Mass movements are a method for people to change society, a method for the individual to change themself.  Each movement might make different claims, but their methodology is the same.  Movements enable collective action, but at the cost of individual’s identity and sovereignty.  Each individual defers to the values and views of the group, rather than proclaim their own values.  Movements are perpetuated when members are willing to participate in collective action and self-sacrifice.

 

Movements enable change.  People who have accepted their conditions and are comfortable with their lives are not susceptible to a movement.  Those who want change are the dispossessed, the disillusioned, the discarded, the rejected, those who cannot find meaning in their lives.  Those who want change think that the future holds more value for them than the present.  They are willing to substitute their own lack of self-worth and meaning by seeking to change others and dedicate themselves to a cause.  Lack of self-worth enables the person to want to relegate the responsibility of choosing to others, to be free of freedom, to be free of one’s own individual failures and frustrations. 

 

Members of the group become willing to harm others, as their cause is perceived as righteous.  Persecution justifies more persecution as those acts validate the movements beliefs.  Movements have an enemy which must be vanquished for the better future to come about.  An enemy provides a common source of hatred, which unifies the members and reduces the opposition’s resistance.

 

The references to mass movements is of the totalitarian variety.  Not all movements are totalitarian, and various movements have factions that use different methods other than repression.  Not all change requires totalitarianism.  What this book provides is a way to identify totalitarian movements.  Explains how and why totalitarian movements develop.