That book is the “assume a spherical cow” of social movement sociology! Aka debunked by decades of actual empirical sociology research. It makes for a fun reading, I guess, as long as you don’t actually take it seriously. 
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So for movements that undeniably do become fanatic and commit various acts of extremism and atrocity, do we have a good idea of why people join them?
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Those are all different categories, though, no. There is cults, terrorism and post-power atrocities. On the movement side, there is high-risk activism (this is the classic study of that https://www.jstor.org/stable/2779717 ).
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And it’s kind of fun telling you that sociologists find people a lot more rational than assumed in that book, and an economist would like to think they are just filling psychological voids. Haha
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It's interesting that you think I "would like" to think this. In fact, I don't have a preference, and would just like to know how things really work! :-)
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