For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leaders or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.
— Eric Hoffer in “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”
I have read The True Believer a number of times because it is a ridiculously powerful book. It is a roadmap for despots and revolutionaries, an insight on both human goodness and evil. It disproportionately influenced the way I thought about Strong Towns in the very early days when I would refer to this tiny niche blog as a “movement,” as if saying it enough would make it so.
It did.
I was walking down the street
When I thought I heard this voice say
“Say, ain’t we walking down the same street together
On the very same day?”
I said, “Hey Senorita, that’s astute…”
I said, “Why don’t we get together
And call ourselves an institute?”— Gumboots by Paul Simon
As the nation was erupting in violence this past summer, I attempted with my friends and colleagues to describe a paradox that, in my view, made it difficult for many to understand Black Lives Matter and the reaction to the killing of George Floyd. I don’t think I was successful.
One narrative would have us understand the oppression experienced by Black Americans, historic and modern. A counter-narrative would have us recognize the enormous amount of progress that has been made, and how that struggle has been near the center of public consciousness for a long time. Both narratives speak in extremes, and both place the other’s extreme rhetoric at the core of a worldview they see as oppositional.
The paradox comes from The True Believer. As quoted above: “For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute…”
Enormous progress has been made — Black America is no longer destitute, marginalized, and discounted in the same ways it was half a century ago — and that standing has allowed room for not only a growing recognition of lingering inequity, but the “plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change.”
My observation is that the tension around social justice and Black Lives Matters is both a positive sign of progress and the inevitable downside of progress. Though we would wish for it, there is probably no completely orderly way to transition from forced destitution to a just society. I found the violence and mayhem horrific but, like many at the time, acknowledge that spurts of instability are the wages for long stretches of suppressed volatility.
Many have been quick to draw distinctions between the violence last summer and the violence this month in Washington DC. Many others have been quick to draw parallels. As narratives, they are revealing. More heavy-handed policing this month would not have been just, nor would a dominant media narrative that insisted that what happened was “mostly peaceful.” We all know this, and perhaps that is what we really mean, but mass movements—like the ones we are trapped in at the moment—allow us to say things we don’t believe, then believe them.
It is true that the adherents of a rising movement have a strong sense of liberation even though they live and breathe in an atmosphere of strict adherence to tenants and commands. The sense of liberation comes from having escaped burdens, fears and hopelessness of an untenable individual existence.
— Eric Hoffer in “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”
At the same time that rising minority power compels many to “plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change,” the “burdens, fears and hopelessness of an untenable individual existence” have taken deep root across formerly prosperous parts of America.
While the Hillbilly Elegy narrative was first embraced by progressive thought leaders seeking answers, then caricatured by many of the same, I have never met a conservative-minded person who felt compelled to read it. They should have. It was a painful self-examination.
And while I was roundly criticized for sharing the insights of Charles Murray’s book Coming Apart, which focuses on the dissolution of the white middle class, I wish more progressives had read it. Again, read with a curious mind, it was a painful self-examination of how good intentions can go terribly wrong.
I spent the past four years interviewing people like Tim Carney, whose book Alienated America describes how the social isolation documented in Coming Apart and described first-hand in Hillbilly Elegy created the conditions for Donald Trump’s victories in the Republican primary. I also interviewed people like Sam Quinones, whose book Dreamland explained the evolution of the opioid epidemic. I did these things as I watched forces beyond my control pick and choose the narratives that comforted them, that neatly created an affirming worldview, most often by discounting the pain and suffering of others.
The fact that we are broken should not keep us from recognizing injustice. The fact that we live with injustice should not prevent us from seeing where people are broken.
Washington DC is built as a monumental city. The Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial rise above all the other displays of national pride and dignity on the National Mall. They are meant to inspire. Meant to humble. In dark and difficult times, it is this aura — this national myth — that is meant to summon us to be greater than ourselves.
I know George Washington was not a perfect man, but the ideal of George Washington as someone who cared more about the future of the country than about his own power should be preserved as the model of a great leader.
I know Thomas Jefferson was far from a perfect man, but the ideal of Thomas Jefferson, and the idea that all of us are created equal, is an aspiration we can all embrace as the foundation for an expanding vision of a more just world.
I know Abraham Lincoln was not a perfect man, that his persecution of a horrific civil war was a case study in the compromise of ideals, but the profile of Abraham Lincoln as an honest, humble, American servant is one for which many of us would give the last full measure of devotion.
Four years ago, amid protests and marches that were filling the capital, I said on our local radio station, KAXE, that the way we get the best outcomes during the Trump presidency was to treat him, as the representative of the office of the presidency, with the utmost respect. Though he may not be deserving, the office was. Our country was. Our ideals and institutions are.
Great societies always appeal to higher ideals and, in doing so, propel themselves to greatness…
Charles Marohn is a Professional Engineer (PE) and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). He’s the Founder and President of StrongTowns.org . He was named one of the 10 Most Influential Urbanists of all time by Planetizen in 2017.