True believers and mass movements

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Communities with low levels of trust engage in what he calls “hunkering” or withdrawing from social life, which, he argued, reduces their ability to engage in collective action to address problems in their communities. But it can have even more dire consequences. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, philosopher Hannah Arendt saw social isolation from... See more

José Marichal • Trust an algorithm, or trust your neighbor?

‘Totalitarian movements are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals,’ wrote Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism.14 It’s in the interests of an autocrat that the only real bond among his supporters should be their support for him.

Oliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count.

To the frustrated a mass movement offers substitutes either for the whole self or for the elements which make life bearable and which they cannot evoke out of their individual resources.

Eric Hoffer • The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)

All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life;