They are a unified mass. They have spent their energies and devotions to a cause, however undefined. They will defend it with tremendous zeal. The same thing strikes me as I see tens of thousands of runners on television as they embark on the Boston Marathon. They are the personification of a literal mass movement moving en masse.
Nothing is so right that it deserves unanimity.
I have since wondered if this professor said this due to an awareness of The True Believer . I see something rather unique and powerful regarding the aerobics movement. In other words, the ritual created fervor for the movement. With aerobics, however, the ritual is the movement. And the movement is the ritual.