Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas
Aug 14, 2026 · 32 min · 14 segments
A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, who eventually taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the…
Jay GarfinkelGuestRenee GarfinkelHostAlvarez Jay, as you know, Hoffer's interest in fanaticism began in the 1940s after World War II.
when mass authoritarian movements of fascism and communism tore the world apart.
Hoffer's breakthrough idea was that all mass movements, regardless of content, regardless of ideology, regardless of whether they're political, religious, or anything else, all mass movements appeal to the same type of individual because of their psychological profile.
What do you think of that? Do beliefs matter to radical extremists, or is it really all about psychological dynamics?
I think Hoffer was in the extreme when saying that mass movements, that is to say the ideology of mass movements and what they profess, have no value to the person who's involved in the movement other than that that person is acting out of a sense of desperation and hopelessness.
And he really didn't know, this comes from his own intuitions, that people act out of a sense of desperation and hopelessness.
It could very well be that people do not act out of desperation and hopelessness, but because they are true believers in changing whatever it is they believe that needs change.
You know, he wasn't the only one to study the nexus between two opposite poles, which is...
They were opposite because, in part, they're both totalitarian, it's true, but they believed in different things.
And they were opposite because they were at war with one another during the Second World War.
Coincidentally, both Hoffer and Hannah Arendt came out with their book in the same year, 1951.
Of course, he knew her because they were both teaching at UCLA at the same time.
And he himself said that while he liked her, he doesn't believe that her ideas are correct.
She believed that the origin of totalitarianism came from the breaking apart of the order in which people lived.
So, for example, the real economy broke apart and people had to move to the city.
Well, there were many, many reasons, most of them economic in many ways, of how totalitarianism arose.
But for Hopper, he really saw it as, as you mentioned, and you pointed that out, as a It's all psychologically based, that extremist groups, he said, may have many traits in common, but regardless of the religious, political, and ideological point of view of organizations, their supporters draw from the same pool of frustrated individuals, and more importantly, Hoffer believed that it wasn't leadership that necessarily created a mass movement because mass movements, he believed, came from the individual, that it was their need, their frustration, their wanting to change their life and their mental state.
Alvarez Jay, as you know, Hoffer's interest in fanaticism began in the 1940s after World War II.
when mass authoritarian movements of fascism and communism tore the world apart.
Hoffer's breakthrough idea was that all mass movements, regardless of content, regardless of ideology, regardless of whether they're political, religious, or anything else, all mass movements appeal to the same type of individual because of their psychological profile.
What do you think of that? Do beliefs matter to radical extremists, or is it really all about psychological dynamics?
I think Hoffer was in the extreme when saying that mass movements, that is to say the ideology of mass movements and what they profess, have no value to the person who's involved in the movement other than that that person is acting out of a sense of desperation and hopelessness.
And he really didn't know, this comes from his own intuitions, that people act out of a sense of desperation and hopelessness.
It could very well be that people do not act out of desperation and hopelessness, but because they are true believers in changing whatever it is they believe that needs change.
You know, he wasn't the only one to study the nexus between two opposite poles, which is...
They were opposite because, in part, they're both totalitarian, it's true, but they believed in different things.
And they were opposite because they were at war with one another during the Second World War.
Coincidentally, both Hoffer and Hannah Arendt came out with their book in the same year, 1951.
Of course, he knew her because they were both teaching at UCLA at the same time.
And he himself said that while he liked her, he doesn't believe that her ideas are correct.
She believed that the origin of totalitarianism came from the breaking apart of the order in which people lived.
So, for example, the real economy broke apart and people had to move to the city.
Well, there were many, many reasons, most of them economic in many ways, of how totalitarianism arose.
But for Hopper, he really saw it as, as you mentioned, and you pointed that out, as a It's all psychologically based, that extremist groups, he said, may have many traits in common, but regardless of the religious, political, and ideological point of view of organizations, their supporters draw from the same pool of frustrated individuals, and more importantly, Hoffer believed that it wasn't leadership that necessarily created a mass movement because mass movements, he believed, came from the individual, that it was their need, their frustration, their wanting to change their life and their mental state.
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