I have been a big fan of Eric Hoffer’s book “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” since I first read it in college back in the late 70’s. Hoffer’s book rose to become a best seller when, during one of the earliest televised presidential press conferences, President Eisenhower cited it, sparking nationwide interest.
Through the centuries, from Plato to Gustave Le Bon, the behaviors and motivation of crowds has been the subject of interest, an interest I share. Having been in business for my entire career, I have taken on a personal observation and study of organizational structures, the behaviors of the people who inhabit those structures and how to manage them.
Crowds almost always have a leader. It is the same within organizations, there is almost always a leader for either productive or unproductive “movements”. These leaders may not have titles or positions, but they are easy enough to recognize, and they are always there.
Perhaps more important to mass movements than leaders are the true believers. There are always true believers - for without them, mass movements never gain the momentum necessary to motivate the mass to movement.
When historians look back to the Recumbent 20’s (as opposed to the Roaring 1920’s, America more or less laid back and took it in 2020), the rise of the Covidian cult movement will be recognized as the greatest mass delusion in history or perhaps the most successful politicization and weaponization of science since scientists were deemed heretics and were persecuted by the Catholic church.
Eric Hoffer, writing in “The True Believer”, stated:
“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”
One characteristic certainly not lacking in our so-called “public health” institutions is the arrogance necessary to found and fuel the Covidian cult.
For two years, Americans have been told to “follow the science” (and excoriated of they do not) - as if following the latest pronouncements from the public heath shamans was and is, in and of itself, some sort of magical protection against a biological threat. Most rational people knew early on that blind obedience of the ever-evolving pronouncements of all the state anointed medical bureaucrats was the equivalent of believing incantations issued from a witch doctor was more effective than legitimate, known precautions and known medicines, whether off-label or not.
But they were supreme in their arrogance, so they found a following of true believers.
Hoffer also noted:
“It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”
So, unbelief led to volumes of experience being denied in favor of “new” science (that was so green on the vine it was more supermarket tabloid than science) and the banning of any existing medicine, therapeutics or therapy anyone outside the cult suggested. Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and other therapies were banned from discussion and anyone even mentioning them was labeled a purveyor of misinformation, disinformation, or malinformation.
The last of those categorizations is my personal favorite.
The Joe Rogan situation has given rise to the term “malinformation”, which the cultists define as the intentional dissemination of information intended to harm others.
It certainly seems the manifestation of these definitions is akin to heresy. Webster defines “heresy” as ‘adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma”.
In comparison to other such characterizations of history, such aggressive, rabid pushback by the Covidians could be credibly compared to the Spanish Inquisition.
What I find most interesting of the Covidian mass movement is the way it seems to break many of the rules of prior mass movements, even as it retains two aspects seemingly consistent with historical movements. These are 1) the tendency to adopt the categorizations of good and evil as if a religious movement and 2) the existence of an enforcement arm, in this case, the reincarnation of Robespierre’s Committee for Public Safety, made up of political operatives, ideological demagogues and their allies in both social and mass media.
I am fascinated with the Covidian asymmetry. While there have been people at the top of this movement (like Fauci), they seem to cycle trough stages of importance and the most significant difference, in my opinion, is there seems to be no single Torquemada, no single Grand Inquisitor, rather the “movements” are more amoebic, taking on whatever shape necessary to survive.
Established or recognized leaders seem unnecessary to the survival of this movement. As Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message. One supposes the corollary to that is that the movement is also the message.
The asymmetry of Covidianism is what makes it so hard to get our arms around it. Not only is its structure malleable, but its use of language is also opportunistically flexible and its core beliefs infinitely fungible.
But as much as asymmetry is a significant advantage as a movement grows, it is also can be a critical disadvantage when it begins to decline. Faddish, conventional wisdom-based movements like Covidianism count upon a constant supply of new True Believers, and when that supply chain is disrupted, they begin to fail. In short, when one person speaks up that the emperor is naked, breaking the spell and removing the stigma of public recognition of the truth, the movement begins to evaporate, as do anyone willing to admit they were once part of the movement at all.
Of course, some are more invested than others (Joy Behar just said she will wear a mask forever and Vladimir Poutine in Canada is cracking down on his own people) and will fight the decline, but most will simply disappear.
An honest observer would see that this process has begun.
Tick tock, Covidians. Tick tock.