"That’s the anomaly,” Guinn says. “Unlike other
demagogues, Jones got his followers by appealing to their better
natures. He wasn’t telling them that they were superior to anybody else,
that they have to destroy everybody else, that it’s their destiny to
rule the world. He brought them in by saying, ‘Let’s make the world a
fairer place, a better place, without regard to race, without regard to
gender.’”
Dystopia and utopia are antonyms, or at least they’re
supposed to be. One is an absolute nightmare, the other a perfect dream.
In practice, like in Jonestown, the two extremes can thread together.
In any given aspiring utopia — in its grand gambles, in its bold social
experimentation — there is the seed for unspeakable calamity. Just like
that, the dream can become the nightmare.
,,,
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biographical details that
emerged about Heaven’s Gate members in the months after the 1997 mass
suicide pointed to lonely lives. “He felt he had a purpose,” one man’s
sister said of her brother’s entrance into the cult: “He was part of a
community.” A Heaven’s Gate member’s parent told the media that her
estranged daughter once wrote her a letter saying “Mother, be happy that
I’m happy.”
Anticipating a media frenzy after their suicides, members
of the cult left behind videotaped testimonials. There’s nearly two
hours of footage, all beatific smiles and self-awareness. “I just wanna
let everyone know how lucky and happy I feel to be here,” a member who
identifies herself as Yrsody says, “and to let you know that what we’re
about to do is certainly nothing to” — she pauses — “think negatively
about. We’re all choosing of our own free will to go to the next level
with Ti and Do.”
“There are people in the world who thought I had
completely lost my marbles,” scoffs a member identified as Wknody.
“They’re not right! I couldn’t have made a better choice.”
Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate were supposed to be utopias. How did it go so wrong?
No comments:
Post a Comment