Thursday, November 13, 2008
Info of the Day
So today I learnt about “Jonestown” something I never heard of before. Not that it is extremely important to know..but I thought it interesting. Well Jonestown is in Guyana which is one of the nation states in South America. Well this name “Jonestown” was given for the “Peoples Temple of Agricultural Project” which is an intentionally formed community. Which is basically a community formed with some political, social or spiritual idea. Anyways so this community is formed by a “Peoples Temple” led by a person called Jim Jones, which is where the name is derived from. He comes from California. So why is this community important…well on November 18, 1978, around 900 of them died in a “revolutionary suicide” which was led by Jim Jones, what makes this notorious, is that it looked like a massacre but rather was willful suicide. I hope I explained it well, I’m not sure I get quite well myself; I’m still looking into it. :p
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2 comments:
This is an important event in the world of social psychology because it demonstrates so clearly how cults and groups can easily perform such anti-social and deviant behavior. The leader, Jim Jones, was originally from... Ohio? or maybe Indiana. He was a pastor of a local church. Whether he did it intentionally or not, he used a variety of persuasion techniques to influence the behavior of his parishioners.
He started by asking the members of his church to make increased monetary donations, which many of them would do - it's common for churches to ask for more money. By starting with a small request like that, he made them feel obligated to comply to something larger; having them come to church every day. I've had this technique played on me by salespeople in the mall. By asking you to do something simple, they convince you that you are the sort of person to comply with them, and so when they ask you to do something bigger, you feel only natural to acquiesce.
Through a series of small steps like that, Jones influenced his congregation to move to San Francisco and establish a charity group that helped local homeless and underprivileged. This part is admirable; they really did do good work while they were there, and he had convinced his members by this time to dedicate themselves completely.
The next step, moving to Guyana, was also a mental trick by Jones. He downplayed the effort that would be required to form their utopia in the middle of the jungle and offered the experience to his members as if it was something they were meant to have. When things began getting tough, people were reluctant to leave because they believed that it was their right to live peacefully in this new "Jonestown utopia" and so were willing to pay a much higher cost than if they had been given the truth up-front.
Jones' ability to make the vast majority of his followers drink the kool-aid was psychologically tactical. Anyone who wouldn't comply with Jones's requests risked being tattled on by his secret committee. No one ever knew which people were part of this committee, so no one dared to admit that they had doubts. Jones would occasionally confer gifts such as increased food portions or a day off from work to members, who would then feel indebted to Jones.
They went through several practice runs with non-poisoned kool-aid, habituating them to the ritual. Again, small steps towards the end. When it came time to actually drink the poisoned concoction, it required only a small leap of faith on the part of Jones' followers. From anyone else's point of view, it would be absurd to comply to a stranger's request to drink poison, but for the citizens of Jonestown it was simple.
You can see some of these same techniques in a variety of contexts: extremist groups who practice suicide bombing, religious cults with ritual sacrifice, Scientology... the concepts behind Jonestown are quite relevant in today's society.
Your on a roll today, girl. Keep it up. I'm learning a lot from you. ;)
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