"When its existence is threatened and it has to unify its people and generate in them a spirit of utmost self-sacrifice, the democratic nation must transform itself into something akin to a militant church or a revolutionary party. ...The mastery of the art of religiofication is an essential requirement in the leader of a democratic nation... Only a goal which lends itself to continued perfection can keep a nation potentially virile even though its desires are continually fulfilled. The goal need not be sublime. The gross ideal of an ever-rising standard of living has kept this nation fairly virile."
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Sources
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951) Ch.18 : Good and Bad Mass Movements, §124
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Democracy
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Democracy
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