FREE ESSAY ON WHY PEOPLE JOIN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

WHY PEOPLE JOIN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Why do people join social movements? Why do people join political, professional, or social
movements, of whatever size, and surrender so completely, giving up, in the extreme,
everything; their fortunes, their critical thinking, their political freedom, their
friends, families, even their own lives? What causes people to create a system or perhaps
follow a system that creates such things as "ethnic cleansing" and the killing fields of
Cambodia? "That anyone who opposes this system of aesthetics is committing a political
offense might appear fanatic," writer Andrei Milosz says. One cause of people to join
social movements is fear.
It is a human effort at control and control of that type comes from what is common all of
us, fear. It transcends all boundaries, nationalities, religions, and cultures. So to
answer the question "why do people join social movements?" is fear in part. We are human
and we are, all of us, afraid of something. Autocracy is derived in fear. Autocracies use
this in order to impose their view of reality, their particular version of the truth. The
object is control over more and more followers; ultimately, control over everyone. Either
one follows or one is eliminated. They swallow large numbers of people, if their
ambitions are realized, in proselytizing campaigns designed to play on these common
fears. And they claim to know of what people are afraid of, and to know what to do about
it.
How do leaders and followers form a movement that eventually oppresses others and what is
the relationship between them? At times we feel as "having fallen from grace." This can
leave us with feelings of dispair and helplessness. A leader who is charismatic and
persuasive can take someone in this mind frame and combine to form a leader and a
follower. Together they combine to enslave people therefore slave is an inaccurate term
for "true believer", that is, people who need to find a marvelous parent who will take
away all one's fears, define reality without questions and create the illusion of safety.
There is also another group called the bystanders. They do not say nor do anything. They
seem to just go along with the flow, making sure not to disrupt. Bystanders are like
rocks in a river, small by comparison to it and, more importantly, separated. They are
strewn all over the riverbed and are not united in a grouping large enough to dam the
river.
A reminder of the characteristics of these bystanders is the case of Kitty Genovese, a
famous incident in the United States. A young woman was being raped outside a large New
York City apartment complex. She was screaming for help. It was the middle of the summer
and many people had their windows open. No one did anything. No one came to her aid. Each
in their own apartment. No one even called the police. She was murdered right there in
the street in front of hundreds of witnesses and no one did anything. What would have
happened if they had all been together in a large group? The fear consumed each of them
so they stood by while the young woman was slain. 
Actually bystanders have more power than they realize. For example, public protest was so
strong in Germany in 1939 that Hitler was forced to close the Euthanasia program, the
secret pre-war project to gas German citizens who were determined to be "defective". An
important aspect of the silence of the bystander is the selective use of terror. It
neutralizes most people. 
Ideological leaders claim insight into a universal truth only they can reveal. They claim
to hold the key to the book of knowledge and revelation. They create or adhere to a
rigidly defined ideology, either complete and comprehensive as with Lenin and Stalin, or
somewhat incomplete as with Hitler. These ideologies are utopian in nature promising
relief and salvation. Ideological leaders need love and admiration, more precisely, a
kind of secular worship from their followers. They identify themselves as having a
special mission, for example Hitler fashioned himself as the genius sent to the German
people. The leaders also identify a scapegoat. For Communists it is the bourgeoisie and
for Hitler it was the Jews. The ideological leader seeks power, ultimate power if
possible and must be willing to sacrifice even his own life for his cause. All of these
add to the fire that fuels a social movement.
Perhaps the most important job of a leader is to convince people to follow him. The most
important part of this is to identify an enemy. Not just any enemy will do. A source of
evil must be found who helps create and sustain the special feeling so necessary for the
formation of the followers and the leader into a social movement. All of these weigh in
on whether or not people will or will not join a social movement. The movement must seem
appealing to them. The movement must erase a fear. The promise of erasing a fear will
lead to followers needed for a social movement.