sweet subjectivity.
Friday 09 May 2003 at 06:59 am
took the time outover the last couple of days to read deborah layton's critical if somewhat novelistic account of the people's temple and the jonestown suicides. picked it up for £1 in a bookstore downtown.
then this morning a quick web search reveals jonestown.com - written by Laurie Kalahas, another survivor.
the contrast between the two is startling. layton's account is calm, secular, personally troubled. she writes about the death of her mother in the cult, her deconditioning in a strangely unfamiliar modern world, her shocked discovery of the deception involved in the cult...
kahalas on the other hand believes - in fact, BELIEVES. in jim jones, in god, in angels, jonestown, miraculous healings CIA involvement, the staged mercenary attacks - all the grand baroque conspiracies that appear as the feverish ravings in layton's account appear rephrased as Truth in Kalahas' account.
kinda drives in the point that conspiracy theory is a form of faith. the contrast is pretty weird - I interpret the second in terms of the first. I wonder what I would have thought if I read the believer account first though. probably I would still favour layton's account. I think.
then this morning a quick web search reveals jonestown.com - written by Laurie Kalahas, another survivor.
the contrast between the two is startling. layton's account is calm, secular, personally troubled. she writes about the death of her mother in the cult, her deconditioning in a strangely unfamiliar modern world, her shocked discovery of the deception involved in the cult...
kahalas on the other hand believes - in fact, BELIEVES. in jim jones, in god, in angels, jonestown, miraculous healings CIA involvement, the staged mercenary attacks - all the grand baroque conspiracies that appear as the feverish ravings in layton's account appear rephrased as Truth in Kalahas' account.
kinda drives in the point that conspiracy theory is a form of faith. the contrast is pretty weird - I interpret the second in terms of the first. I wonder what I would have thought if I read the believer account first though. probably I would still favour layton's account. I think.
It amazes me that when I think I am getting away from my school-books and exams-reading, I stumble upon something specifically mentioned in two of my supposed-to-have-read books. The Jonestown suicides. Ick. So much for surfing the Internet to get away from my bad conscience.
Feline () (URL) - 11 05 03 - 06:46
conspiracy theory believers are intriguing folks. generally quite mad, or with serious pyschological issues, but their unshakeable conviction is enough to give even firm rationalists a bit of a niggle.
ryn: is indeed for soc.anth. the disadvantage is that there's no-one in the department who's interested in the arctic, or even the indigenous peoples of russia & the usa, which from the reading i've done strike me as the most interesting topics. inspired teaching will probably change my mind, so i'll cope!
flats () - 12 05 03 - 16:40