![]() ![]() ![]() He does, however, think that these movements all tend to appeal to the same types of people for the same types of reasons. ![]() He refuses to morally equate these movements to one another, acknowledging that mass movements can do good, and that some are better than others. Like most Cold War authors writing in this genre, Hoffer finds that communism, fascism, and religious movements have things in common, but he is careful to avoid turning the book into a clear-cut iteration of horseshoe theory. Originally published in 1951, The True Believer is mainly concerned with fanaticism. In this vein, I find myself reading Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer. For this reason, I have always enjoyed reading old-fashioned conservatives and greatly prefer them to the libertarians who straightforwardly champion capitalism and relish in its intensification. They defend the status quo not because they like capitalism, but because they think the future can only produce ever worse iterations of it. Old-fashioned conservatives think we are only going to fall ever further away from ancient virtue, and they fight to obstruct or delay that process in whatever ways they can. But socialists believe there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that by going through the upheaval we can come to a better place. Both conservatives and Marxists despise capitalism and the individualism it produces. ![]() The main difference between small-c conservatism and Marxism is the level of optimism. ![]()
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