The True Believer_ Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements - Eric Hoffer [13]
The strong family ties of the Chinese probably kept them for ages relatively immune to the appeal of mass movements. “The European who ‘dies for his country’ has behaved in a manner that is unintelligible to a Chinaman [sic], because his family is not directly benefited—is, indeed, damaged by the loss of one of its members.” On the other hand, he finds it understandable and honorable “when a Chinaman, in consideration of so much paid to his family, consents to be executed as a substitute for a condemned criminal.”13
It is obvious that a proselytizing mass movement must break down all existing group ties if it is to win a considerable following. The ideal potential convert is the individual who stands alone, who has no collective body he can blend with and lose himself in and so mask the pettiness, meaninglessness and shabbiness of his individual existence. Where a mass movement finds the corporate pattern of family, tribe, country, etcetera, in a state of disruption and decay, it moves in and gathers the harvest. Where it finds the corporate pattern in good repair, it must attack and disrupt. On the other hand, when as in recent years in Russia we see the Bolshevik movement bolstering family solidarity and encouraging national, racial and religious cohesion, it is a sign that the movement has passed its dynamic phase, that it has already established its new pattern of life, and that its chief concern is to hold and preserve that which it has attained. In the rest of the world where communism is still a struggling movement, it does all it can to disrupt the family and discredit national, racial and religious ties.
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The attitude of rising mass movements toward the family is of considerable interest. Almost all our contemporary movements showed in their early stages a hostile attitude toward the family, and did all they could to discredit and disrupt it. They did it by undermining the authority of the parents; by facilitating divorce; by taking over the responsibility for feeding, educating and entertaining the children; and by encouraging illegitimacy. Crowded housing, exile, concentration camps and terror also helped to weaken and break up the family. Still, not one of our contemporary movements was so outspoken in its antagonism toward the family as was early Christianity. Jesus minced no words: “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.”14 When He was told that His mother and brothers were outside desiring to speak with Him He said: “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother, and my brethren!”15 When one of His disciples asked leave to go and bury his father, Jesus said to him: “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”16 He seemed to sense the ugly family conflicts His movement was bound to provoke both by its proselytizing and by the fanatical hatred of its antagonists. “And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.”17 It is strange but true that he who preaches brotherly love also preaches against love of mother, father, brother, sister, wife and children. The Chinese sage Mo-Tzü who advocated brotherly love was rightly condemned by the Confucianists who cherished the family above all. They argued that the principle of universal love would dissolve the family and destroy society.18 The proselytizer who comes and says “Follow me” is a family-wrecker, even though he is not conscious of any hostility