{"id":1301,"date":"2019-10-22T14:49:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T18:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/?p=1301"},"modified":"2019-10-22T14:49:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T18:49:15","slug":"blog-post-9-jonestown-and-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/2019\/10\/22\/blog-post-9-jonestown-and-dissent\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post 9: Jonestown and Dissent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the \u201cJonestown\u201d episode from the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bad Ideas <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">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 \u201csurreal and powerful\u201d. Many people joined his church because they believed in his message and the actions he was taking to effect change&#8211; 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When followers do not dissent, they will ultimately \u201cdrink Flavor Aid\u201d&#8211; both literally as in Jonestown and figuratively in other leader\/follower dynamics. \u201cDissent\u201d is defined by Cheney and Lair as \u201cthe rejection of views that most people hold\u201d&#8211; but what happens when people do not counter conformity? Followers will be coerced into a figurative (or literal, in this case) \u201csuicide\u201d&#8211; or succumbing one\u2019s individual identity. I would argue that the followers become equally as toxic as the leader. Tony, in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bad Ideas<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, 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 \u201cFinal Solution\u201d and did not dissent. Excluding those forced into the Schutzstaffel (SS) against their will or because they were scared, Hitler\u2019s followers who did not dissent against his ideology helped Hitler\u2019s endeavors continue to annihilate billions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Anna Marston<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the \u201cJonestown\u201d episode from the Bad Ideas podcast, the speaker, Tony, runs through the reasons people join a cult such as the one led&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/2019\/10\/22\/blog-post-9-jonestown-and-dissent\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Blog Post 9: Jonestown and Dissent<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4302,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}