I honestly think it’s fascinating how people can be persuaded to do things that they would not otherwise. Jonestown was a community that offered hope and change from normal day to day suffering. Jim Jones knew that and was able to exploit it using his extreme charisma to convince people of his way of life. Jonestown is a very extreme example of what cults can do and the dangers they pose. Jonestown is where the saying ‘drink the kool-aid’ came from, FOllowers were ushered in by drug recovery programs and offers of hope and change that resulted in such complete ‘brainwashing’ that the majority of people in the cult killed themselves. I think the groupthink in this is very apparent. When you have one leader who is telling you what to think and there is a group of die-hard supporters ready to ‘learn’ from this person, no one is willing to question qhat is going on and the choices that the leader is making. This results in large scale bad decisions such as mass suicide. Jonestown is an example of both toxic charisma and group think resulting in a great tragedy and many many unnecessary deaths.
Jonestown
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I agree this is an extreme case of groupthink! I do like your point about how he was taking advantage of a vulnerable group of people who were “ready to learn” which made the situation much riskier as the victims were openminded and trusting.
I like the point about groupthink. Within their branch of “Christianity” I think all the followers were practically brainwashed.
I really liked your post and this actually I believe ties nicely into our last topic relating to groupthink. This was a group of people who were all like-minded which intensified their views on their cult. They were only able to see down one tunnel which allowed Jones to take advantage of these people.