People of a certain age (and if I remember correctly, she's nearly exactly the same age as me - born May 1970) will have Jonestown imprinted on them as their first memory of newsworthy tragedy.
If you're a wee eight year old, and 900 people "commit suicide" by drinking a Kool-Aid like substance and Kool-Aid, is the object of much desire for this 8 year old, (my parents did not provide me with anything like what I considered an adequate amount of the sweet, colored drink) - you're going to remember it. Plus nearly a thousand people died and news reports showed body after body, many of them kids your age, piled on top of each other and rotting on the jungle floor.
But her long term reaction...
I believe in guns because of Jim Jones. I believe in the ineffectuality and haphazardness of government because of Jim Jones. I believe in being a Discerning Believer because of Jim Jones. One of the more fun things about ideas is being able to trace the growth of one of your deeply-held beliefs to the source. I’ve been able to do that more in recent years as pop culture digs up “nostalgic” events from my childhood.
...and my long term reaction are very different. I'd say my overriding feeling has been that people are crazy and can be induced to do even crazier things. They can be convinced to kill their kids, kill their neighbors, kill themselves - and all it takes is a loudspeaker, sleep deprivation and a little peer pressure. In fact, you can do it without the sleep deprivation.
I will say that I agree with her 100% on the importance of scepticism (i.e. the Discerning Believer). When you're in a big old group of people, who are all being told the unbelievable or the unlikely or the downright disgusting, and they're all raring to go - it might be a good thing to question those in authority. But then again, it might be too late. But I suppose one take some comfort in saying: I told you these guys were crazy, I had a feeling that this would all end badly. I know that it would make me feel better to be able say "I told you so," even as the bullet bit. But that's just me.
As to the ineffectuality of government the massacre at Jonestown was triggered by a visit from Congressman Leo Sayer, but it had been practiced and practiced well before his trip had been thought of - and if so many discerning believers hadn't asked to leave with the congressional delegation then the mass murder-suicide probably wouldn't have happened for another week or so. But, I can't say that's a lesson I took away in 1978. I only recently learned about his role. I so understand the sentiment, I've worked in the public sector for almost all my adult life, so I've seen a lot of ineffectuality in my day - and even perpetrated some. But I've seen a lot of good done, too - especially the basic and thankless work of organising infrastructure and managing the collective work (public health, transportation, education) that has brought our society to the point it is today. And one thing I'll say for those working for the public is that most of them mean well. I've hardly ever met anyone who entered public service (in the US or UK) because they wanted to do ill to their fellow man.
But where I really digress in experience and sentiment is on the guns. No. I don't think having more guns would have made a blind bit of difference in Jonestown. There were guns there. But those guns will have only been in the hands of those who plotted evil or blindly followed. Guns can't prevent craziness. In Jonestown, they only helped precipitate craziness. (The shooting of Leo Sayer and members of the delegation was used by Jones to tell his followers that their utopia was coming to a crashing end and that they would all be carted off and split up - so they were better off dead at their own hand.) And how would you have got guns in the hands of the Discerning Believers? Who would have doled them out? The Government? Why would most of the people there think that they needed guns - they largely believed they were part of a radical and loving experiment that could change the world for the better.
But more importantly, I just don't believe that guns are the key ingredient, the critical success factor for a responsible, respectful society. Responsibly held and largely unused weapons in the hands of citizens is something you see because there is a mature relationship between state and citizen (government by and of the people, where citizens exercise their responsibility to participate) and where there is largely a feeling of trust between citizen and fellow citizen. The feeling of trust, the mature relationship doesn't occur as a result of folks being armed to the teeth.
Maybe I'll agree that weapons are a bellweather. If you're a responsible, calm and largely non-violent person and you have to ask "Why can't I have a gun?" - then you have to wonder what's going on in the relationship between the people and the power. But you don't even need guns to ask that question - in Jonestown, questions with similar answers (Why can't I leave? Why do I have to hand over all my money and property?) could have been asked.
The questioning of power and the engagement of the responsible, free citizen in governance prevents the abuse of power, not tooling up. After all, those in power will always be able to out-purchase and out-gun an individual.
2 comments:
:-p (I think you meant Leo Ryan. Although Leo Sayer would have been a much more fun congressman.)
Obviously we disagree on the guns. I can't say how the tenor of the Jonestown camp would have changed if any of the People's Temple folks had guns. Since they were all clearly some degree of incapacitated--either by sleep deprivation or religious mania--it may not have done anything but compound the problem.
I will always firmly believe, though, that if there had been armed personnel in Ryan's entourage, the outcome of the attack on the Port Kaituma airstrip would have been much different. Instead of being gunned down like sitting ducks, the five people in Ryan's entourage who died may have lived.
The cult itself had lots of guns of course; Jones made sure they were in the hands of his most loyal followers. If they had somehow had no access to guns at all it's possible there would have been no massacre.
"I will always firmly believe, though, that if there had been armed personnel in Ryan's entourage, the outcome of the attack on the Port Kaituma airstrip would have been much different. Instead of being gunned down like sitting ducks, the five people in Ryan's entourage who died may have lived. "
Yes, I was struck by that when we watched the drama-doc; the strange naive 1970s optimism of the Congressman and his party. I couldn't imagine someone in the 1930s or earlier taking an expedition to such a weird heart-of-darkness place, and taking no security precautions whatsoever. - ViL
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