Blog Post 9: Jonestown and Dissent

In the “Jonestown” episode from the Bad Ideas podcast, the speaker, Tony, runs through the reasons people join a cult such as the one led by Jim Jones: the Peoples Temple. He was very active in the racial equality movements and evangelical circles; he claimed to be psychic and healing, making his followers feel like they were witnessing something “surreal and powerful”. Many people joined his church because they believed in his message and the actions he was taking to effect change– essentially why people join cults. He tried to micromanage everything within the Church to appeal to people that he was essentially doing good for his community. Jim Jones in the Church recruited people by fear, force, public shaming, and isolation from their families. When people entered Jonestown, they had to hand the custody of their children to the Church and worked backbreaking labor; in return, they were building a community with the same values and making lives for their leader, Jim Jones.

When followers do not dissent, they will ultimately “drink Flavor Aid”– both literally as in Jonestown and figuratively in other leader/follower dynamics. “Dissent” is defined by Cheney and Lair as “the rejection of views that most people hold”– but what happens when people do not counter conformity? Followers will be coerced into a figurative (or literal, in this case) “suicide”– or succumbing one’s individual identity. I would argue that the followers become equally as toxic as the leader. Tony, in Bad Ideas, notes that Jim Jones was a huge proponent of Hitler, and the first thing I thought of was the millions of Germans who went along with the “Final Solution” and did not dissent. Excluding those forced into the Schutzstaffel (SS) against their will or because they were scared, Hitler’s followers who did not dissent against his ideology helped Hitler’s endeavors continue to annihilate billions. 

Anna Marston