To sum up, the militant man of words prepares the ground for the rise of a mass movement: 1) by discrediting prevailing creeds and institutions and detaching from them the allegiance of the people; 2) by indirectly creating a hunger for faith in the hearts of those who cannot live without it, so that when the new faith is preached it finds an eager response among the disillusioned masses; 3) by furnishing the doctrine and the slogans of the new faith; 4) by undermining the convictions of the "better people"— those who can get along without faith—so that when the new fanaticism makes its appearance they are without the capacity to resist it. They see no sense in dying for convictions and principles, and yield to the new order without a fight.
Thus when the irreverent intellectual has done his work:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand,
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The stage is now set for the fanatics.
Source: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951) by Eric Hoffer.
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