re “meant for something”, couldn’t figure out what and didn’t bother to try, and now you work a soul-crushing job clearly meant for [losers] that are definitely worse than you. Or The Onion. Or you’re incompetent but can’t admit it. Or you’re incompetent but only in this context and genuinely are meant for better things (if you read any link, make it that one; Ben Grierson is not the object of opprobrium here). All of this will result in the same: the sense that life has no meaning.
The frustrated cannot derive satisfaction from acting, which means that they can’t derive it from the present. Something else has to fill the void, and that something cannot be practical acts in the present. There are two reasons, mutually exclusive: For some, successfully finding that would reduce frustration and make them focus on the present rather than the future. For others, it would just be one more failure, another more empty nothing, another piece of evidence that the world is against you.
Hoffer:
This is not what Hoffer’s saying. Were that the case, his final sentence would read: “…automatically advances when it seconds the interests of the frustrated.” Mass movements do the opposite: they pretend to give you power, while stealing what little you had; they pretend to solve your problems, while entrenching them. Movements make the frustrated more frustrated and they self-perpetuate with no regard for those who perpetuate them. The seed that they sow is frustration.
This is for one obvious reason: competition. Groups that maintain frustration, or are better at sowing it, will outcompete the others. The strength of a movement is directly proportional to its size and the fanatacism of its adherents, and the fanatacism of its adherents is directly proportional to the frustration they’re trying to escape. Mass movements that are good at what they do: a) make previously content outsiders frustrated; b) further frustrate their adherents while pretending to advance the movement. This means that the strongest mass movements are inevitably going to be the ones that are the best at not delivering the goods. Any movement that actually succeeds for (advances the interests of) its frustrated adherents will make them less frustrated. Hence, they’ll stop being members. Or it will succeed at its purpose, they’ll still be frustrated, and they’ll just join another.
Modern mass movements are actually pretty inexplicable without this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say [group] never does anything of value, and they’d be much better off if they [achieved this material goal]. I think Hoffer explains this perfectly. To achieve that goal would enervate the movement, and another would fill the void.
(That doesn’t mean it never takes power, just that in taking power it either devolves into an organization or manages to accomplish zero of its utopic plans.)
This sort of sounds good, depending on what the end goal of a mass movement is. But the problem is that it doesn’t mean movements do “nothing”, it means they frantically commit to useless, meaningless tasks that appear to solve something (Hoffer calls this “united action” – it dulls the mind and weakens the person). So instead of fighting the system, they suddenly start fighting random people taken to “represent it” but that specifically have no such power. Or they spend all their time writing manifestos and critiques, screaming and marching for no cause, making everyone else frustrated but fixing absolutely nothing. Or they turn on each other, trying to virtuously succeed at tasks they hate which have no real end. I really need to stress this: it kind of sounds like I’m attacking the left, but this is bipartisan, omnipartisan. All movements have this behavior: think of your own. It’s easy.
Hoffer is most famous for (what’s now called) “Horseshoe Theory”, which postulates that extremes are always closer to one another than to moderates on either side. He thinks something similar, although I’m not sure he would agree with our common use. I’ve heard basically two arguments for horseshoe theory, one better and one worse: 1) the bad one, that “extremism is extremism” which is tautologically true but explains approximately nothing and, 2) that effective tactics will be adopted by extremist parties, making their actions the same if not their intentions. This is not exactly true, but with some qualifications it’s a lot closer.What Hoffer thinks extremes share is neither ideology nor praxis. He thinks they share a hatred of the present, a desire for some vague future, and that their behavior is predicated on this. Here’s the passage that gets the most play:
In reality the boundary line between radical and reactionary is not always distinct. The reactionary manifests radicalism when he comes to recreate his ideal past. His image of the past is based less on what it actually was than on what he wants the future to be. He innovates more than he reconstructs. A somewhat similar shift occurs in the case of the radical when he goes about building his new world. He feels the need for practical guidance, and since he has rejected and destroyed the present he is compelled to link the new world with some point in the past. If he has to employ violence in shaping the new, his view of man’s nature darkens and approaches closer to that of the reactionary.The reason for this commonality, for this shared deprecation of the present, has to do with the “state” of a person that joins (active) mass movements, and the way that mass movements exacerbate this quality. There’s not necessarily a connection between the current cause of frustration and whatever heaven will “resolve” it. Indeed: to find the “cause” would be to dwell on the present, which is precisely what it seeks to avoid.
This state is what Hoffer calls frustration. (...)
Hoffer doesn’t mean to explain precisely why humans get frustrated psychologically or politically. He’s more interested in what happens after it exists. Frustration is useful because it’s the only common factor among the disparate groups that make up an early mass movement. This is apparent from his taxonomy of the frustrated (Part II), and I’ll give you the chapter titles without going into detail: The Poor (subdivided into The New Poor; the Abjectly Poor; the Free Poor; the Creative Poor; the Unified Poor); Misfits; The Inordinately Selfish; The Ambitious Facing Unlimited Opportunities; Minorities; The Bored; The Sinners, i.e. quite a wide array of people.
The impetus to join a movement appears among the poor and the wealthy, so it can’t be strictly economic (the abjectly poor aren’t actually frustrated: the chapter is instead about why they aren’t). It appears among the unemployed and the ambitious, so it can’t just be “a job”. It appears among the smart and the stupid, so it’s not simple intelligence. What these groups instead share is dissatisfaction with the self and an attempt to substitute their self for a larger group identity. Or, this:
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause.Frustration in Hoffer’s lexicon, is never only frustration with “the system” or the status quo. It is always, always frustration with yourself. Even that frustration with the system is your own relation to it. This doesn’t mean it’s unjustified. It might be, like if the system stole your wife, but it might not be (examples abound). Its objective justification is fundamentally irrelevant. The individual always feels that it is.
Hoffer often talks about “substituting”, and the above passage is an example of it. One of the drives of the frustrated is to substitute an unsatisfactory self for some other thing. The dissatisfaction is not merely self-image, but fundamentally about action. You can tell yourself that you’re “good and perfect and beautiful” all day every day, but that’s not going to make you hate yourself less. At least the larger group you choose does something, or can do something.
Again, this might be justified or not: Perhaps you really do have the best start-up idea ever and Those Bastards are keeping the capital from you and destroying your life. Or maybe you have a notion that you’re “meant for something”, couldn’t figure out what and didn’t bother to try, and now you work a soul-crushing job clearly meant for [losers] that are definitely worse than you. Or The Onion. Or you’re incompetent but can’t admit it. Or you’re incompetent but only in this context and genuinely are meant for better things (if you read any link, make it that one; Ben Grierson is not the object of opprobrium here). All of this will result in the same: the sense that life has no meaning.
The frustrated cannot derive satisfaction from acting, which means that they can’t derive it from the present. Something else has to fill the void, and that something cannot be practical acts in the present. There are two reasons, mutually exclusive: For some, successfully finding that would reduce frustration and make them focus on the present rather than the future. For others, it would just be one more failure, another more empty nothing, another piece of evidence that the world is against you.
Hoffer:
There is a fundamental difference between the appeal of a mass movement and the appeal of a practical organization. The practical organization offers opportunities for self-advancement, and its appeal is mainly to self-interest. On the other hand, a mass movement, particularly in its active, revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation. (...)One framework for understanding mass movements looks quite similar up until the end. It goes something like this, subbing in terms: populism is the result of [resentment]. The populist movement advances the desires of its adherents over and against an outgroup. “We are the 99%!” means: we’ll take what we want from the rich. Bad for the rich, but certainly good for the 99%. In this view, the ills of a mass movement are their violence, or their illberalism, or their [other].
This is not what Hoffer’s saying. Were that the case, his final sentence would read: “…automatically advances when it seconds the interests of the frustrated.” Mass movements do the opposite: they pretend to give you power, while stealing what little you had; they pretend to solve your problems, while entrenching them. Movements make the frustrated more frustrated and they self-perpetuate with no regard for those who perpetuate them. The seed that they sow is frustration.
This is for one obvious reason: competition. Groups that maintain frustration, or are better at sowing it, will outcompete the others. The strength of a movement is directly proportional to its size and the fanatacism of its adherents, and the fanatacism of its adherents is directly proportional to the frustration they’re trying to escape. Mass movements that are good at what they do: a) make previously content outsiders frustrated; b) further frustrate their adherents while pretending to advance the movement. This means that the strongest mass movements are inevitably going to be the ones that are the best at not delivering the goods. Any movement that actually succeeds for (advances the interests of) its frustrated adherents will make them less frustrated. Hence, they’ll stop being members. Or it will succeed at its purpose, they’ll still be frustrated, and they’ll just join another.
Modern mass movements are actually pretty inexplicable without this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say [group] never does anything of value, and they’d be much better off if they [achieved this material goal]. I think Hoffer explains this perfectly. To achieve that goal would enervate the movement, and another would fill the void.
(That doesn’t mean it never takes power, just that in taking power it either devolves into an organization or manages to accomplish zero of its utopic plans.)
This sort of sounds good, depending on what the end goal of a mass movement is. But the problem is that it doesn’t mean movements do “nothing”, it means they frantically commit to useless, meaningless tasks that appear to solve something (Hoffer calls this “united action” – it dulls the mind and weakens the person). So instead of fighting the system, they suddenly start fighting random people taken to “represent it” but that specifically have no such power. Or they spend all their time writing manifestos and critiques, screaming and marching for no cause, making everyone else frustrated but fixing absolutely nothing. Or they turn on each other, trying to virtuously succeed at tasks they hate which have no real end. I really need to stress this: it kind of sounds like I’m attacking the left, but this is bipartisan, omnipartisan. All movements have this behavior: think of your own. It’s easy.
by Lou Keep, sam[]zdat | Read more:
Image: The Silence, Ingmar Bergman
[ed. I've been a fan of Eric Hoffer (the "longshoreman philosopher") all my life, and The True Believer always on my bookshelf.]
