random thought re: book club/jonestown

ashleemw

Ever since I read that memoir, if I hear someone use the expression "don't drink the kool-aid" it kind of strikes me the same way someone saying "that's gay" does. Like hmm... maybe you shouldn't make light of that. I don't know, I guess people aren't educated about it, but it gives me the chills when I think about it and what those people went through.

jenhappy

Hmm, that's an interesting perspective. I'm kind of irreverant in general, so I don't really have a problem with saying drink-the-koolaid. Plus, for me, the issue with saying something is gay is with turning a word that reflects a type off person and using it in place of bad/wrong/lame. It's judgemental and mean. Saying don't-drink-the-koolaid may be insensitive, but it's actually being used to draw a parallel to what really happened.

duncanpowers

I agree with jen... Yes, it's irreverent for something serious that happened, but it isn't turning someone's state of being into an expletive. Drinking the Kool Aid has come to stand for the entire experience of swallowing what they had to say, then following through with whatever they asked including killing themselves, not just the final act.

I have to admit, I use it myself when it's obvious someone isn't thinking for themselves to their detriment, although clearly not in that serious of a fashion. There was even a corporate HR woman that would pop up occasionally who acted like a brainless automaton and we nicknamed her Kool Aid. Rude, but it made us feel better when she'd start spouting corporate regulations and talking about how every day she woke up thankful to be working there.

It's just negative hyperbole.

ashleemw

I think comparing it to being gay was a bad analogy. Maybe September 11 would be a better comparison? Something along the lines of flying planes into buildings. People don't joke about that because they know exactly what happened that day, and it was horrific. Same can be said about Jonestown. What happened there was terrifying and truly horrific when you know the details... which is why when I hear people use that expression I shudder. I wonder if they really know what happened if they're willing to be so blase' with the phrase. 

ashleemw

Also - Kate, if you read this, my opinion from Book Club changed! After watching the documentary I realized how Deborah Layton's brother actually sat there and shot people in a point blank way. Yes, he'd been ordered to, but it was clearly by choice. For some reason when I read the memoir, I was under the impression there was just a crazy fire fight going on with bullets from everywhere and he happened to kill 2 people. I definitely think it was 1st degree murder, brainwashed or not. And I think he should be convicted and still in jail, not out on parole. 

duncanpowers

But again, September 11 was something that was done to people. They were innocent victims. Whereas the people in Jonestown, besides those that changed their mind, were participants in their own demise, brainwashed or no. Like the people in California who did something similar thinking they were meeting their alien overlords (the purple blankets and new Nikes). It wasn't as large of an event as Jonestown, but people do joke about that.

Society tends not to be forgiving of people in that position.

ashleemw

That's not entirely true, and really proves my point of why it makes me feel sick to my stomach when people make the Kool-Aid joke! Plenty of innocent people were murdered in Jonestown. There were 33 infants plus numerous children who were injected with syringes in their mouths to swallow the poison. Also, there were many people who wanted to defect when the senator arrived, but they couldn't get them out in time. The security guards ended up shooting people or forcing them to swallow the poison at gunpoint. One mother slit her 3 children's throats with a kitchen knife at the house in Georgetown, and several others were found hiding, trying to escape. Deborah Layton says in the book that once people arrived, it was NOTHING like Jones had promised, and they were unable to leave. He kept people who wanted to defect in the infirmary under injected drugs so they couldn't leave or would torture them by keeping them in wooden crates... so while most people think it was frolicking in the Guyanese rainforest, it was a nightmare for most of the 900 people living there.  

duncanpowers

Well, I don't think anyone is making fun of the children involved.

I think there's an underlying fear in society that you will also be taken in by someone who doesn't have your best interest at heart, so people mock those that are as weaklings to differentiate themselves as not being that weak/stupid/whatever. And I do think that a lot of people know either generally or specifically what happened (I've seen the documentary) and it's horrible. But that doesn't stop them from cracking about it. Using your 9/11 analogy, I remember an interview recently on Howard Stern (can't remember the guest) where they were saying a bunch of comedians had talked shortly after 9/11, wondering how soon they could tell a joke about it. Some people think that it isn't truly funny unless it also makes someone uncomfortable.

If the phrase continues to be used in the future, though, as I imagine it will, our kids will probably have to be told what it meant originally.

LXLX

I'm picking up what DP is throwing down.  I'm trying to word exactly why, but I'm too lazy.

ashleemw:

Also - Kate, if you read this, my opinion from Book Club changed! After watching the documentary I realized how Deborah Layton's brother actually sat there and shot people in a point blank way. Yes, he'd been ordered to, but it was clearly by choice. For some reason when I read the memoir, I was under the impression there was just a crazy fire fight going on with bullets from everywhere and he happened to kill 2 people. I definitely think it was 1st degree murder, brainwashed or not. And I think he should be convicted and still in jail, not out on parole.

Word.  Glad you see my heartless, unsympathetic light.