A while ago, I created a bit of a stir on Mick LaSalle's Blog, because I said I wished people wouldn't use that expression. Some people got a little pissed, saying that I was trying to tell them what they could - or couldn't - say. But, it was my hope that once I explained the origin of that saying, maybe people would understand why I found it so offensive. (And, believe me, I am not easily offended.)
Thirty years ago, I was a teenager in the suburbs. Other than raging hormones, my life was pretty normal: school, homework, smoking pot, and obsessing over boys. We were all living under the vague Cold War era threat of nuclear annihilation. When I let my mind linger on it too long, it was actually quite terrifying, but fear was kept at bay by the belief/hope that the leaders of the nuclear powers would use logic, acknowledging that there was no 'winning' a nuclear war.
However, madness - on a scale that I had never imagined - was about to make itself known to me. The news stories started coming fast and furious, headlines bigger and louder - 300, 500, now 900 dead in a mass suicide in Jonestown. Being located between a former church in Mendo County and his last church in the Bay Area, the story seemed to have a special relevance for us here in Northern California. And it went on, and on - more graphic photos and horrifying details with every passing day. As the story grew, it became even more incomprehensible to my fourteen year-old mind. 900 people - 900 men, women, and children in a mass suicide (some were murdered, as was later discovered) - lined up and drank poison. Cyanide laced fruit punch...
And, somehow, over the years this horrific episode in the history of religious extremism - and mass hysteria - has been trivialized to the point of becoming short-hand for blind obedience. You hear people on tv, news commentators and pundits, saying that so-and-so 'drank the kool-aid' because they agreed with a politician in the opposition party. Every time I hear that, I feel a knife twisting in the hearts of the loved ones of those 900 people. People who survived - parents, spouses, siblings, children - hearing people turn the horror and tragedy of that day, 30 years ago, into a colloquialism. I didn't know any of the victims of Jonestown, or even anyone who did, but that event had a deep and lasting impact on my life and I feel that those people, whose journey started out in love and hope, deserve better than to have their deaths become a joke.
Sorry for the lecture, I hate to sound so preachy. It's just that, as someone who has an interest in the origins of expressions, sometimes I've found out some troubling facts about 'harmless' sayings I've been using for years. And, when I learn those facts, I try not to use the sayings anymore, because of the hurt that is associated with the past, and may be caused by it's usage in the present. Words do matter. Especially when you don't know who might be listening...
(Here's a Chronicle article from 1998: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1998/11/08/NEWS4041.dtl)
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18 comments:
You're right, ferret. Don't let the idiots bother you.
I'm no mathmatician, but if I'm calculating right, 30 plus 14 makes you 44, correct? Unless, of course, you wre born November 17, which would have made you 15.
Vathros...Greek for old boyfriend from High School?
It freaked me out, and I was half a continent away, in Indiana, at the time.
"thalli"--when did I acquire a lithp?
dsg - you may also have been inundated with stories, Jim Jones got his start in Indiana, before he came west...
I also did not personally know anyone involved with the Peoples Temple. One creepy incident that did occur was around 1979 or 1980, some of my friends and me were recruited to work security and the lightboard for a show being put on by an up and coming band in those days called Pearl Harbor and the Explosions. We were given the address of a buidling we were told was an abandoned church on Geary Blvd in the Western Addition.
Being of ages between 15 and 17, we knew of Jim Jones and all but had never really paid attention to all the details. It wasn't until about 2 hours into the show we realized exactly where we were.
BTW, j.m. I just re-read your intro to this thread. You know, you're a helluva writer. Not to undermine your topic, I'm just saying...
WV: deismin...Andrew Clay's original stage name
WV: forie (as usual, the first post didn't work and I got nothing with forie)
I had a couple of thoughts while reading that article... First, like ferret's aversion to the 'Kool-Aid' phrase, I feel the same way about the term 'Do-gooder'. It was in the article, as well as in an episode of the radio program 'Humankind' yesterday, as Bo Lozoff, a singer who works with prisoners to help them evaluate their place in society within and outside of prison, referred to the perception of 'Liberal do-gooders' who visit prisoners, as opposed to people like him, who prisoners feel more 'manly' rapport with. I think Bo's work is good and respectable, but I was struck-- as I always am, by the 'do-gooder' slap. On the 'guilty' side of things (but unrepentantly so), I suppose I fall in with those who marvel at what happened with Jones and his flock. I wouldn't call Jones paranoid. He was right about the investigations and threat to the world that developed around him. I'm not saying this is what happened, but it doesn't take much of a leap of faith to see that the progress of a 'do-gooder' like Jones would be easily sabotaged by hooking him on narcotics and taking control of *his* mental faculties, bringing about an implosion that could easily be pinned on him. Defending Jones? No. I don't know enough about what happened. But that scenario is as plausible as any other. The temptations that our politicians succomb to every day are, I'm sure, often engineered by those who know that there's just no explaining that 13 year old in your hotel room. Which brings us to personal responsibility and the defense mechanism of distrust. When it comes to religion, to me, this is a no-brainer, and this is where the victims of Jonestown-- perhaps even Jones himself-- fell down. Jones discovered god in a syringe, and his followers likewise suffered under the delusion of connection with some holy force. It's precisely why Americans are doing the Taliban's work for them in the US today. Willingly. Religion is, figuratively and sometimes literally, poison.
Losers, I mean people who really lose in the competitive day to day struggle, are always fair game for ridicule or insult in this society. Change at the root is the only cure, and that ain't coming soon.
Meanwhile, people who care are in the minority, I believe.
obber -- a lazy kind of uber.
You know ferret...this has been bugging me since yesterday. I thought you once said you were 36 and born in the 70's. What gives?
TooSense: You do realize whole religions were built around the worship of a mushroom, right? What do you have to say about that? Careful now, I know criticism of religion is only limited to Christian ones.
rephakie--someone who thinks he is far more grand than he really is. the hakie part is what keeps coming up after you read his work...and I'm certainly not refering to you TooSense, or you either ferret.
gina - I don't think I ever said I was 36. I'm not one to lie about my age. If I say I'm 44, people don't believe me, saying I look younger. If I say I'm younger, I don't get that same nice compliment...
Speaking of compliments, thank you very much tedspe. I take no small amount of pride in my skills as a writer - it's nice to hear that someone enjoys it!!!
xootsuit - it's true, a lot of Jim Jones' followers were among the disenfranchised in our society. When you've been treated as unwanted by your community, you will be especially loyal to one that seeks you out and welcomes you.
Thanks a lot, gina. I'll never again be able to wear an Allman Brothers t-shirt without feeling like I was born again yesterday. Psilocybin, trips are for skids! Honestly, though, I feel the same way about all religions. It just happens to be that the local one is overwhelmingly xianity. Looks a bit like a cross between 'Fox' and 'Hannity', doesn't it?
Incorporating your WV into your post, toosense? Cool. Unnat note...
I have a recording of a partial 'White Night" speech. It's one of the scariest things I've ever heard, not so much for what Jones is saying, although that's creepy enough...but the crowd reaction is what gets me. It sounds like an completely demented mob, altruism or no, on the outmost edge of sanity. Jones couldn't do it alone. In the immortal words of Big Maybelle: "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show."
winkingtiger, your avatar still looks like Seth Rogen. ;)
Actually I really liked the old one; I hope I didn't offend with my comment about it.
~
On a side note, I saw the movie 'Guyana Tragedy' as a kid... don't remember how old, exactly. But I've always found Powers Booth really creepy since then. Ronnie Milsap, too.
~
WV: 'inedom'-- turnabout is fair play.
TS: Ha! Well, this avatar was supposed to actually wink, but it doesn't seem to be working here...so I'll switch back. ;-)
WV: buntas: militaristic groups who carry baseball bats horizontally poised.
It's just one out of countless expressions we could do without. Imagine the terror a red-headed kid feels when his mom re-marries?
djloo - well, it's a well-known fact that red-heads are evil! They should be happy that anyone would marry a woman that would spawn such evil!!!
jk, my mommy was a read-head, and a lovely woman indeed. Your post made me laugh, out loud even!!!
One of my favorite Paul Newman movies is WINNING. Newman's direction was stiff, but his acting was OK. So was Joanne Woodward's. The notion that winning one thing often cost the loss of something else -- that came through clearly to a teenager like me. (Unfortunately for me, I guess, COOL HAND LUKE proved more compelling in the long run. Talk about your losers.)
Pop culture doesn't reflect such dialectics very often. Pop culture and slang like the buzz, the cold shot, the LOL. I guess one of my original points was that such discourse reflects a quality hard and nasty in human nature. There are lots of other qualities there too, however.
"poitical" No kidding. Apart from the obvious: An Hawaiian cooking technique?
You are right, FH. I think that whole thing started when I used the phrase "drink the kool-aid" and you very kindly and pleasantly pointed out that it is rather insensitive to a number of interested parties. It was a tragedy and I think that I would be offended if I really remembered the incident. As it is I only vaguely remember the uproar over Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk and the term "twinkie defense" strikes me in a similar way, I expect.
gina, you may be confusing FH with me in terms of age. I'm in my - ahem - late 30's, although no longer 36. :)
oxifie, probably a reference to my advanced age.
I'm going to let it slip, but I distinctly remember you and Twinnie having that online love affair nearly a year ago and you mentioned you were 36. And, at the same time mentioned your birthday, May, 7. Ahem.
Batte: I think the word speaks for itself.
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