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.Either through some personal defect or because externalconditions do not permit growth, they are eager to renounce themselves,since the self is insupportable.Many German men were in this position at the end of World War I.Theycame home to a civilian life without purpose, in which they had no part.Inthe chaos and collapse, vast armies of uprooted people felt threatened by thewar's economic and social aftermath.National Socialism gave them achance for a fresh start.As Eric Hoffer points out:People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement.The prospect of an individual careercannot stir them to a mighty effort, nor can it evoke in them faith and asingleminded dedication.They look on self-interest as on somethingtainted and evil; something unclean and unlucky.Anything undertakenunder the auspices of the self seems to them foredoomed.Nothing that hasits roots and reasons in the self can be good and noble.Their innermostcraving is for a new life a rebirth or, failing this, a chance to acquirenew elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worthby an identification with a holy cause.An active mass movement offersthem opportunities for both.If they join the movement as full convertsthey are reborn to a new life in its close-knit collective body, or ifattracted as sympathizers they find elements of pride, confidence andpurpose by identifying themselves with the efforts, achievements andprospects of the movement.To the frustrated a mass movement offers substitutes either for thewhole self or for the elements which make life bearable and which theycannot evoke out of their individual resources.The movement, in turn, encourages self-renunciation.It does not attract theindividual who believes in himself, nor does it care to; on the contrary, he isprecisely the individual whom it ridicules.It popularizes the idea that theprivate person who finds his own satisfactions is halting the progress ofcivilization.But to the person with the unwanted self, unable to believe inhimself, the movement provides something larger to believe in.As Hitlerpointed out: »Monkeys put to death any members of their community whoshow a desire to live apart.And what the apes do, men do too, in their ownmanner.«The movement also provides justification.To those who find no meaningor purpose in life, it says: »The world is out of joint, not you« orMaking an Obedient Mass 151»The world that most people inhabit is an illusion.« No longer alone in itsmisery, the frustrated mind now has company, which includes even thosewho protest that they are happy, because it is taught to see through that so-called happiness.As one Nazi, Karl-Heinz Schwenke, a tailor, describedit:I had ten suits of my own when I married.Twenty-five years later, whentheir »democracies« got through with me in 1918, I had none, not one.Ihad my sweater and my pants.Even my Army uniform was worn out.My medals were sold.I was nothing.Then, suddenly, I was needed.National Socialism had a place for me.I was nothing and then I wasneeded.The movement also provides a suitable outlet for the pent-up rage whichfrustrated people feel, against themselves and the world.It fans that rage andhonors it.The believer's rage may actually increase in proportion to what hehas had to give up to become part of the movement: his former life, his friends,his family, his privacy, his judgment, sometimes even his name andworldly goods.He is willing, even eager, to make these sacrifices andmore, of course, because by making them he can slough off the undesirableself.He receives, in return, an artificial sense of worth.His stature growsthrough involvement with the group.He is assured that he is great, one of thechosen.SS men were held together by the idea that they were a sworn brother-hood of the elect.Their mystic rituals gave them special obligations, sometoo abhorrent to contemplate, but also special privileges.The believer becomes a fanatic [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]