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An Introductory Critique of the True Believer ERIC HOFFER and COLD

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An Introductory Critique of the True Believer ERIC HOFFER and COLD WOULD YOU BELIEVE .•• ? · An Introductory Critique of The True Believer By Paul Breines and ERIC HOFFER AND COLD WAR IDEOLOGY By Peter Wiley One of a series published by Madison Students for a Democratic Society, Madison, Wisconsin. Distributed nationally by the Radical Education Project, Box 625, Ann Arbor, Michi·gan 48108. Paul Breines and Peter Wiley are gradua te students in history at the University of Wisconsin. Price: IO<t , WOULD YOU BELIEVE • • • • B7 Paul Breinea Whe n is a b ook abstract ? Too often we s ay a b ook i s abst ract whe n i t i s merely long, or when its l an­ gua ,se is opaque, .or when its arguments aTe hard. to grasp . Yet like abstract ideas themselves t hese C.efini­ tions mis s t he . point. A b ock or iG. e a i s ab stract when it is not concrete, when i t is removed f rom reality. It 1 is in this sense that Eric Hof.:'er s --The ---True Believer i s an abst ract book. True, his li ctle book is simple, compact, ana clear. But it is precisely through its conciseness and its simple logi c that it remains de ­ tache.J f rom reality : specificall y, the reali ty it seeks t o explain _, today 1 s revol utions and today 1 s revolutionaries . "The true believer is everywhere on the march, and by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the ,._1orld in h is mm irr.age . " Thus Eric Hoffer announces the theme of his b ook . And one need go no further than the pref ace t o begin asking questions about The True Believer. Is it the true believer, the fanatic, the ffia ss movement as such which are on the march --- today? Or do we really find around us specif ic and concrete kinds of belief s and movements? In Vietnam, f or ex ample, is America concerned about a mass move ­ ment plain and simple, or a specific mass movement that is strivi ng t o rid t he country of the latest form of we stern c olonialism? I s white America fear­ ful of extremists in the Black ghettos, or of t he sanity and reason behind the growing Black revolt against the extreme barbarism of ghetto life? Are Ameri can universities vlOrried about student fanatics, or about rat ional students who are fanatically opposed t o bad education, bureaucratic coercion, and universi t y compliance wit h the mi litary in the name of "neutrality" and "business as usual"? What 's the problem: t he true believer, or p art i ­ cular k i nds of belief s Hhich say no to the American status quo? 2 There are several basic premises upon which Hoffer 's specific arguments depend. First, he be­ lieves t hat the "frustr ated" ( "people who, for one reason or another, feel that their lives are spoiled or. wasted") predomi nat e in the early stages of all mass movements. Second, he believes that mass move ­ me nts are interchangeable since t he main feature of all mass movements is that they appeal to and organize t he frustrated. Third, and related t o the first two, he repeatedly states that mass movements cannot be studied on the basis of their aims and goals but only on the basis of the manner in which they build well-knit and cohesive units of people. Hoffer's other arguments, about the poor, the in­ tellectuals, "good" and "bad" mass movements, and so on, all seem to grow out of his several central premises. These should be looked at first . The individuals who are mo st prone to join mass movements, Hoffer stat es, are those vJho are frus­ trated. And those who are frus tra~ed are , quite simply, those who are aware that their "se±ves or personalities are damaged; the frustrated are people who have not found fulfillment in their lives. The r e lationship between individual frustration and mass movements, Hoffer argues, arises from the fact that a movement or cause offers the frustrat ed in­ dividual -L L:: chance t o lose, forget, slough off that sel f with which he is dissatisfied. Mass movements manipulate the frustrations felt by members of a s ociety; they are able t o extract a fanatical commit­ ment from the frustrated i n return for the securi ty they offer to him. This is a clear and logical conception. The question is whether it helps us understand 'tJhat Hoff er calls mass movements . The first point to be made is that, whether he intends it or not, the clear implication of Hof fer's argument here i s that those who tend to be attracted to the initial stages of mass movements are in some sense psychol ogically i mbalanced; they are discontended, cranky, unable to face themselves, neurotic. For Hoffer this is true of both the leaders and the led in any mass movement. 3 Immediat ely a myriad of difficul t i es arise. Frustrated individuals are prone to "true believer­ ism, '' says Hoffer . But when you get right down t o it, what really does he mean by frustration? He means everything and nothing at once . Of course a f rustrated individual is one wh o is dissatisfied with himself because he has not found f ulfillment in his life; he is aware of his "damaged and unwanted self." A boy i s not wanted by his parents, a man is not wanted by the woman he desires or the friend he seeks. This is frustration . A peasant in Cuba and h i s family are starving while a night-club owner in Havana over­ eats t wice daily; a Black mot her 's child in Harlem is bitten by a rat in her bed while the members of t he family for whom t he Black mother works all have el ectri c t oothbrushes . This is frustration . These two broad t ypes of frustration are meaningful ones . The point is simply that they are also not identical, and do not carry the same lveight in analyses of history and mass movement s . It is true that a man may become a fanatical member of a political move ­ ment because his parents rejected him or because a publisher r ejected his books; if so, he may be seek­ ing through a movement or "cause" t o reject the self that others rejected. But a man may also become a fanatical member of a political movement because he and ot hers in a like sit uation are starving, or be­ cause they seek equality, or because t hey seek t o have control over the land they work or even the schools t hey attend. In other 1-10rds if a category such as f rustra­ tion i s going t o be empl oyed i n a study of mass move­ ments, it cannot be defined so abstractly as mere di ssati sfacti on wi th one's self . We must inquire into t he historical and social situation in which a self or group of selves exist; we mutt ask what a particular man or group of men are frustrated about . Hoffer does not ask such questions, and t he r eader is lef t 'Hith the false i mpression that f r ustrati on and dissatisfaction can never ~xpress men ' s desire to eliminate an actually existi ng condi tion of un ­ happi ness or misery, but that frustration is simply an abstract emotion that some men are plagued by. It is wort h noting that other analyst s of similar prob­ lems -- among them, Hegel, Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre and Franz Fanon - - employ the i dea of a "damaged self " in t heir studies of revolution . For example, a slave becomes aware that the self t hat he is as a slave is a denial of the se l f he might be a s a free man. His slave- self is a aamaged self i n so far as it i s not a human and f ree self. When such a man chooses to commit himself to a revolution against h is masters he i s in­ deed, in Hoffer ' s terms, seeking t o "slough off" his damaged self . Now this t oo i s simply a model, but un­ like Hoffer ' s mode l it obliges one t o i mme rse himself in the concrete life - situation of the damaged selves, for the latter are never abstractions but real people. Further, this second model suggests that both f rustration and passionate commitment to the "cause " of ending ''frustration" can be rational -- depending on the historical moment , the nature of the society which produces f rustration, and the character of the "cause. " Hoffer r anges rapidly, often in a s_ingle para­ graph, across "mass movements " from early Christianity through the Reformat ion t o Nazism and Bolshevism. His doing this seems so neat and logical only because he l eaves out fundamental social and historical ques- t ions. Thus it appears that men are simply prone t o be swept into mass movements because they are frus­ trat ed . A crucial element remains hidden : when a man i s st arving, or is denied justice or f reedom, frus­ tration is a sane and reasoned reaction . Equally sane and reasoned -- these do not mean devoi d of passion -- can be a man ' s commitment to a movement wh ich aims at eliminating hunger 7 injustice, coercion.
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