Daily affirmations of a word mercenary
Scary in a familiar way
26Jun2007 Filed under: RandomataLast night I watched this documentary about the Peoples Temple and the group’s ultimate demise at Jonestown. I’ve had a longstanding fascination with the story, primarily because it scares the shit out of me. Why? Because unlike the Branch Davidians or Heaven’s Gate, the Peoples Temple was built on progressive politics that on a certain level I agree with. Racial integration and equality? Social justice? Community support? Obviously, Jim Jones was a monomaniacal hypocrite, but his story gets so much scarier when you see that the seeds of the movement seemed well-intentioned …
shiver.
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7 Responses to “Scary in a familiar way”
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Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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DOUG.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:41 am
I loved that flick. I think Mayor Nickels is the new Jim Jones.
Summer
June 26th, 2007 at 10:37 am
I actually grew up with someone who lost two siblings in that event–they were teenagers and died with their mother. Coming from a counterculture upbringing it fascinates me, but knowing people connected to it makes it all the more haunting.
Bowrag
June 26th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
That stuff does scare the pants off me too. Something needs to be done with radical extremists.
michelle
June 26th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
i saw the end of that movie and have been, er, dying to see the rest. (ooh, bad pun — sorry.) i’m fascinated with that story too. and rattlesnake charming preachers.
michelle
June 26th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
ps, i was a way into wasting all my spare time and money on the dead and jerry band in college and my early 20s. the collective counterculture thing is FASCINATING, especially when it pretends to promote individualism and indie life but is really more like fascism.
yelahneb
June 27th, 2007 at 12:30 am
an excellent film to be sure; it’s the most level-headed discussion of the whole affair i’ve ever seen.
the saddest thing: everyone involved seemed to just want a better life, a better way that seemed to wash away racial and class boundaries. they were normal but highly idealistic folks who decided to try something different, to really commit to it, and most of them didn’t realize that their leader was no longer (or perhaps, never had been) who they believed he was until it was far too late.
amy.leblanc
June 28th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
thx for the heads up : this is something i think a lot about and i’m very interested in seeing this film. IMO, counterculture has just as many groupthink pitfalls as the mainstream; it’s why groupthink, whether it’s burning man groupthink or microsoft groupthink, scares me.
it begs the big questions: is it human nature? are people sheeple no matter what? we obviously need to live in groups to survive - how/why/when that herd mentality goes wrong is always fascinating.