The True Believer

Title: The True Believer
Author: Eric Hoffer
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 9780060505912

Social psychologist Eric Hoffer was born in New York City in 1902 to German-Jewish immigrants. The first of his ten books, The True Believer (1951), received critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, becoming widely recognized as a classic. It discussed mass movements - religious, social and political - stating that such movements are interchangeable: fanatical Nazis later became fanatical Communists; fanatical Communists later became fanatical anti-Communists; Saul, fanatical persecutor of Christians, became Paul, fanatical Christian. He argued that the motivations and behaviors of mass movements were interchangeable even when their stated goals or values were diametrically opposed.

Hoffer suggested that it was possible to quell the rise of an undesirable mass movement by introducing a benign mass movement, giving those prone to joining movements an outlet for their insecurities. He recognized the fundamental importance of self-esteem to psychological well-being, and postulated that fanaticism and self-righteousness were rooted in self-hatred and self-doubt. He believed that a passionate obsession with the outside world or the lives of others was merely a craven attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life. Hoffer didn't take an exclusively negative view of true believers and gave positive examples such as Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi.