I found the Bad Ideas podcast to be very informative about Jim Jones and the life he led, especially with the Peoples Temple and Jonestown. I did not know that Jim Jones was so influential in Indiana in terms of his social work with desegregation and really making an effort to end the stigma that was then placed around African Americans. I found it very interesting how Jones was able to enact such great change, and then turn his power into something that was detrimental to people. At a time, the press loved what he was doing, and he could have continued down that path, still having power, but been a great social activist. I found that the description of how Jones came to be known as the cult leader was very similar to a charismatic leader.<\/p>\n
Jones played into people\u2019s fears and made them all feel loved and accepted which is how he got such a large following. I think that Jones also was extremely manipulative in the way that every move he made to get people to believe he was a miracle worker was calculated. I was also reminded of the leader follower relationship dynamic when listening to this podcast, it sounds like in the beginning the Peoples Temple was a place of temporary inequality where the leader would enlighten the subordinates to become like them, but in this case, Jones got power hungry. Another thing that I found really intriguing was the fact that they said that Jones was obsessed with Hitler and that is where he partially got the suicide pact idea from. I think that this is very contradictory of his socialist and utopian beliefs. This does make sense when comparing Jones’ leadership style and what his wishes for Jonestown were.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I found the Bad Ideas podcast to be very informative about Jim Jones and the life he led, especially with the Peoples Temple and Jonestown.…<\/p>\n