Joseph Lande-O’Malley

11/9/2020
Libs 320A

Jonestown
I had never heard about Jonestown prior to watching these documentaries, but

having now heard about it, I’m not sure if I’ll ever fully get it out of my head. Between

actually hearing the audio of the last moments, as well as hearing the testimonies of

those who survived the cult, it was a blood chilling tale of power over people being

taken much too far. Jim Jones was, unfortunately, a classic example of a demagogue

who figured out how to create for himself a following of people who looked up to him as

a friend, as a father, and as a god. A con-man who managed to pull off the biggest con

and create for himself a new religion of people literally willing to lay down their lives for

him. As I was learning about Jones and the society he created, I began to think about

other people in past and present history who have done or attempted something similar.

Two names came to mind really quickly for me. In the more distant past, Hitler was the

name that came to mind since he so effectively convinced many Germans that he was

their best hope and was then able to turn them against a large number of other people.

A much more recent example, in my mind at least, is our current President, Donald

Trump, who has demonstrated an ability to say exactly the right thing to turn large

numbers of the country against each other.

While obviously this has not been put into practice, I, unfortunately, believe that if

he wanted to, Donald Trump could form his own cult, although formed on exactly the

opposite of the ideals the Peoples’ Church was founded on. Trump’s would be a cult of

white supremacists and people whose only goal would be the dehumanization and
eventual extermination of those they see as “less than”. With the Peoples’ Church, we

got a clear demonstration of how easy it is for something that starts really nicely to go

off the deep end and end incredibly badly. I really don’t want to think about what would

happen if a group that was already dangerous and hateful ended up the same way. It

made me wonder, how can we overcome demagogues with the goal of brainwashing

and controlling a large number of people?