The True Believer_ Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements - Eric Hoffer [20]
Boredom accounts for the almost invariable presence of spinsters and middle-aged women at the birth of mass movements. Even in the case of Islam and the Nazi movement, which frowned upon feminine activity outside the home, we find women of a certain type playing an important role in the early stage of their development.
Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement. It offers them a new purpose in life, a new future and a new identity (a new name). The boredom of spinsters and of women who can no longer find joy and fulfillment in marriage stems from an awareness of a barren, spoiled life. By embracing a holy cause and dedicating their energies and substance to its advancement, they find a new life full of purpose and meaning. Hitler made full use of “the society ladies thirsting for adventure, sick of their empty lives, no longer getting a ‘kick’ out of love affairs.”1 He was financed by the wives of some of the great industrialists long before their husbands had heard of him.2 Miriam Beard tells of a similar role played by bored wives of businessmen before the French Revolution: “they were devastated with boredom and given to fits of the vapors. Restlessly, they applauded innovators.”3
XI
The Sinners
42
The sardonic remark that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels has also a less derogatory meaning. Fervent patriotism as well as religious and revolutionary enthusiasm often serves as a refuge from a guilty conscience. It is a strange thing that both the injurer and the injured, the sinner and he who is sinned against, should find in the mass movement an escape from a blemished life. Remorse and a sense of grievance seem to drive people in the same direction.
It sometimes seems that mass movements are custommade to fit the needs of the criminal—not only for the catharsis of his soul but also for the exercise of his inclinations and talents. The technique of a proselytizing mass movement aims to evoke in the faithful the mood and frame of mind of a repentant criminal.1 Self-surrender, which is, as will be shown in Part 3, the source of a mass movement’s unity and vigor, is a sacrifice, an act of atonement, and clearly no atonement is called for unless there is a poignant sense of sin. Here, as elsewhere, the technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure. “What a task confronts the American clergy"—laments an American divine—"preaching the good news of a Savior to people who for the most part have no real sense of sin.”2 An effective mass movement cultivates the idea of sin. It depicts the autonomous self not only as barren and helpless but also as vile. To confess and repent is to slough off one’s individual distinctness and separateness, and salvation is found by losing oneself in the holy oneness of the congregation.3
There is a tender spot for the criminal and an ardent wooing of him in all mass movements. St. Bernard, the moving spirit of the Second Crusade, thus appealed for recruits: “For what is it but an exquisite and priceless chance of salvation due to God alone, that the omnipotent should deign to summon to His service, as though they were innocent, murderers, ravishers, adulterers, perjurers, and those guilty of every crime?”4 Revolutionary Russia too has a tender spot for the common criminal, though it is ruthless with the heretic—the ideological “deviationist.” It is perhaps true that the criminal who embraces a holy cause is more ready to risk his life and go to extremes in its defense than people who are awed by the sanctity of life and property.
Crime is to some extent a substitute for a mass movement. Where public opinion and law enforcement are not too stringent, and poverty not absolute, the underground pressure of malcontents and misfits often leaks out in crime. It has been observed that in the exaltation of mass movements (whether patriotic, religious or revolutionary) common crime declines.