Please, please, please - would everyone dealing with the threat of Islamic terrorism just read Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer"?

"How could anyone do something like that?" (or some variant thereof) has probably been the most-asked question in Western countries during the past few weeks, as one ghastly, barbaric Islamist atrocity has followed another with bewildering rapidity. One convincing answer was provided by an autodidact San Francisco stevedore called Eric Hoffer 65 years ago in his book, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, in which (among other things) he described the psychology of the typical follower of significant religious, nationalist and political movements in their various phases throughout the ages. I've written about Hoffer before (here), but I make no apology for doing so again. I read The True Believer for the third time last night, and I can confirm that almost every word of it seems eerily prescient. Here, for instance, is Hoffer's answer to "How could anyone do something like that?":

"...when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom - a freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of a mass movement. We find there the 'right to dishonour,' which according to Dostoyevsky has an irresistible fascination."

There's nothing like the willingness to sacrifice yourself for some imaginary greater good to bring out the worst (and occasionally the best) in humanity: "The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness." (Indeed - just look at the utterly vile behaviour of Corbyn supporters.)

Radical Islam isn't unique in allowing inadequates, misfits, malcontents, outsiders, the bored and the disappointed to slough off a life which they've grown to despise, thereby destroying a self which they hate even more than they do the rest of us. But, currently, Radical Islam happens to provide an ideal home for disaffected young Muslims, an extraordinarily large number of whom now live in western liberal democracies whose very moderation, decency and regard for human life and religious freedom makes them peculiarly vulnerable to young men without the inner resources to cope with modernity and liberty and the personal responsibility that they demand of us.

The True Believer is a short book (a mere 168 pages), so, inevitably, there are major lacunae. For instance, it would be interesting to hear Hoffer explain how Christianity managed to grow exponentially for almost 300 years into a major religion before Constantine adopted it as the official religion of his empire without its followers resorting to violence, despite suffering almost constant persecution. Perhaps it was because the New Testament - unlike the founding texts of other religions one could name - contains not one single smidgin of a scintilla of a  hint of a suggestion that Christians should spread their faith by conquest, or that unbelievers should be slaughtered?

Nevertheless, despite its brevity, Hoffer's book is stuffed with intriguing insights (not all of which I agree with, but they certainly make one think). English readers might like to reflect on the following statement:

"A people steeped in action is likely to be the least religious, the least revolutionary and the least chauvinist. The social stability and the political and religious tolerance of the Anglo-Saxon peoples is due in part to the relative abundance among them of the will, skill and opportunities for action. Action served them as a substitute for a mass movement."

Hoffer is also fascinating when discussing the belief shared by the major mass movements of modern times - e.g. Communism, Fascism, Radical Islam - that people in Western democracies are easy meat because they're "too soft, too pleasure-loving and too selfish to die for a nation, a God or a holy cause. This lack of a readiness to die, we are told, is indicative of an inner rot - a moral and biological decay. The democracies are old and corrupt and decadent. They are no match for the virile congregations of the faithful who are about to inherit the earth." While conceding that there's some truth in that, Hoffer goes on to say:

"In normal times, a democratic nation is an institutionalised association of more or less free individuals. When its existence is threatened and it has to unify its people and generate in them a spirit of utmost self-sacrifice, the democratic nation must transform itself into something akin to a militant church or a revolutionary party. This process of religiofication... does not involve deep-reaching changes." 

As an example of this, Hoffer cites the role Churchill played in encouraging Londoners'  stubborn "We can take it!" spirit during the Blitz. One can only hope that our current leaders are aware that - if Islamic terrorism within Europe worsens appreciably - their seemingly soft, decadent, selfish, pleasure-loving peoples have the capacity to resist.

There's plenty more to discuss, but you might as well capitulate and read the book. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with an illuminating passage on leadership in democratic societies:

"In a more or less free society, the leader can retain his hold on the people only when he has blind faith in their wisdom and goodness. A second-rate leader possessed of this faith will outlast a first-rate leader who is without it. This means that in a free society the leader follows the people even as he leads them. He must, as someone said, find out where the people are going so that he may lead them. When a leader in a free society becomes contemptuous of a people, he sooner or later proceeds on the false and fatal theory that all men are fools, and eventually blunders into defeat."  

As David Cameron just discovered. (Mind you, it doesn't explain how Barack Obama has got away with it for so long.)