推荐美国社会哲学家埃里克·霍弗所著的《真正的信徒：论群众运动的本质》。他探讨了个人身份认同感以及对特定理想的坚持如何导致

领导者和追随者走向极端主义和狂热。

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national, and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat. ”

“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.”

“The enemy—the indispensible devil of every mass movement—is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors.”

― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements