Below is a selection of quotes from The True Believer (and note how many of them can be applied to any or all mass movements and each and every of their most ardent supporters): A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine or promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business. A mass movement... appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. Where people live autonomous lives and are not badly off, yet are without abilities or opportunities for creative work or useful action, there is no telling to what desperate and fantastic shifts they might resort in order to give meaning and purpose to their lives. People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement... They look on self- interest as something tainted and evil.
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His ideas were met with applause from a wide range of political opinion-makers. The patrician liberal Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., called Hoffer “brilliant and original.” Look magazine ran an article about Hoffer titled, “Ike’s Favorite Author.” Berkeley hired Hoffer. LBJ invited him to the White House. Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And Hillary Clinton, while trying to figure out what was going wrong in her campaign against Donald Trump, urged
her staff to read The True Believer . Today, it’s impossible to imagine a
philosopher appealing to such a broad political spectrum. In fact, today it’s impossible to imagine having such a broad political spectrum. Hoffer wouldn’t be part of it anyway... He had no political ideology. Indeed, he had no great metaphysical system of philosophy at all. He lived in the real world. He had a blue- collar approach to being a philosopher. You get your tools – which are looking, listening, and learning – then you do your job, which is thinking. The results were finely crafted, carefully finished specific works of thought. They’re better shown in operation than explained in abstractions.
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July 2020
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