I honestly think it’s fascinating how people can be persuaded to do things that they would not otherwise.\u00a0 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’\u00a0 came from,\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I honestly think it’s fascinating how people can be persuaded to do things that they would not otherwise.\u00a0 Jonestown was a community that offered hope…<\/p>\n