On the campus at the University of California at Berkeley, where Eric Hoffer taught for several years even though he had no college degrees \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Several millennia ago, when I was a teenager babysitting for my brother and my sister-in-law (or something like that), I came across a book on my brother shelves that has stayed with me ever since: \u00a0Eric Hoffer\u2019s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements<\/em>, which was originally published in 1951.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oddly, though, until this past week I don\u2019t think that I had ever re-read the book since then. \u00a0However, my wife and I belong to a monthly reading group, and we were in charge for tonight, and, on a sudden whim, I chose The True Believer<\/em> for this evening\u2019s get-together. \u00a0At first, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed, and a little worried about my choice. \u00a0By the end, though, it seemed as brilliant to me as it did all those years ago. \u00a0I don\u2019t agree with everything in it \u2014 at some points I strongly disagree<\/em> \u2014 but it\u2019s wonderfully provocative.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think that I may almost have marked more passages than I didn\u2019t<\/em> mark. \u00a0Hoffer wrote aphoristically, and he\u2019s often very quotable. \u00a0Here are three of the first passages that I selected:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is necessary for most of us these days to have some insight into the motives and responses of the true believer. \u00a0For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. \u00a0The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. \u00a0And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities. \u00a0(xiii)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
He wrote those words nearly seven decades ago. \u00a0Hitler and Nazism had died only six years before. \u00a0Joseph Stalin still ruled the Soviet Union and its satellites. \u00a0The People\u2019s Republic of China had just been established, in 1949. \u00a0But Hoffer is still relevant, not just in the age of ISIS and al-Qa\u2018ida and Hezbollah but to the rise of extreme factions in the presidential politics of the United States.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. \u00a0For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. \u00a0It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse. \u00a0(11)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. \u00a0When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people\u2019s business. \u00a0(14)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Several millennia ago, when I was a teenager babysitting for my brother and my sister-in-law (or something like that), I came across a book on my brother shelves that has stayed with me ever since: \u00a0Eric Hoffer\u2019s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, which was originally published in 1951. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8505,8859,8868,8856,8865,8862],"class_list":["post-83270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-eric","tag-eric-hoffer","tag-fanatic","tag-hoffer","tag-mass-movements","tag-true-believer"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>