1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,120 Speaker 1: If you want to support the show and get the 2 00:00:02,160 --> 00:00:06,559 episodes early and ad free, head on over to Freemanbeyond 3 00:00:06,599 --> 00:00:10,359 the Wall dot com forward slash Support. I want to 4 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:15,000 explain something right now. If you support me through substack 5 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:19,719 or Patreon, you have access to an RSS feed that 6 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:24,239 you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll 7 00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:27,239 be able to listen to the episodes through there. If 8 00:00:27,239 --> 00:00:31,120 you support me through subscribe, star gum Road or on 9 00:00:31,199 --> 00:00:34,719 my website directly, I will send you a link where 10 00:00:34,759 --> 00:00:37,079 you can download the file and you can listen to 11 00:00:37,119 --> 00:00:41,439 it any way you wish. I really appreciate the support 12 00:00:41,520 --> 00:00:44,759 everyone gives me. It keeps a show going. It allows 13 00:00:44,799 --> 00:00:47,960 me to basically put out an episode every day now, 14 00:00:48,439 --> 00:00:51,119 and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going to accelerate. 15 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:53,799 I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two 16 00:00:54,600 --> 00:01:00,159 even three a day, and yeah, can't do it without you, 17 00:01:00,759 --> 00:01:02,880 So thank you for the support. Head on over to 18 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:07,159 Freeman Beyond the Wall dot com, forward slash Support and 19 00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:12,560 do it there. Thank you all right. I want to 20 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:17,959 welcome everyone to book number nine in my series. I 21 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,760 took a week off or two weeks off and back 22 00:01:21,799 --> 00:01:24,079 to it and this time I'm going to do something different. 23 00:01:24,359 --> 00:01:26,000 I'm going to read a book that I haven't read, 24 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:28,519 so we're going to read it together for the first time. 25 00:01:28,719 --> 00:01:31,560 Or a lot of people I know have read this book. 26 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:33,920 I just haven't had a chance, and I thought, well, 27 00:01:33,959 --> 00:01:38,120 here's my chance. So the book is called The True Believer. 28 00:01:39,439 --> 00:01:44,840 The head the subheading is Thoughts on the Nature of 29 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:49,480 Mass Movements. It's a non going by Wikipedia here. It's 30 00:01:49,519 --> 00:01:53,239 a nonfiction book authored by the American social philosopher Eric Hoffer, 31 00:01:53,239 --> 00:01:56,359 published in nineteen fifty one. It depicts a variety of 32 00:01:56,439 --> 00:01:59,719 arguments in terms of applied world history and social psychology 33 00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:03,439 to explain why mass movements arise to challenge the status quo. 34 00:02:04,359 --> 00:02:08,960 A little bit about Haffer. Haffer, it says, was an atheist, 35 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:13,000 American philosopher, social critic, conservative moderate with an atypical working 36 00:02:13,039 --> 00:02:16,479 class background. Authored ten books over his career. Was awarded 37 00:02:16,479 --> 00:02:19,360 the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February nineteen eighty three. 38 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:22,680 His first book, The True Believer, was widely recognized as 39 00:02:22,719 --> 00:02:29,039 a classic, receiving critical acclaim from scholars and layman. Early 40 00:02:29,080 --> 00:02:33,879 life many elements of Hoffer's early life or unverified, but 41 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:37,599 in autobiographical statements. Hoffer claimed to have been born in 42 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:40,039 nineteen oh two in the Bronx city of New York 43 00:02:40,439 --> 00:02:47,759 to Newt and Elsa Geibel Hoffer Well. His mother's maiden 44 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:53,439 name was Gebel Geibel. His parents were immigrants from Alsace, 45 00:02:53,560 --> 00:02:56,159 then part of Imperial Germany. By age five, Hoffer could 46 00:02:56,159 --> 00:02:59,240 already read in both English and his parents' native German. 47 00:03:00,039 --> 00:03:01,840 When he was five, his mother fell down the stairs 48 00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:04,240 with him in her arms. He later recalled, I lost 49 00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:06,240 my sight at the age of seven, two years before 50 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:09,240 my mother fell. My mother and I fell down the stairs. 51 00:03:10,639 --> 00:03:13,560 She did not recover and died in that second year 52 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:16,000 after the fall. I lost my sight and for a 53 00:03:16,039 --> 00:03:19,479 time my memory. Haffer spoke with the pronounced German accent 54 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:22,439 all his life and spoke the language fluently. He was 55 00:03:22,520 --> 00:03:27,199 raised by a living relative or servant German immigrant named Martha. 56 00:03:27,879 --> 00:03:31,280 His eyesight inexplicably returned when he was fifteen years old. 57 00:03:31,759 --> 00:03:33,319 Fearing he might lose it again, he sees in the 58 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:36,199 opportunity to read as much as he could. His recovery 59 00:03:36,319 --> 00:03:41,280 proved permanent. But Haffer never abandoned his reading habit all right, 60 00:03:41,759 --> 00:03:48,439 So this book is recommended by many people. I don't 61 00:03:48,439 --> 00:03:51,719 even remember who recommended it to me first because it's 62 00:03:51,719 --> 00:03:55,039 been recommended by so many. So let's read it together. 63 00:03:55,479 --> 00:03:58,280 I'm going to start with the preface and yeah, let's 64 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:01,840 just get into it deals with some peculiarities common to 65 00:04:01,879 --> 00:04:06,360 all mass movements, be they religious movements, social revolutions, or 66 00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:09,960 nationalist movements. It does not maintain that all movements are identical, 67 00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:13,240 but that they share certain essential characteristics which give them 68 00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:18,360 a family likeness. All mass movements generate in their adherence, 69 00:04:18,399 --> 00:04:21,199 a readiness to die, and a proclivity for united action. 70 00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:24,439 All of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and 71 00:04:24,480 --> 00:04:29,199 the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm for hope, hatred, 72 00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:32,199 and intolerance. All of them are capable of releasing a 73 00:04:32,199 --> 00:04:35,360 powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life. All 74 00:04:35,399 --> 00:04:40,839 of them demand blind faith and single hearted allegiance. All movements, 75 00:04:40,879 --> 00:04:45,000 however different in doctrine and aspiration, draw their early adherents 76 00:04:45,040 --> 00:04:48,120 from the same types of humanity. They all appeal to 77 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:51,399 the same types of mind, though there are obvious differences 78 00:04:51,439 --> 00:04:56,240 between the fanatical Christian, fanatical Mohammedan, the fanatical nationalists, the 79 00:04:56,240 --> 00:04:59,800 fanatical communists and the fanatical Nazi. It is yet true 80 00:04:59,839 --> 00:05:03,680 that the fanaticism which animates them may be viewed and 81 00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:06,399 treated as one. The same is true of the force 82 00:05:06,439 --> 00:05:09,839 which drives them on to expansion and world dominion. There 83 00:05:09,879 --> 00:05:13,439 is a certain uniformity in all types of dedication of faith, 84 00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:17,279 of pursuit of power, of unity, and of self sacrifice. 85 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:20,439 There are vast differences in the contents of the holy 86 00:05:20,519 --> 00:05:24,399 causes and doctrines, but a certain uniformity in the factors 87 00:05:24,439 --> 00:05:28,720 which make them effective. He who, like Pascal, finds precise 88 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,120 reasons for the effectiveness of Christian doctrine, has also found 89 00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:38,680 the reasons for the effectiveness of communist, Nazi and nationalist doctrine. 90 00:05:39,079 --> 00:05:42,519 However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps 91 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:47,079 die basically for the same thing. This book concerns itself 92 00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:51,759 chiefly with the activity with the active revivalist phase of 93 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:56,480 mass movements. This phase is dominated by the true believer, 94 00:05:56,759 --> 00:05:59,240 the man of fanatical faith, who is ready to sacrifice 95 00:05:59,279 --> 00:06:01,639 his life for a whole cause, and an attempt is 96 00:06:01,639 --> 00:06:05,120 made to trace his genesis and outline his nature. As 97 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:09,040 an aid in this effort, use is made of working hypotheses, 98 00:06:09,839 --> 00:06:13,000 starting out from the fact that the frustrated the frustrated 99 00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:16,759 predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements, and 100 00:06:16,800 --> 00:06:20,360 that they usually join of their own accord. It is 101 00:06:20,439 --> 00:06:24,720 assumed one that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting 102 00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:28,160 from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics 103 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:31,839 of the true believer, that an effective technique of conversion 104 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:35,600 consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and 105 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:41,560 responses indigenous to the frustrated mind. To testabilidity these assumptions, 106 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:44,319 it was necessary to inquire into the ills that afflict 107 00:06:44,399 --> 00:06:47,920 the frustrated, how they react against them, the degree to 108 00:06:47,959 --> 00:06:50,959 which these reactions correspond to responses to the true believer, 109 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:54,360 and finally, the manner in which these reactions can facilitate 110 00:06:54,399 --> 00:06:58,120 the rise and spread of a mass movement. It was 111 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:01,920 also necessary to examine the practice of contemporary movements which 112 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:06,079 successful techniques of conversion had been perfected and applied, in 113 00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:09,720 order to discover whether they corroborate the view that a 114 00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:13,839 proselytizing mass movement deliberately fosters in its adherents a frustrated 115 00:07:13,879 --> 00:07:17,360 state of mind, and that it automatically advances its interest 116 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:21,959 when it seconds to propensities of the frustrated. It is 117 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:24,160 necessary for most of us these days to have some 118 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:26,879 insight into the motives and response as the true believer, 119 00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:30,079 For though ours is a godless age, it is the 120 00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:33,920 very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on 121 00:07:33,959 --> 00:07:37,040 the march, and both by converting and antagonizing, he is 122 00:07:37,079 --> 00:07:39,519 shaping the world in his own image. And whether we 123 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:42,680 are to line up with him or against him, it 124 00:07:42,759 --> 00:07:46,279 is well that we should know all we can concerning 125 00:07:46,319 --> 00:07:51,439 his nature and potentialities. It is perhaps not superfluous to 126 00:07:51,439 --> 00:07:54,040 add a word of caution. When we speak of the 127 00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:56,800 family likeness of mass movements. We use to term the 128 00:07:57,079 --> 00:08:01,000 word family in a taxonomical sense. The tomato and the 129 00:08:01,079 --> 00:08:06,319 night shade are in the same family, the soleness solena, say, 130 00:08:07,879 --> 00:08:11,360 I've ever seen that word before, Though though the one 131 00:08:11,399 --> 00:08:15,439 is nutritious, in the other poisonous. They have They have 132 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:20,079 many morphological, anatomical, and physiological traits in common, so that 133 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:24,560 even the non botanist senses of family likeness. The assumptions 134 00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:27,279 that mass movements have many traits in common does not 135 00:08:27,319 --> 00:08:32,720 imply that all movements are equally beneficent or poisonous. The 136 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:36,840 book passes. This book passes no judgment and expresses no preferences. 137 00:08:37,279 --> 00:08:41,000 It merely tries to explain and the explanations all of them. 138 00:08:41,039 --> 00:08:44,240 Theories are in the nature of suggestions and arguments, even 139 00:08:44,279 --> 00:08:47,720 when they are stated in what seems a categorical tone. 140 00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:52,480 I can do no better than to quote Montane. All 141 00:08:52,519 --> 00:08:54,840 I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by 142 00:08:54,879 --> 00:08:58,080 way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if 143 00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:02,440 it were my due to be believe. So, I think 144 00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:06,919 that this is going to hit a lot of people. 145 00:09:07,799 --> 00:09:09,080 I think that a lot of people are going to 146 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:12,200 listen to this or read it, and they're going to think, well, 147 00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:14,600 this doesn't have anything to do with me, this is 148 00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:23,960 the other guy. Well, I think the intelligent man, the 149 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:28,600 man of history, can examine himself and see where they 150 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:33,120 can find themselves in pretty much anything. So we'll see 151 00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:38,440 how it goes. Part one is called the appeal of 152 00:09:38,559 --> 00:09:43,120 mass movements. Part one of that is the desire for change. 153 00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:47,200 It is a truism that many who join a rising 154 00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:50,000 revolutionary movement are attracted by the prospect of sudden and 155 00:09:50,039 --> 00:09:53,960 spectacular change in their conditions of life. A revolutionary movement 156 00:09:54,039 --> 00:09:59,840 is a conspicuous instrument of change many, or I would say, 157 00:10:01,279 --> 00:10:06,080 in the culture around them, the term reactionary comes to mind. 158 00:10:06,639 --> 00:10:10,159 It gets thrown around now. So obvious is the fact 159 00:10:10,159 --> 00:10:13,720 that religious and nationalists movements too can be vehicles to change. 160 00:10:14,159 --> 00:10:18,039 Some kind of widespread enthusiasm or excitement is apparently needed 161 00:10:18,039 --> 00:10:20,799 for the realization of vast and rapid change, and it 162 00:10:20,840 --> 00:10:23,399 does not seem to matter whether the exhilaration is derived 163 00:10:23,399 --> 00:10:27,000 from an expectation of untold riches or is generated by 164 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:30,559 an active mass movement. In this country, the spectacular changes 165 00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:33,960 since the Civil War were enacted in an environment charged 166 00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:37,679 with the enthusiasm born of fabulous opportunities for self advancement 167 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:42,799 read individualism. Where self advancement cannot or is not allowed 168 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:46,559 to serve as a driving force, other sources of enthusiasm 169 00:10:46,679 --> 00:10:49,399 have to be found if momentous changes, such as the 170 00:10:49,440 --> 00:10:53,080 awakening and renovation of a stagnant society or radical reforms 171 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:55,279 in the character and pattern of life of a community 172 00:10:55,720 --> 00:11:00,639 are to be realized and perpetrate and perpetuated. Revolutionary and 173 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:06,559 nationalist movements are such generating plants of general enthusiasm. So 174 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:14,240 stagnant society, momentous changes awakening. I'm pretty sure you can 175 00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:19,200 get where this is. Where he's starting this from in 176 00:11:19,240 --> 00:11:22,480 the past religious movements where the conspicuous vehicles have change. 177 00:11:22,799 --> 00:11:25,960 The conservatism of a religion its orthodoxy is the inert 178 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:31,600 coagulum of a once highly reactive SAP. A rising religious 179 00:11:31,639 --> 00:11:34,840 movement is all change and experiment, open to new views 180 00:11:34,879 --> 00:11:38,519 and techniques from all quarters. Islam when it emerged was 181 00:11:38,519 --> 00:11:42,879 an organizing and modernizing medium. Christianity was a civilizing and 182 00:11:42,919 --> 00:11:47,799 modernizing influence among the savage tribes of Europe. The Crusades 183 00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:50,480 and the Reformation both were crucial factors in shaking the 184 00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:54,519 Western world from the stagnation of the Middle Ages. In 185 00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:57,480 modern times, the mass movements involved in the realization of 186 00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:02,919 vast and rapid change are revolutionary, nationalist, singly or in combination. 187 00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:08,399 Peter the Great was probably the equal in dedication, power 188 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:11,720 and ruthlessness of many of the most successful revolutionary or 189 00:12:11,759 --> 00:12:15,440 nationalist leaders. Yet he failed in his chief purpose, which 190 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:18,679 was to turn Russia into a Western nation. And the 191 00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:21,200 reason he failed was that he did not infuse the 192 00:12:21,240 --> 00:12:25,879 Russian masses with some soul stirring enthusiasm he either did 193 00:12:25,879 --> 00:12:28,639 not think it necessary or did not know how to 194 00:12:28,799 --> 00:12:31,600 make of his purpose a holy cause. It is not 195 00:12:31,639 --> 00:12:34,360 strange that the Bolshevik revolutionaries, who wiped out the last 196 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:37,879 of the Czars and Romanovs, should have a sense of 197 00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:41,759 kinship with Peter, a Czar and a Romanov. For his 198 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:45,000 purposes now theirs, and they hope to succeed where he failed. 199 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:48,639 The Bolshevik Revolution may figure in history as much as 200 00:12:48,919 --> 00:12:52,120 much an attempt to modernize a sixth of the world's 201 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:56,080 surface as an attempt to build a communist economy. I 202 00:12:56,120 --> 00:12:59,919 think it's interesting that he when he brings up a 203 00:13:00,039 --> 00:13:05,080 that Peter failed because he didn't he wasn't able to 204 00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:09,080 stir enthusiasm in the people. And you know, he wanted 205 00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:12,159 to basically turn it into a Western nation, which Russia 206 00:13:12,159 --> 00:13:17,679 will never be. Ever, and when you look at what 207 00:13:18,399 --> 00:13:23,120 the progressives are trying to do, it's so against our 208 00:13:23,279 --> 00:13:31,840 nature that instinctively most of us realized that it's wrong 209 00:13:32,279 --> 00:13:37,360 and immediately start pushing back against it. So yeah, and 210 00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:41,440 then he talks about for his purpose, now he talks 211 00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:47,320 about the Bolshevik Revolution, Well, the way they would get 212 00:13:47,360 --> 00:13:49,480 they wouldn't be able to get people excited for what 213 00:13:49,559 --> 00:13:52,320 they were doing. They're just telling him this is the 214 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:54,759 way it's going to be, and if you don't like it. 215 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,440 The fact that both the French and Russian revolutions turned 216 00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:01,480 into nationalist movement seems to indicate that in modern times, 217 00:14:01,559 --> 00:14:05,679 nationalism's most copious and durable source of mass enthusiasm, and 218 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:09,159 that nationalists fervor must be tapped if the drastic change 219 00:14:09,159 --> 00:14:13,399 is projected and initiated by revolutionary enthusiasm are to be consummated. 220 00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:17,120 One wonders whether the difficulties encountered by the present Labor 221 00:14:17,159 --> 00:14:19,799 government in Britain are not partly due to the fact 222 00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:22,960 that the attempt to change the economy of the country 223 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:25,000 and the way of life of forty nine million people 224 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:30,399 had been initiated in an atmosphere singularly free from fervor, exultation, 225 00:14:30,559 --> 00:14:34,240 and wild hope. The revulsion from ugly patterns developed by 226 00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:37,519 most contemporary mass movements has kept the civilized and decent 227 00:14:37,639 --> 00:14:41,799 leaders of the Labor Party shy of revolutionary enthusiasm. The 228 00:14:41,799 --> 00:14:45,200 possibility still remains that events might force them to make 229 00:14:45,279 --> 00:14:47,879 use of some mild form of chauvinism, so that in 230 00:14:47,919 --> 00:14:51,000 Britain too, the socialization of the nation might have as 231 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:56,159 its corollary the nationalization of socialism. So he seems to 232 00:14:56,240 --> 00:15:01,960 be implying here that even though we see basically in Britain, 233 00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:07,879 even among nationalists, the NHS is just a given, you know, 234 00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:12,720 which is a form of socialism that in the beginning, 235 00:15:12,759 --> 00:15:14,759 he's writing this in nineteen fifty one, so this is 236 00:15:14,799 --> 00:15:20,240 post war that and you know, the NHS came into being, 237 00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:23,080 I think it was in forty eight or forty nine. 238 00:15:23,399 --> 00:15:25,720 Not everybody would have been excited about it. It would 239 00:15:25,720 --> 00:15:27,559 have had to have been sold, and it doesn't look 240 00:15:27,639 --> 00:15:31,399 like there was any revolutionary enthusiasm for it. But as 241 00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:35,600 time goes on, you make it, you make it a 242 00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:39,879 part of and any of my my British listeners can 243 00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:43,320 who know the history better than I do. You make 244 00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:45,080 it a part of the nation. You make it something 245 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:49,399 that they're proud of. You make it. I've referred to it. 246 00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:51,519 I've heard it referred to us as the crown one 247 00:15:51,519 --> 00:15:56,080 of the crown jewels of England. Well, then no one's 248 00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,720 ever going to think that forty million, any portion of 249 00:15:59,720 --> 00:16:03,799 forty nine million people could have been against it. The 250 00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:08,559 phenomenal modernization of Japan would probably not have been possible 251 00:16:09,039 --> 00:16:12,759 without the revitalist spirit of Japanese nationalism. It is perhaps 252 00:16:12,799 --> 00:16:16,000 also true that the rapid modernization of some European countries, 253 00:16:16,039 --> 00:16:20,720 Germany in particular, was facilitated was facilitated to some extent 254 00:16:21,039 --> 00:16:25,279 by the expurge and thorough diffusion of nationalist fervor. Judged 255 00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:31,320 by president indications, the Renaissance the rena sense of Asia 256 00:16:32,279 --> 00:16:35,759 will be brought about through the instrumentality of nationalist movements 257 00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:38,840 rather than by other mediums. It was the rise of 258 00:16:38,879 --> 00:16:43,840 a genuine nationalist movement which enabled Kamal Kamal at a 259 00:16:43,879 --> 00:16:48,639 Turk to modernize Turkey almost overnight. I usually just see 260 00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:51,440 edit Turk. Rarely do I see it written with his 261 00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:55,919 first name. In Egypt, untouched by a mass movement, modernization 262 00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:58,759 is slow and faltering, though It's rulers from the day 263 00:16:58,799 --> 00:17:03,440 of Mahmed Ali have welcomed Western ideas and its contacts 264 00:17:03,480 --> 00:17:07,599 with the West have been many. An intimate Zionism is 265 00:17:07,640 --> 00:17:12,000 an instrument for the renovation of a backward country and 266 00:17:12,039 --> 00:17:16,359 the transformation of shopkeepers and brain workers into farmers, laborers 267 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:21,400 and soldiers. Had Shanghai Shek known how to set in 268 00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:23,960 motion and genuine mass movement, or at least sustain the 269 00:17:24,039 --> 00:17:28,359 nationalist enthusiasm kindled by the Japanese invasion. He might have 270 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:31,319 been acting now as the renovator of China, since he 271 00:17:31,400 --> 00:17:34,759 did not know how he was easily shoved aside by 272 00:17:34,799 --> 00:17:38,720 the masters of the art of religification, the art of 273 00:17:38,759 --> 00:17:43,000 turning practical print purposes into holy causes. It is not 274 00:17:43,039 --> 00:17:45,480 difficult to see why America, in Britain, or any Western 275 00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:48,319 democracy could not play a direct and leading role in 276 00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:52,119 rousing the Asiatic countries from their backwardness and stagnation. That 277 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:55,480 democracies are neither inclined nor perhaps able to kindle a 278 00:17:55,519 --> 00:18:00,000 revivalist spirit in Asia's millions. The contribution of the Western 279 00:18:00,039 --> 00:18:03,680 democracy to the awakening of the East has been indirect, 280 00:18:03,759 --> 00:18:07,559 and certain unt and certainly unintended. They have kindled an 281 00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:12,279 enthusiasm of resentment across the West, and it is this 282 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:15,720 anti Western fervor which is at present rousing the Orient 283 00:18:16,119 --> 00:18:22,400 from its stagnation of centuries. So I know that this 284 00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:26,920 has been recommended to me for years, But I don't 285 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:29,920 know how is he going to feel about nationalism? Is 286 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:34,119 some nationalism okay? Is some nationalism wrong? I have no 287 00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:36,480 idea which direction he is. I have a tendency to 288 00:18:36,519 --> 00:18:39,960 believe he's going to make the argument that nationalism is wrong, 289 00:18:40,519 --> 00:18:43,599 which I don't have a problem with covering and reading, 290 00:18:44,039 --> 00:18:51,160 because as much as I well nationalism, nationalism is a 291 00:18:51,279 --> 00:18:54,640 term that you may have to use when it when 292 00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,720 you have a maybe one of the only terms you 293 00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:02,440 could use when you have a multicultural society. But multicultural 294 00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:07,279 societies really don't work even with nationalism, and some people 295 00:19:07,279 --> 00:19:12,319 don't like nationalism amongst monocultural societies. So we'll see where 296 00:19:12,319 --> 00:19:15,799 this takes us. Though the desire for change is not 297 00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:19,200 infrequently a superficial motive, it is yet worth finding out 298 00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:21,880 whether a probing of this desire might not shed some 299 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:25,920 light on the inner working of mass movements. We fall inquire, therefore, 300 00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:29,119 into the nature of the desire for change. There isn't 301 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:32,039 us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our 302 00:19:32,079 --> 00:19:37,440 existence outside ourselves. Success and failure are unavoidably related in 303 00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:40,400 our minds with the state of things around us. Hence 304 00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,079 it is that people with a sense of fulfillment think 305 00:19:43,119 --> 00:19:46,160 it is a good world and would like to conserve 306 00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:50,119 it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change, 307 00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:53,480 the tendency to look for all. Let me read that again. 308 00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:55,759 Hence it is that people with a sense of fulfillment 309 00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:57,920 think it is a good world and would like to 310 00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:00,240 conserve it as it is, while the frustrated face favor 311 00:20:00,319 --> 00:20:03,000 radical change. I mean, if I was to try to 312 00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:08,599 relate that to today, I mean, the people who think 313 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:11,799 they have a sense of fulfillment but certainly don't act 314 00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:15,640 like it would be progressives, those who defend the regime, 315 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:19,720 and then those who and they seek to conserve it. 316 00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:24,279 While the frustrated favor radical change, the frustrated would be 317 00:20:24,559 --> 00:20:28,240 I mean, I would consider myself frustrated. I would consider 318 00:20:28,319 --> 00:20:32,000 most of the people I know frustrated. If that's a 319 00:20:32,039 --> 00:20:34,759 bad thing, well, we'll see what. We'll see where this 320 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:41,039 takes us. The point being is that you you can't 321 00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:48,799 this can't exist in a vacuum. Obviously, people who were 322 00:20:48,799 --> 00:20:53,480 in the gulag were frustrated, and we're looking for radical change. 323 00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:59,079 So yeah, If anything, ale Aman says to Row so 324 00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,720 that he does not his functions, if he have a 325 00:21:01,759 --> 00:21:05,319 pain in his vowels, even he forthwith sets about reforming 326 00:21:05,599 --> 00:21:09,720 the world. It is understandable that those who fail should 327 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,039 incline to blame the world for their failure. The remarkable 328 00:21:13,079 --> 00:21:15,799 thing is that the successful, too, however much they pride 329 00:21:15,839 --> 00:21:19,759 themselves on their foresight, fortitude, thrift, and other sterling qualities, 330 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,519 are at bottom convinced that their success is the result 331 00:21:22,599 --> 00:21:27,400 of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. The self confidence of 332 00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:31,200 even the consistently successful is never absolute. They are never 333 00:21:31,279 --> 00:21:34,000 sure that they know all of the ingredients which go 334 00:21:34,079 --> 00:21:37,319 into the making of their success. The outside world seems 335 00:21:37,359 --> 00:21:40,920 to them a precariously balanced mechanism, and so long as 336 00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:43,119 it ticks in their favor, they are afraid to tinker 337 00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:46,160 with it. Thus, the resistance to change and the ardent 338 00:21:46,279 --> 00:21:49,440 desire for it to spring from the same conviction, and 339 00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:53,799 the one can be as vehement as the other. Anyone 340 00:21:53,839 --> 00:21:58,960 who's successful out there disagree with that jero is waiting 341 00:21:59,039 --> 00:22:07,559 for Dominosa starts to fall right. Three. Discontent by itself 342 00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:11,519 does not invariably create a desire for change. Other factors 343 00:22:11,519 --> 00:22:16,559 have to be present before discontent turns into disaffection. One 344 00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:19,319 of these is a sense of power. Those who are 345 00:22:19,319 --> 00:22:21,839 awed by their surroundings do not think of change, no 346 00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:24,720 matter how miserable their condition. When our mode of life 347 00:22:24,759 --> 00:22:27,559 is so precarious as to make it patent that we 348 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,920 cannot control the circumstances of our existence, we tend to 349 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,799 stick to the proven and the familiar. We counteract a 350 00:22:33,799 --> 00:22:36,960 deep feeling of insecurity by making of our existence a 351 00:22:37,079 --> 00:22:41,640 fixed routine. We hereby acquire the illusion that we obtain 352 00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:46,160 the unpredictable fisher folk, nomads and farmers who have to 353 00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:49,440 contend with the wilful elements, the creative worker who depends 354 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:52,720 on inspiration, the savage awed by its surroundings. They all 355 00:22:52,759 --> 00:22:55,759 fear change. They face the world as they would an 356 00:22:55,799 --> 00:22:59,440 all powerful jury. The abjectly poor, too, stand in awe 357 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:02,480 of the world around them, and are not hospitable to change. 358 00:23:02,759 --> 00:23:05,160 It is a dangerous life we live when hunger and 359 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:10,240 cold are at our heels. There is thus a conservatism 360 00:23:10,599 --> 00:23:14,200 of the destitute as profound as the conservatism of the privileged, 361 00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:16,480 and the former is as much a factor in the 362 00:23:16,519 --> 00:23:22,240 perpetuation of a social order as the latter. It's interesting 363 00:23:22,319 --> 00:23:31,359 that he connects the very poor to having a fear 364 00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:39,759 of change as much as very successful. But it makes sense. 365 00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:44,359 If you're very poor and you're getting you're getting by 366 00:23:45,799 --> 00:23:49,480 change could always make it worse. Where for the very 367 00:23:49,519 --> 00:23:52,839 wealthy or the very successful, if there's change in the 368 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:56,400 opposite direction, you have a long path. You have a 369 00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:00,640 long path to get to the abjectly poor. Not always, 370 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:06,160 but the men who rush into undertakings of vast change 371 00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,920 usually feel they are in possession of some irresistible power. 372 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,359 The generation that made the French Revolution had an extravagant 373 00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,200 conception of the omnipotence of man's reason and the boundless 374 00:24:15,279 --> 00:24:19,960 range of his intelligence. Never, says to Touteville, had humanity 375 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,920 been prouder of itself, nor had it ever so much 376 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:27,160 faith in its own omnipotence. And joined with this exaggerated 377 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,079 self confidence was a universal thirst for the change which 378 00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:34,039 came unbidden to every mind. Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who 379 00:24:34,079 --> 00:24:36,359 plunged recklessly into the chaos of the creation of a 380 00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:40,519 new world, had blind faith in the omnipotence of Marxist doctrine. 381 00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,319 The Nazis had nothing as potent as that doctrine, but 382 00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:45,799 they had faith in an infallible leader, and also faith 383 00:24:45,839 --> 00:24:48,799 in a new technique. For it is doubtful whether national 384 00:24:48,839 --> 00:24:51,799 socialism would have made such rapid progress if it had 385 00:24:51,839 --> 00:24:55,000 not been for the electrifying conviction that the new techniques 386 00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:59,839 of blitzkrieg and propaganda made Germany irresistible. There was also 387 00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:08,640 some technical some technical progress and prowess there too, But 388 00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:13,359 what do you expect. Even the sober desire for progress 389 00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:18,119 is sustained by faith, faith in the intrinsic goodness of 390 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:20,920 human nature and in the omnipotence of science. It is 391 00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,160 a defiant and blasphemous faith, not unlike that held by 392 00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:26,599 men who set out to build a city and a 393 00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,680 tower whose top may reach onto heaven, and who believe 394 00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,200 that nothing will be restrained from them which they have 395 00:25:32,279 --> 00:25:41,880 imagined to do good. Reference to Babbel four or am 396 00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:47,720 I reading the page numbers out well. Possibly, but anyway offhand, 397 00:25:47,799 --> 00:25:50,200 one would expect that the mere possession of power would 398 00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:52,920 automatically result in a cocky attitude toward the world and 399 00:25:53,039 --> 00:25:55,880 of receptivity to change. But it is not always so. 400 00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:58,839 The powerful can be as timid as the weak. Which 401 00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,960 seems to count more than possession of instruments of power 402 00:26:03,079 --> 00:26:06,119 is faith in the future. Where power is not joined 403 00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:08,359 with faith in the future, it is used mainly to 404 00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:12,759 ward off the new and preserve the status quo. On 405 00:26:12,799 --> 00:26:15,839 the other hand, extravagant hope, even when not backed by 406 00:26:15,839 --> 00:26:19,039 actual power, is likely to generate a most reckless daring. 407 00:26:19,519 --> 00:26:21,480 For the hope will can draw strength from the most 408 00:26:21,519 --> 00:26:25,359 ridiculous source of power, a slogan, a word, a button. 409 00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:28,839 No faith is potent unless it also has faith in 410 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,400 the future, unless it has a millennial component. So to 411 00:26:32,559 --> 00:26:35,680 an effective doctrine, as well as being a source of power, 412 00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:38,480 it must also claim to be a key to the 413 00:26:38,519 --> 00:26:42,240 book of the future. So there has to be a promise. 414 00:26:42,279 --> 00:26:44,079 What he's saying is there has to be a promise 415 00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:48,759 that things will be getting better, that your lot in 416 00:26:48,839 --> 00:26:52,960 life will improve. In order for you to join this 417 00:26:53,079 --> 00:26:57,559 mass movement. Those who would transform anation or the world 418 00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:01,880 cannot do so by breeding and getting discontent, or by 419 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,519 demonstrating the reasonableness and desirability of the intended changes, or 420 00:27:06,519 --> 00:27:09,160 by coercing people into a new way of life. They 421 00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:12,519 must know how to kindle and fan an extravagant hope. 422 00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:16,000 It matters not whether it be hope of a heavenly 423 00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:19,960 kingdom of heaven on earth, of plunder and untold riches 424 00:27:20,079 --> 00:27:24,079 of fabulous achievement, or well dominant or world dominion. If 425 00:27:24,079 --> 00:27:26,400 the Communists win Europe in a large part of the world, 426 00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,559 it will not be because they know how to stir 427 00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,759 up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but 428 00:27:31,839 --> 00:27:36,599 because they know how to preach hope. Well, since you 429 00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:42,839 wrote this in nineteen fifty one, maybe we can at 430 00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:48,240 consider that when we look at why they failed. Thus, 431 00:27:48,279 --> 00:27:50,839 the differences between the conservative and the radical seems to 432 00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:54,839 spring mainly from their attitude towards the future. Fear of 433 00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,400 the future causes us to lean against and cling to 434 00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,000 the present, while faith in the future renders us receipts 435 00:28:00,279 --> 00:28:02,839 to change. Both the rich and the poor, the strong 436 00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:05,839 and the weak. They who have achieved much or little 437 00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,240 can be afraid of the future when the presence seems 438 00:28:08,279 --> 00:28:12,400 so perfect that the most we can expect is its 439 00:28:13,039 --> 00:28:17,920 even continuation in the future, change can only mean deterioration. Hence, 440 00:28:18,039 --> 00:28:21,480 men of outstanding achievement and those who live full, happy 441 00:28:21,559 --> 00:28:27,279 lives usually set their faces against drastic innovation. So if 442 00:28:27,279 --> 00:28:31,839 that's true, and you see any men of incredible means 443 00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:39,319 right now who seems would seem to have everything who 444 00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:46,000 are calling for change, pay attention. That means something. If 445 00:28:46,039 --> 00:28:50,759 his hypothesis is true. The conservatism of invalids and people 446 00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:54,200 and people past middle age stems too from fear of 447 00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,400 the future. They are on the outlook for signs of 448 00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:59,079 decay and feel that any change is more likely to 449 00:28:59,119 --> 00:29:02,000 be for the worst for the better. The abjectly poor 450 00:29:02,119 --> 00:29:05,039 also are without faith in the future. The future seems 451 00:29:05,079 --> 00:29:07,519 to them a booby trap buried on the road ahead. 452 00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,880 One must step gingerly. To change things is to ask 453 00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:16,319 for trouble. As for the hopeful, it does not seem 454 00:29:16,359 --> 00:29:19,279 to make any difference who it is that is seized 455 00:29:19,279 --> 00:29:22,880 with a wild hope. Whether it be an enthusiastic intellectual, 456 00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,519 a land hungry farmer, a get rich quick speculator, a 457 00:29:26,559 --> 00:29:30,200 sober merchant, or an industrialist, a plain workingman, or a 458 00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:34,200 noble lord. They all proceed recklessly with the present wreck 459 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:39,480 if necessary, and create a new world. There can thus 460 00:29:39,559 --> 00:29:43,400 be revolutions by the privilege as well as by the underprivileged. 461 00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:46,839 I would say revolution by the privilege what we call 462 00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:53,960 that elite theory. Under privilege, we'd call that revolution like 463 00:29:54,079 --> 00:30:02,519 real revolution, which is usually funded by elite. The movement 464 00:30:02,559 --> 00:30:05,640 of enclosure in sixteenth and seventeenth century England was a 465 00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:09,960 revolution by the rich. The woolen industry rose to high prosperity, 466 00:30:10,279 --> 00:30:14,480 and grazing became more profitable than cropping. The landowners drove 467 00:30:14,519 --> 00:30:17,839 off their tenants, enclosed the commons, and wrought profound changes 468 00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:21,000 in the social and economic texture of the country. The 469 00:30:21,039 --> 00:30:23,720 lords and nobles were upsetting the social order, breaking down 470 00:30:23,759 --> 00:30:27,119 ancient law and custom, sometimes by means of violence, often 471 00:30:27,119 --> 00:30:31,319 by pressure and intimidation. Another English revolution by the rich 472 00:30:31,319 --> 00:30:33,640 occurred at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of 473 00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,599 the nineteenth century. It was the Industrial Revolution. The breathtaking 474 00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,680 potentialities of mechanizations set the minds of manufacturers and merchants 475 00:30:41,759 --> 00:30:45,359 on fire. They began a revolution as extreme and radical 476 00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,599 as ever inflamed the minds of sectarians, and in a 477 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:53,119 relatively short time these respectable, god fearing citizens changed the 478 00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:57,480 face of England beyond recognition. When hopes and dreams are 479 00:30:57,519 --> 00:31:00,000 loose in the streets, it is well for the timids 480 00:31:00,119 --> 00:31:03,640 locked doors, shutter windows, and lie low until the wrath 481 00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:08,240 has passed, For there is offering a monstrous incongruity between 482 00:31:08,279 --> 00:31:11,680 the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which 483 00:31:11,759 --> 00:31:16,559 follows them. It is if ivied maidens and garlanded youths 484 00:31:16,799 --> 00:31:21,640 were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse. For 485 00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,480 men to plunge headlong into an undertaking a vast change, 486 00:31:25,599 --> 00:31:29,359 they must be intensely discontented, yet not destitute. And they 487 00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:31,640 must have the feeling that by the possession of some 488 00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,319 potent doctrine, infallible leader, or some new technique, they have 489 00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:40,000 access to a source of irresistible power. They must also 490 00:31:40,079 --> 00:31:44,640 have an extravagant conception of the prospects and potentialities of 491 00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,240 the future. Finally, they must wholly They must be wholly 492 00:31:48,319 --> 00:31:52,480 ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Experience 493 00:31:52,559 --> 00:31:55,200 is a handicap. The men who started the French Revolution 494 00:31:55,359 --> 00:31:58,559 were wholly without political experience. The same is true of 495 00:31:58,559 --> 00:32:02,880 the Bolsheviks, Nazis, and the revolutionaries in Asia. The experienced 496 00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,359 man of affairs is a late comer. He answers the 497 00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,240 movement when it is already a going concern. It is 498 00:32:08,279 --> 00:32:12,599 perhaps the Englishman's political experience that keeps him shy of 499 00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:20,720 mass movements. Part two, The desire for substitutes. There's a 500 00:32:20,759 --> 00:32:23,160 fundamental difference between the appeal of a mass movement and 501 00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,359 the appeal of a practical organization. The practical organization offers 502 00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,880 opportunities for self advancement, and its appeal is mainly to 503 00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:34,160 self interest. On the other hand, a mass movement, particularly 504 00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:38,240 in its active revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent 505 00:32:38,359 --> 00:32:42,640 on bolstering and advancing a cherish self, but to those 506 00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,559 who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. A 507 00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,400 mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it 508 00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:51,839 can satisfy the desire for self advancement, but because it 509 00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:58,920 can satisfy the passion for self renunciation. In order to 510 00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:01,960 become a movement, you have to give up. What he's 511 00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:03,920 saying is in order to become a part of a movement, 512 00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,839 you're gonna have to give up your individualism. That's how 513 00:33:07,839 --> 00:33:14,119 I read it. Somebody wants to I'm open to people 514 00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:18,160 saying I'm wrong, people who say their lives, people who 515 00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,519 see their lives as irredeemably spoiled cannot find a worthwhile 516 00:33:21,839 --> 00:33:25,759 purpose in self advancement. He's used self advancement out here 517 00:33:25,799 --> 00:33:30,200 to sentences in a row. It's individualism. It has to 518 00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:34,960 be the prospect of an individual career. Cannot stir them 519 00:33:35,039 --> 00:33:37,359 to a mighty effort, nor can it evoke in them 520 00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:41,480 faith and single minded dedication. They look on self interest 521 00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:45,240 as on something tainted and evil, something unclean and unlucky. 522 00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,000 Anything undertaken under the auspices of the self seems to 523 00:33:49,039 --> 00:33:52,599 be for doomed. Nothing that has its roots and reasons 524 00:33:52,599 --> 00:33:55,319 in the self can be good and noble. Their innermost 525 00:33:55,319 --> 00:33:58,279 craving is for a new life, a rebirth, or, failing this, 526 00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,720 a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, 527 00:34:01,839 --> 00:34:04,559 a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with 528 00:34:04,599 --> 00:34:08,480 a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities 529 00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,360 for both. If they join the movement as full converts, 530 00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,719 they are reborn to a new life in its close 531 00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:19,320 knit collective body. Or if attracted as sympathizers, they find themselves. 532 00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:23,320 They find elements of pride, confidence and purpose by identifying 533 00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:28,199 themselves with the efforts, achievements, and prospects of the movement. Basically, 534 00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,679 what he's doing here, he's not using the term but 535 00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:36,119 I'm He's basically saying, like people who've failed, people who 536 00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:42,719 failed themselves doing things themselves, they haven't been able to 537 00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:47,320 accomplish anything. So by joining a movement, they feel like 538 00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:52,199 they can accomplish something. Trying to figure out a good example. 539 00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,599 And I don't want to insult any of my veteran friends, 540 00:34:55,639 --> 00:34:57,599 but I think you see a lot of people who 541 00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,039 a lot of kids who do that by joining the military. 542 00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:03,840 I don't think that's the only reason people join the military, 543 00:35:04,119 --> 00:35:06,840 and I think there's good reasons to join the military, 544 00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:10,760 but I think that that's probably a pretty good example. 545 00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,360 You're joining something that's a movement. You're a part of 546 00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,800 something you know, and if you know, if you have 547 00:35:17,119 --> 00:35:19,519 your country has a really good military, you have something 548 00:35:19,559 --> 00:35:23,760 to be proud of. There's something to brag about. To 549 00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:27,159 the frustrated of a mass movement off to the frustrated, 550 00:35:27,199 --> 00:35:30,599 a mass movement offers substitutes, either for the whole self 551 00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,480 or for the elements which make life bearable and which 552 00:35:33,559 --> 00:35:37,960 they cannot evoke out of their individual resources. It is 553 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,639 true that among the early adherents of a mass movement 554 00:35:40,679 --> 00:35:43,440 there are also adventurers who join in the group that 555 00:35:43,559 --> 00:35:45,599 the movement will give a spin to their wheel of 556 00:35:45,679 --> 00:35:48,599 fortune and world them to fame and power. On the 557 00:35:48,679 --> 00:35:52,159 other hand, a degree of selfless dedication is sometimes displayed 558 00:35:52,159 --> 00:35:56,400 by those who join corporations, orthodox political parties, and other 559 00:35:56,440 --> 00:36:00,960 practical organizations. Still, the fact remains that a practical concern 560 00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:05,440 cannot endure unless it can appeal to and satisfy self interest, 561 00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:08,000 while the vigor and growth of a rising mass movement 562 00:36:08,079 --> 00:36:11,639 depends on its capacity to evoke and satisfy the passion 563 00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:16,719 for self renunciation. When a mass movement begins to attract 564 00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:19,719 people who are interested in their individual careers, it is 565 00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:22,679 a sign that it has passed its vigorous stage, that 566 00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:25,400 it is no longer engaged in molding a new world, 567 00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:29,159 but in possessing and preserving the present. It ceases then 568 00:36:29,199 --> 00:36:33,159 to be a movement and becomes an enterprise. According to Hitler, 569 00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,079 the more posts and offices a movement has to hand out, 570 00:36:37,199 --> 00:36:40,159 the more inferior stuff it will attract, And in the end, 571 00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:44,480 these political hangers ons overwhelm a successful party in such 572 00:36:44,559 --> 00:36:47,480 number that the honest fighter of former days no longer 573 00:36:47,519 --> 00:36:51,039 recognized as the old movement. When this happens, the mission 574 00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:57,280 of such a movement is done for. It sounds like 575 00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:05,760 he's describing gatekeepers. Like some kind of movement gets going, 576 00:37:07,119 --> 00:37:14,119 shows promise and right before it's about could be just 577 00:37:14,159 --> 00:37:17,000 at the point when it's about to explode. And actually 578 00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:24,159 I hate the term mainstream, but be adopted, start being 579 00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:29,920 adopted on a wider scale. These people come in, the 580 00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:35,239 ones who are already have, who are have their career, 581 00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:45,960 have their individual careers, and who are aren't hungry. Basically, 582 00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,880 they come in to just take advantage of what's been 583 00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:57,599 built and even stop it in its tracks. And any 584 00:37:57,639 --> 00:38:00,719 of you who listen to me and a lot and 585 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,679 you know you will know who I may be may 586 00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:09,039 be talking about. So the nature of the complete substitute 587 00:38:09,079 --> 00:38:11,920 offered by conversion is discussed in the chapters on self 588 00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:16,199 sacrifice and united action. In Part three, here we shall 589 00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:22,559 deal with partial substitutes. Faith in a holy cause is, 590 00:38:22,559 --> 00:38:25,559 to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith 591 00:38:25,639 --> 00:38:29,760 in ourselves. The less justified a man is in claiming 592 00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:33,199 excellence for his own self, the more ready he is 593 00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:37,079 he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, 594 00:38:37,199 --> 00:38:45,000 his race, or his holy cause. Basically, it seems when 595 00:38:45,039 --> 00:38:47,920 you read that faith in a holy cause is to 596 00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:50,800 a considerable extent of substitute for lost faith in ourselves, 597 00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:57,760 he seems to be He doesn't even seem to he's 598 00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:03,599 coming at it from visualism, liberal classical liberalism, the kind 599 00:39:03,639 --> 00:39:09,679 of things that have sought to infiltrate, you know, real 600 00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,400 right wing thinking, you know, who have brought us to 601 00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,360 where we are. Seems that he's championing it, and he's 602 00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:21,880 saying that when men abandon that, they're more ready to 603 00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,639 claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, 604 00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:28,719 or his holy cause. Now he may be saying that 605 00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:32,519 they are doing that when they really shouldn't be taking 606 00:39:32,559 --> 00:39:37,320 any credit for it. But yeah, I think see where 607 00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:39,920 this is going. A man is likely to mind his 608 00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,559 own business when it is worth minding when it is not, 609 00:39:42,679 --> 00:39:45,159 he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by 610 00:39:45,199 --> 00:39:49,000 minding other people's business. The minding of other people's business 611 00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,440 expresses itself in gossip, snooping, and meddling, and also in 612 00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:56,440 feverish interests in communal, national, and racial affairs, and running 613 00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:59,159 away from ourselves. We either fall on our neighbor's shoulder 614 00:39:59,559 --> 00:40:05,480 or fly his throat. So minding other people's business expresses 615 00:40:05,519 --> 00:40:12,119 itself in gossip, snooping, and meddling. Okay, here's the thing. Normally, 616 00:40:12,199 --> 00:40:15,039 when you're noticing what other people are doing and you 617 00:40:15,199 --> 00:40:21,119 think it's detrimental to yourself, your society, your family, your culture, 618 00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:27,239 your religion. It's because other people, other peoples. He's trying 619 00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:29,760 to make people's here, he's put the apostrophe on people's 620 00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,440 he's trying to make it singular. No, they're coming together, 621 00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:37,559 and this is exactly the problem. The problem is is 622 00:40:37,599 --> 00:40:41,360 that you can be an individual all you want and 623 00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:43,440 think that you have it all worked out and that 624 00:40:43,559 --> 00:40:45,880 you're going to live the rest of your life and 625 00:40:46,159 --> 00:40:48,280 no one's going to hurt you or take your stuff. 626 00:40:49,559 --> 00:40:53,159 But there are other people who are coming together and 627 00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:59,119 they're gossiping, snooping and meddling and looking at you, you know, 628 00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:03,239 looking at you and seeking to maybe they don't like 629 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:07,840 what your opinions are on communal, national, or racial affairs. 630 00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:15,199 There are no individuals. Individuals are just there waiting to 631 00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:19,440 be picked off. So again, the minding of other people's 632 00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:24,360 business expresses itself in gossip, snooping, and meddling, and also 633 00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:28,000 in feverish interest in communal, national, and racial affairs. In 634 00:41:28,079 --> 00:41:31,280 running away from ourselves, we either fall on our neighbor's 635 00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:37,400 shoulder or fly at his throat. This I mean, I 636 00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:41,760 will say this is human nature. The burning conviction that 637 00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:44,199 we have a holy duty toward others is often a 638 00:41:44,199 --> 00:41:47,159 way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. 639 00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:50,639 What looks like giving a hand is often a holding 640 00:41:50,679 --> 00:41:53,400 on for dear life. Take away our holy duties, and 641 00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,760 you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no 642 00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,960 doubt that in exchanging a self centered for a selfless life, 643 00:42:00,039 --> 00:42:04,400 if we gain enormously in self esteem. The vanity of 644 00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:09,400 the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless. 645 00:42:10,159 --> 00:42:12,440 So there is no doubt that in exchanging a self 646 00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:17,039 centered for a selfless life, we gain enormously in self esteem. 647 00:42:18,599 --> 00:42:23,880 What's he saying there, that somebody who's radically individual. Now 648 00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,119 they go and they serve, serve in the military, and 649 00:42:27,639 --> 00:42:30,159 they're selfless, and they'll give their life for their you know, 650 00:42:30,639 --> 00:42:34,119 the man standing next to them that gives him self esteem. 651 00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:37,679 And then he says, the vanity of the selfless, even 652 00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:41,320 those who practice utmost humility, is boundless. So he's calling 653 00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:45,559 that vanity. One of the potent attractions of a mass 654 00:42:45,599 --> 00:42:49,039 movement is its offering of a substitute for individual hope. 655 00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,000 This attraction is particularly effective in a society imbued with 656 00:42:53,039 --> 00:42:56,639 the idea of progress, For in the conception of progress, 657 00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:00,840 tomorrow looms large, and the frustration results from having nothing 658 00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:04,800 to look forward to is more poignant. Hermann Rauschning says 659 00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:08,000 of pre Hilary in Germany that the feeling of having 660 00:43:08,039 --> 00:43:09,760 come to an end of all things was one of 661 00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,480 the worst troubles we endured after that lost war World 662 00:43:13,519 --> 00:43:17,320 War One. In a modern society, people can live without 663 00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:21,639 hope only when kept dazed and get dazed and out 664 00:43:21,639 --> 00:43:25,960 of breath by incessant hustling. The despair brought by unemployment 665 00:43:26,039 --> 00:43:28,760 comes not only from the threat of destitution, but from 666 00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:32,199 the sudden view of a vast nothingness ahead. The unemployed 667 00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:35,119 are more likely to follow pedlars of hope than the 668 00:43:35,159 --> 00:43:43,400 handers out of relief. Sometimes people are unemployed because other 669 00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:50,000 people made them so, design the system so. Mass movements 670 00:43:50,039 --> 00:43:53,760 are usually accused of doping their followers with hope of 671 00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,719 the future, while cheating them of enjoyment of the present. 672 00:43:57,440 --> 00:44:01,840 Yet to be frustrated, the present is irredeemably spoiled. Comforts 673 00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:04,920 and pleasures cannot make it whole. No real content or 674 00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:11,360 comfort can ever arise in their minds, but from hope. Yeah, 675 00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:13,679 I guess you have to take into consideration that he's 676 00:44:13,679 --> 00:44:16,840 writing this in nineteen fifty one. He's living in the 677 00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:21,519 United States. The United States says, quote unquote won the war. 678 00:44:23,159 --> 00:44:28,719 Hope is everywhere, prosperity is happening, and things look good, 679 00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:30,920 even in the Bronx. I don't know where he lived 680 00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:36,760 when he wrote this, but yeah, I think it's easy 681 00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:40,280 to look at this now. If he's able to place 682 00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:46,519 himself into the position of someone living in Weimar, you know, 683 00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:51,599 or somebody you know, one of the people who was 684 00:44:51,639 --> 00:44:57,400 slaughtered by the Bolsheviks after the revolution, well, hopefully he 685 00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:02,119 can do that. When our individual interests and prospects do 686 00:45:02,159 --> 00:45:04,760 not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need 687 00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:07,840 of something apart from us to live for. All forms 688 00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,039 of dedication, devotion, loyalty, and self surrender are in essence 689 00:45:11,079 --> 00:45:14,239 of desperate clinging to something which might give worth and 690 00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:19,119 meaning to our feudal, spoiled lives. When he says spoiled, 691 00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:25,719 I think he means harmed, destroyed. Hence, the embracing of 692 00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:30,239 a substitute will necessarily be passionate and extreme. We can 693 00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,159 have qualified confidence in ourselves, but the faith we have 694 00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:36,559 in our nation, religion, race, or holy cause has to 695 00:45:36,559 --> 00:45:43,679 be extravagant and uncompromising. So if you look at that sentence, 696 00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,159 you know he talks about faith in your nation and 697 00:45:48,199 --> 00:45:53,320 your religion, your race, or your holy cause. I think 698 00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,719 there's your list. That's what he sees as a negative, 699 00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:04,039 which is very interesting considering this was written right after 700 00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:11,519 a year after the authoritarian personality is released. Very interesting. 701 00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:16,320 A substitute embraced in moderation cannot supplant and efface the 702 00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,440 self we want to forget. We cannot be sure that 703 00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,000 we have something worth living for unless we are ready 704 00:46:22,039 --> 00:46:25,719 to die for it. This readiness to die is evidence 705 00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,400 to ourselves and others that what we had to take 706 00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:32,599 as a substitute for an irrevocably missed or spoiled first 707 00:46:32,679 --> 00:46:38,280 choice is indeed the best there ever was right. And 708 00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:42,679 this next part is called the interchangeability of mass Movements. 709 00:46:43,039 --> 00:46:44,840 I'm going to leave it right there for the first day, 710 00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:47,679 because I made a lot of a lot of comments, 711 00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:52,840 and this is interesting. He immediately starts talking about pre 712 00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:59,960 Hilarian Germany, Communists or Nazis, overcrowded pales, Ourist Russia, Zionism, Heimwittzmann. 713 00:47:00,079 --> 00:47:02,440 Oh yeah, oh yeah, there's a lot. This is gonna 714 00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:06,599 be good, all right, So thanks for tuning in for 715 00:47:06,639 --> 00:47:10,400 this and I will see you on part two. Take 716 00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:11,440 care bye,