Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.

Transference and suggestibility killed those people.

In October of 1978, surrounded by hundreds of his followers, cult leader Jim Jones was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head; this event took place in Jonestown, Guyana, where the followers of Jones drank the Kool-Aid of group psychology, killing them self by drinking a soft drink laced with cyanide at the cult's sprawling compound.

The images of bodies found at the compound were seared into the consciousness of a generation. The phrase "drank the Kool-Aid" came to describe any blind devotion to a cause or person. It was not the Kool-Aid that killed all of these people but it was a human propensity called transference.

Freud informs us the reason for this form of behavior is the tendency for humans to be suggestible and influenced by a psychic form of transference.

What do the following entities have in common: fascism, capitalism, communism, political parties, and religions? They all have a common characteristic that can be called “group mind”.

What is striking is that members of these entities often undergo a major change in behavior just by being members of such entities. Under certain conditions individuals who become members of these groups behave differently than they would as individuals. These individuals acquire the characteristics of a ‘psychological group’.

What is the nature of the ‘group mind’, i.e. the mental changes such individuals undergo as a result of becoming a group?

A bond develops much like cells which constitute a living body—group mind is more of an unconscious than a conscious force—there are motives for action that elude conscious attention—distinctiveness and individuality become group behavior based upon unconscious motives—there develops a sentiment of invincible power, anonymous and irresponsible attitudes--repressions of unconscious forces under normal situations are ignored—conscience which results from social anxiety disappear.

Contagion sets in—hypnotic order becomes prevalent—individuals sacrifice personal interest for the group interest.

Suggestibility, of which contagion is a symptom, leads to the lose of conscious personality—the individual follows suggestions for actions totally contradictory to person conscience—hypnotic like fascination sets in—will and discernment vanishes—direction is taken from the leader in an hypnotic like manner—the conscious personality disappears.

“Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized group, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization.” Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian—a creature acting by instinct. “He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.”

There is a lowering of intellectual ability “pointing to its similarity with the mental life of primitive people and of children…A group is credulous and easily influenced”—the improbable seldom exists—they think in images—feelings are very simple and exaggerated—the group knows neither doubt nor uncertainty—extremes are prevalent, antipathy becomes hate and suspicion becomes certainty.

Force is king—force is respected and obeyed without question—kindness is weakness—tradition is triumphant—words have a magical power—supernatural powers are easily accepted—groups never thirst for truth, they demand illusions—the unreal receives precedence over the real—the group is an obedient herd—prestige is a source for domination, however it “is also dependent upon success, and is lost in the event of failure”.

Psychology is a domain of knowledge that is complex and filled with concepts that are completely unfamiliar to the vast majority of our population. But Psychology provides us with an insight into why humans do what they do that no other domain of knowledge can provide.

Sapiens are at heart slavish. Therein lay the rub, as Shakespeare might say.

Humans seek to be more than animals. We seek to be gods or at least propagate that level above animal and just below God.

That which promotes life is good that which promotes death is evil. “Evil lies not in the hearts of men but in the social arrangements that men take for granted.”

Wo/man lives a debased life under tyranny and self delusion because s/he does not comprehend the conditions of natural freedom. Sapiens need hope and belief in themselves; thus illusion is necessary if it is creative for life, but is evil if it promotes death.

A psychodynamic analysis of history displays saga of death, destruction, and coercion from the outside while inside we see self-delusion and self enslavement. We seek mystification. We seek transference; we seek hypnotists as our chosen leaders.

We seek the power to ward off big evil by reflexively embracing small terrors and small fascinations in the place of overwhelming ones.

Freud was the first to focus upon the phenomenon of a patient’s inclination to transfer the feelings s/he had toward her parents as a child to the physician. The patient distorts the perception of the physician; s/he enlarges the figure up far out of reason and becomes dependent upon him. In this transference of feeling, which the patient had for his parents, to the physician the grown person displays all the characteristics of the child at heart, a child who distorts reality in order to relieve his helplessness and fears.

Freud saw these transference phenomena as the form of human suggestibility that makes the control over another, as displayed by hypnosis, as being possible. Hypnosis seems mysterious and mystifying to us only because we hide our slavish need for authority from our self. We live the big lie, which lay within this need to submit our self slavishly to another, because we want to think of our self as self-determined and independent in judgment and choice.

[b]The predisposition to hypnosis is identical to that which gives rise to transference and it is characteristic of all sapiens.]/b] We could not function as adults if we retained this submissive attitude to our parents, however, this attitude of submissiveness, as noted by Ferenczi, is “The need to be subject to someone remains; only the part of the father is transferred to teachers, superiors, impressive personalities; the submissive loyalty to rulers that is so widespread is also a transference of this sort.”

Freud saw immediately that when caught up in groups wo/man became dependent children once again. They abandoned their individual egos for that of the leader; they identified with their leader and proceeded to function with him as their ideal. Freud identified man, not as a herd animal but as a horde (teeming crowd) animal that is led by a chief. Wo/man has an insatiable need for authority.

People have an insatiable need to be hypnotized by authority; they seek a magical protection as when they were infants protected by their mother. This is the force that acts to hold groups together, intertwined within a mutually constructed but often mindless interdependence. This mindless group think also builds a feeling of potency. The members feel a sense of unity within the grasp of their leadership.

‘Why are groups so blind and stupid?’ Freud asked; and he replied that mankind lived by self delusion. They “constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real.” The real world is too frightening to behold; delusion changes this by making sapiens seem important. This explains the terrible sadism we see in group activity.

I have read that some consider objectivism to be a cult rather than a philosophy; I asked my self what is the difference between a philosophy and an ideology. I turned to Freud and his book “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” for my answer. I discovered that Freud had turned to the Frenchman Gustave Le Bon for an understanding of group behavior.

Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist. His work on crowd psychology became important in the first half of the twentieth century. Le Bon was one of the great popularizers of theories of the unconscious at a critical moment in the formation of new theories of sociology.
English translation Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, was explicitly based on a critique of Le Bon's work. The quotes and short phrases in this post are from this book.

Amazing.

A quick Google search found these:

Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people. - SciForums.com

Kool-Aid didn't kill those people - INTP Central

The 2+2 Forums: Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.

Nice to know that you're spamming more than just us...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":

Actually it wasnt Kool-Aid. It was the cyanide in the grape Flavor-Ade

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Cultural insecurities are the foundation of American conservatism.

Ideology is something we humans need to comprehend better than we now do. Ideology is both salvation and death.

We are all members of many ideologies. Our ideologies are the abstract ideas that we create and invest with value. Our ideologies are what lead us to live a certain way, die for a certain cause, and kill THEM who are not US.

I might be a Democrat, Catholic, American, and capitalist. When we are members of a group we can do things that we would never consider doing alone. As an American my group kills others, as a Democrat I may seek to improve the well being of my side while taking it from the other side, as a Catholic I may hate Jews, as a capitalist I may cheat to get mine. All of these things we might do as a group but perhaps never would have been so self-seeking alone.

Why don't you start a blog so that people that are interested in your stuff can go look at it themselves rather than clog up every message board you are a member of?

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Although there are some who will ridule others for their tastes , I rather enjoy reading Coberst's posts. If one doesn't like them, don't read them. I don't view his posts as controversial, just as something worthy of reading for a simple diversion. As I don't belong to other forums, it saves me the time from going to those forums. I like efficiency. If he is willing to post in all these places, what skin is it off of my nose? And, I get the entertainment and maybe even something non-political to ponder to boot.

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I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition

yes it is true kool aid or grape aid didnt kill them

the poison did

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I just neutered the cat , now he is a Liberal

What, and rob you of the enlightnment I spread?

Now here we have an enlightened reader. Why are there so few?

The nature of the assumptions represents the major difference between philosophy and ideology. Philosophy seeks to see the world without taking any assumptions whereas ideology seeks to make its particular assumptions to be universal.

Non-philosophical forms of inquiry are intellectual endeavors constituted by certain basic assumptions. A scientific form of inquiry assumes that the world is an ordered whole and that we can, through reason, acquire knowledge of this whole. The world of science is governed by laws that define causal effects that are measurable and perceivable by humans.

It is the case that humans reason from within container like boundaries, thus we are always within a container. However the trick is to enlarge our containers and thereby gain a more universal perspective. We must find a means to examine our assumptions. Each container is constructed with its own assumptions. That is why philosophy is so useful. It is a domain of knowledge with the largest container, or at least the Philosophy dept likes to think so.

Ideology takes its assumptions and considers them infallible and strives to convince the world that their assumptions are natural and universal. Take as example the assumptions of Americans about democracy and freedom or the Catholic Church about Jesus.

By and large, I take your advice - I don't enjoy reading posts that are the rhetorical equivalent of cotton candy (lots of volume, little substance). But one thing that I do find annoying is that he SPAMs the subforum that has always been the favorite of mine (and I believe other posters as well) for discussing philosophical issues. There was a time when I would specifically cruise straight to this subforum to see what was going on, but now I see a few interesting subjects mixed in with coberst's distributed, ongoing, and trite blog.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

While labeling such behaviors as group behavior provides an elegant way of characterizing the problems associated with ideologies I think that it oversimplifies what is happening. In doing so it leaves unanswered a number of questioned that I would deem critical in any discussion about ideological thinking. In particular it does not explain why people choose to "join" the group. I would imagine there are a number of different reasons why a portion of the German population supported the Nazis. For that matter not all people supported the Nazis to the same extent. Even in an individual group there are varying degrees of support that people have for the group. Among different groups these differences only increase. Finally such a characterization does not examine whether people have rational and psychological reasons for being in the group. The only real strength of the characterization is that it provides a unifying way to look at the problem at hand, something that I believe any other theory or set of theories should have.

lostinacause

Your name is certainly suitable for this discussion on ideology. I think that there is a similarity to human behavior within an ideology while there is little unity of purpose for joining an ideology. Many of our ideologies are inherited from our parents. Nationalism, religion, and racism, the bigger ideologies, are generally inherited.

Did you hear about all the people in California who killed themselves?



...

They were keeping up with the Joneses.

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"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

I can see your point. I am not often in this forum, so I view it differently. It's like reading a cereal box for me - a nice diversion while munching on a bowl of Rice Crispies.

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I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition