There is something deeply human about wanting to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Most of us want to feel that our lives have meaning, that our struggles are understood, and that we are part of something that matters. We want a community that recognizes us and, in difficult moments, gives us an explanation for why life has not turned out the way we hoped. This is one of the ideas that makes Eric Hoffer's The True Believer so fascinating. Hoffer was not simply interested in political movements or revolutions. He was interested in the psychology of the people who become deeply committed to mass movements and in the emotional needs that can make such movements attractive.

One of his most uncomfortable observations is that people do not always join movements simply because they have discovered an idea they genuinely believe in. Sometimes, they join because they are dissatisfied with their own lives. They may feel powerless, insignificant, frustrated, isolated, or uncertain about the future. A mass movement can offer them a new identity and a sense of purpose. It can tell them that their individual problems are part of a much larger struggle and that, by becoming part of the collective, their life can suddenly have meaning. There is something enormously attractive about that promise. You are no longer simply an individual struggling to understand the world. You become part of a cause, a community, a mission.

But there is another thing that many movements offer, perhaps just as powerfully as purpose: someone else to blame.

This is where Hoffer's idea of the "devil" becomes particularly important. A movement may have a vision of the future, but it often also needs a figure, group, institution, or ideology that represents everything standing in the way of that future. The enemy becomes a convenient explanation for frustration. Instead of asking why life is complicated, why institutions fail, why people make mistakes, or why social problems rarely have a single cause, the movement can offer a much simpler answer: they are responsible.

And this is incredibly powerful because blaming someone else can provide emotional relief. If I believe that my difficulties are entirely the result of another group, I no longer have to confront the uncomfortable uncertainty of life. I do not have to ask whether some of my assumptions are wrong or whether the problems I face are more complicated than I thought. I have someone to point toward. The movement gives my frustration a direction, and suddenly my personal dissatisfaction becomes part of a collective struggle.

The Enemy as a Source of Unity

What makes this especially interesting is that hatred can bring together people who might otherwise have very little in common. Two people may disagree about religion, economics, politics, culture, or even what the future should look like. They may come from completely different backgrounds and have very different personalities. Yet if they can agree that the same person or group is the enemy, those differences can suddenly become less important.

This is one of the darker aspects of human psychology. Sometimes, it is easier to build unity around something we oppose than around something we support. Building agreement around a positive vision requires us to explain what we actually want. It requires difficult conversations about priorities, compromises, responsibilities, and practical solutions. Hatred does not require the same level of imagination. It simply requires an object.

This is why the enemy can become the glue holding a movement together. You may disagree with your neighbor about what the ideal society should look like, but if you both believe that another group is responsible for everything wrong with society, you suddenly have a powerful reason to stand together. Your differences become secondary because your shared hostility has become your common identity.

The problem is that hatred is not satisfied easily.

If a movement is built around the belief that one particular enemy is responsible for everything that has gone wrong, what happens when that enemy disappears? Ideally, there should be a moment of celebration followed by construction. The movement should move from opposition to creation. But if the enemy was doing more than simply giving the movement something to oppose, if the enemy was actually giving the movement its identity, then victory creates a serious psychological problem.

There is suddenly a hole.

The movement has defeated the person, institution, or group it spent years fighting, but the frustrations that brought people into the movement may still exist. The desire for belonging is still there. The need for purpose is still there. The need for someone to blame can still be there.

So another enemy appears.

When Yesterday's Enemy Is Not Enough

This is where a movement can enter a dangerous cycle. Yesterday's enemy is defeated, but today's problems remain. Rather than questioning the assumptions of the movement, its followers may simply be given a new explanation. Perhaps the original enemy was only one part of the problem. Perhaps there are people who secretly supported the enemy. Perhaps there are people within the movement who were never truly committed.

The search begins again.

At first, the movement may define an enemy outside itself. Eventually, however, suspicion can turn inward. People who were once considered loyal can suddenly become insufficiently loyal. Someone who supported the movement but questioned one decision may be labelled a traitor. Someone who proposed a different strategy may be accused of undermining the cause. Someone who refuses to hate the designated enemy strongly enough may become suspicious.

The boundaries of belonging begin to shrink.

This is one of the most disturbing possibilities in any movement built heavily around ideological purity. At the beginning, there is an obvious "them." Later, the movement begins asking whether everyone within the "us" is truly one of "us." The question changes from Who is our enemy? to Who among us is secretly the enemy?

At that point, the movement can begin consuming its own members.

History provides many examples of movements that began with an external struggle and eventually became obsessed with internal loyalty, betrayal, and ideological purity. The specific circumstances differ enormously, and we should be careful not to reduce complex historical events to one psychological explanation. But Hoffer's broader observation remains useful: a movement that depends heavily on identifying enemies can eventually discover that it needs enemies even when the original enemy is gone.

And when there is no longer an enemy outside, it can start looking inside.

Hate Is a Powerful Bond, But It Is a Poor Foundation

There is a reason hatred can feel so powerful. It simplifies the world. It gives people certainty in situations where certainty is difficult. It transforms complicated social problems into stories with heroes and villains. Most importantly, it gives people the feeling that they are fighting for something larger than themselves.

But there is an important difference between fighting against something and building something.

It is relatively easy to criticize a broken system. It is much harder to create a better one. It is easy to say that a particular leader is corrupt. It is much harder to build institutions that remain accountable regardless of who is in power. It is easy to blame another group for social problems. It is much harder to understand why those problems exist and develop solutions that actually improve people's lives.

Building requires patience. It requires compromise. It requires listening to people who do not completely agree with us. Sometimes, it even requires admitting that the people we disagree with were right about something.

Hatred does not ask for that level of humility.

This is why I think Hoffer's idea is worth bringing into our own lives, rather than treating it simply as an observation about political history. We should be suspicious whenever a movement, community, or ideology seems much more interested in telling us whom to hate than in explaining what it intends to build.

A movement should be able to answer a very simple question: What happens if you remove the enemy from the story?

If the answer is that there is still a meaningful vision, then perhaps the enemy is genuinely an obstacle rather than the foundation of the movement. But if removing the enemy leaves nothing behind, that should make us pause. If there is no positive vision, no constructive purpose, and no meaningful project beyond defeating someone else, then perhaps hatred has become the real source of unity.

The Litmus Test for a Movement

This gives us what I would call a simple litmus test. Look at what a movement spends most of its energy doing. Is it creating, teaching, solving, building, organizing, helping, and imagining? Or is it constantly identifying enemies, exposing traitors, attacking opponents, and demanding demonstrations of loyalty?

The distinction matters.

A movement can have opponents and still be constructive. A movement can criticize injustice and still be driven by compassion. A movement can strongly disagree with another ideology without turning its followers into objects of hatred. Conflict itself is not necessarily the problem. The problem begins when conflict becomes the purpose.

If the movement spends more time talking about who must be defeated than what must be built, then we should ask whether the movement is still moving toward something or simply moving against someone.

That is an important distinction because a movement built around a positive vision can eventually make itself unnecessary. If it achieves what it set out to achieve, it can celebrate its success and perhaps even dissolve into the society it helped create. But a movement built around permanent opposition has a different problem. Success threatens its identity because the disappearance of the enemy threatens the reason for its existence.

Such a movement therefore needs conflict to continue.

And if conflict is necessary, there must always be someone to fight.

What Are We Actually Building?

Perhaps this is where Hoffer's argument becomes most relevant to the world around us today. We live in a time when people can easily find communities that reinforce what they already believe. Social media makes it possible to surround ourselves with people who share our frustrations and to encounter a constant stream of content telling us who is responsible for the problems we see around us.

The result can be comforting.

It feels good to know that other people are angry about the same things. It feels good to have a community that says, "You are not the problem. They are." It can even feel empowering to believe that we have finally discovered the group responsible for everything that has gone wrong.

But comfort is not necessarily truth.

Sometimes the explanation that makes us feel best is not the explanation that is most accurate. And sometimes the person who gives us the strongest sense of belonging is also the person teaching us to fear everyone outside the group.

That is why I think the most useful question is not simply Who is the enemy? It is What are we building?

What do we want to leave behind?

What kind of society are we trying to create?

What are we willing to contribute?

What happens when we achieve our goal?

These questions force us to move beyond anger and into responsibility.

The Movement That Can Survive Without Hatred

There is nothing wrong with believing strongly in something. There is nothing wrong with challenging injustice, defending principles, or organizing with people who share a vision of a better future. The danger lies in allowing hatred to become the foundation of that identity.

A healthy movement should be able to say, "This is what we believe, this is what we want to build, and this is how we hope to make things better." It should be able to criticize its opponents without needing to dehumanize them. It should be capable of disagreement without turning every disagreement into betrayal.

Most importantly, it should be able to imagine a future in which the enemy no longer exists.

Because perhaps that is the ultimate test.

If the enemy disappeared tomorrow, would there still be something worth building?

If the answer is yes, then the movement has a purpose beyond hatred.

But if the movement suddenly has nothing left to say, nothing left to fight for, and no reason left to exist, then perhaps the enemy was never simply standing in the way.

Perhaps the enemy was holding the entire movement together.

And that is the uncomfortable lesson in Hoffer's The True Believer: people can be united by love, hope, and a shared vision, but they can also be united by resentment and hatred. The first kind of unity gives us something to build. The second gives us someone to blame.

The difference between the two may determine whether a movement ultimately creates something meaningful or simply spends its existence searching for the next devil.