Jim Jones was an American cult leader from Indiana who had huge impact and influence on his followers after proclaiming himself as a messiah. Jones was largely influenced into his character mainly by the fact that he had grown in a poor family and his ability to draw people to himself made him drunk with power. According to Kwayana, Howard, Massay, and Sharma (2016), Jones founded the Peoples Temple which largely embraced racial integration thus giving him a massive following among the nonwhite Americans. Jim’s political influence was also major because of the political class at the time openly as well as secretively held meetings with Jones. Before Jones became power obsessed, he had taken part most notably in charitable work especially among the homeless further growing his influence.
Profiling of Jones
The activities of Jones had largely been viewed as humanitarian actions especially with the efforts to help racially segregated nonwhite Americans who were homeless. Given the view of Jones humanitarian actions, he was appointed to the Human Rights Commission as the director making his activities not profiled.
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The fact that Jones was close to the political class made him seem an untouchable individual. When claims of economic exploitation of his followers constantly arose, the government tasked Senator Leo Ryan to go on a fact-finding expedition. If Jones had been profiled before the Senator Ryan mission to Jonestown, the mass suicide would have been prevented.
Psychologists argue that what Jones did was repeatedly spoke his opinions that made his followers believe him and thus if the acts of brainwashing had been prevented before, the mass suicide incidents would not have risen. Continued studies show that a continuously repeated message becomes accepted as a common belief among a certain group of people to whom the message is directed. As the human social behavior theory holds, Jones carefully crafted his conspiracy theories which would only have been averted before the Ryan visit.
Causes of mass suicide in Jonestown
The death of hundreds of people in the Jonestown incident remained as one of America’s biggest loss of life in a single act. Psychologists work towards demystifying the probable causes of the mass suicide. First, it can be argued that the concept of memory distortion was largely employed by Jones in bringing the massacre into being (Kwayana t al., 2016). The concept of memory distortion postulates that when assumptions are made and then repeatedly used they form beliefs among the people listening. Continued studies have shown that the memory distortion phenomenon does not work well when it is propagated by multiple individuals, something that worked to the advantage of Jones. Jones’ persistence of his teachings enhanced the susceptibility of the Jones followers to change their opinion and adopt the teachings of Jones.
Another possible cause of mass suicide at Jonestown can be attributed to the repeated rituals that Jones performed about death (Stoen, 2016). Psychologists argue that repeatedly using rituals acts to make the individuals have a different view of the ritual even anticipating to have the next ritual. As a result, the mimicking of death and continued practicing of rituals by Jones acted to make his followers long to experience the feeling of death and thus jumped at the opportunity when it popped up.
The constitutional ramification of profiling
According to the American constitution, profiling is largely seen as unconstitutional and a violation of human rights. However, it can be argued that not everything that is unconstitutional acts to offend the citizenry’s better feelings. The constitution holds that equal protection must be accorded to all citizens. Nevertheless, in Jones’ case, profiling would have been a suitable action to take to protect his followers’ constitutional rights to life and property. Continued studies into the massacre argue that the reason for Ryan’s visit to Jonestown was to establish facts on claims of economic exploitation that Jones extended to his followers (Kwayana et al., 2016). Possible profiling of Jones would have been constitutionally right based on the argument that Jones’ followers’ rights were being infringed on.
Cursory profiling of the People’s Temple
Numerous articles had been written concerning Jones and his cult which had many claims of the supposed happenings in the People’s Temple. According to Barbour (2015) recurrent claims of violence coupled with terror as well as threats have been flaunted as possible occurrences that took place in Jonestown. Additionally, the media formed an image of mass-letter writing and anonymous calls to newsrooms who supposedly painted unwanted publicity of the temple as having been rampant while the town was yet to experience the huge massacre (Barbour, 2015). The intense accusations of shady financial maneuverings, the forceful turning of personal property to the temple as well as false signed confessions can be viewed as part of cursory profiling that the newspapers did in the anti-Jones articles they published. The published claims sought to paint Jones as an extortionist, possibly a murderer and above all a criminal who required the attention of the security agencies.
References
Barbour, K. (2015). Who died on November 18, 1978 in the Jonestown, Guyana mass murder-suicides .
Kwayana, E., Howard, L., Massay, L., & Sharma, P. D. (2016). A new look at Jonestown: Dimensions from a Guyanese perspective .
Stoen, T. (2016). Love them to death: At war with the devil at Jonestown .
