The Inner Ring
C. S. Lewis called this invisible system the inner ring. It means that no matter where a person is in life, no matter how wealthy or popular a person is, there is always a desire to be on the inside of a certain ring and a terror of being left on the outside of it. “This desire [to be in the inner ring] is one of the great permanent mainsprings of
... See moreLuke Burgis • Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
Belonging is a central part of the appeal of religion and politics—the feeling that you are part of something larger than yourself, something that you believe in as an obligation or that you believe will make the world a better place.
Russell D. Roberts • Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us
In an effective mass movement, the true believer’s yearning for identity finds a place. A sense of belonging is fulfilled, and individual responsibility is then taken out of one’s hands. The movement, and its leader, decide what’s right and wrong. All one needs to do is stay with the movement and the whole gnawing existential issue of what is the p... See more
Antonia Malchik • True believers and mass movements
Lewis called his audience’s attention to the presence, in schools and businesses and governments and armies and indeed in every other human institution, of a “second or unwritten system” that stands parallel to the formal organization—an Inner Ring.*2 The pastor is not always the most influential person in a church, nor the boss in the workplace. S
... See moreAlan Jacobs • How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds
In them she has found something like the coterie to which she’s always wanted to belong, not the popular crowd, rather, the smaller satellite crowd that makes fun of the popular crowd—the outer circle, internally supportive and externally terrifying.