Jungles are for dying

by Reed O'Brien

"Dad," the note read, "I see no way out...I am tired of this wretched, merciless planet...thank you for the only life I've known." It also said "without you the world may not make it to communism." Those were the last thoughts of one of the dead at Jonestown in Guyana.

They're peculiar thoughts. Peculiar in the mix of extreme idealism, despair, glibness and affection for one man, Jim Jones, Where did this person think he or she was?

The mass suicide in Guyana is haunting. The standard e⚫.planations have worn off by now and stand transparent They have not explained. How do almost 1000 people walk to a community center one night and kill themselves? Sure, they were isolated from the world, lied to,held captive, and captivated by a utopian cause. Lots of people have been to that point. And people lie to others all the time. Big lies and little lies.

The People's Temple has been labeled a religious cult but for a religious movement it was peculiarly devoid of spirituality. Its members seemed to have forgotten that side of the cause they were struggling for. Spiritual and religious references are so noticeably absent that one has to ask if spiritual concerns were a significant motivation for the group.

It seems to me they were not. It seems to me that the impetus behind the founding and the failure of Jonestown was purely sociological. It was a social cult, not a religious one.

It seems to me too that the mass deaths are a national disgrace for this country and Americans ought to admit it. Not 900 people killed themselves in Guyana; 900 Americans did it. Cults have existed throughout history in all places. We should wonder if there is something that renders Americans peculiarly susceptible to social pressures driving them to inflict extreme measures on themselves. Is there something warped in Americans' minds that fogs their judgment to the point of inducing hysterical pretensions and misca culations?

Americans are known for their goodness, we just love the good. And we hate the bad. So, we see things in Manichean terms of light vs. dark, good guys vs. bad guys. Should the bad guys get the upper hand, Americans panic and commonly withdraw into isolation shunning the bad and preparing for the death of the good (e.g., the demise of the American way, the ruin of Western Civilization). It's a simple view. No wonder it leaves its adherents few and narrow alternatives. It's a child view and childish views in adults usually are dangerous.

Who determines the good and the bad that is to be believed in so vehemently? The group does using the appropriate symbols and sanctions. In American history,the social group-call it peer pressure, if you want--has held enormous sway over individual citizens. Americans have long been known--by non-Americans--as timid people. We have the reputation for being naive and overly trusting, uncritical and easily taken advantage of.

people.

It seems to me, then, that the "peer pressure" that brought 900 Americans to their deaths recently is very much rooted in American history. It was not an isolated, bizarre incident.

In thinking about the events in Guyana, I keep wondering if I would be susceptible to going along with Jim Jones and his followers. One can never say for sure what one would do in imagined situations but I think I would not. I would not join a People's Temple. I would not fly off to a jungle commune and I hope I would run away from any mass suicide. What gives me a certain resilience to such allencompassing movements--and

to this malignant society--is, I believe, the fact that I am gay.

Having grown up gay and excluded, I've learned to live on my own I've learned to rely on myself and my own judgments; others' judgments didn't seem to apply to me. I've grown up suspicious of society. I cannot get ecstatic over leaders or what they claim to offer. I've never developed that sense of ease and whole hearted trust in groups. I've never been allowed to take much for granted. And I'm glad The gay experience has left me with what I see as a strength It has given me some inner resources to resist social manias. Maybe it's good that I can put some distance between me and this society

I cannot comprehend what forces led those people to kill themselves and their children,especi-

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ally their children. I cannot fathom being so victimized by peer pressure as to be driven to such an extreme. Can society mean so much to someone? What in their lives led to their wanting or needing the consolations of this demanding group? And why were they so despairing as to see "no way out" but death? Did they feel as hated and hounded as I do at times? Why couldn't they handle it? I don't see myself as a gay chauvinist and I don't think being gay gives you any automatic resistance to social hysteria but I do believe it has provided me with a strength and a critical autonomy. I have the feeling that my gay experience has givere tiefense that many people lack. And I'm glad

At whose expense?

By R. Woodward Being about as sensitive and profound as they usually are in dealing with gay matters, newspapers across the United States have been treating the story The group is the arbiter not about lowa license plates only as only of social order but of morality and even personal and private drivers have angrily returned a joke. About a hundred lowa behavior which American their new three letter, three digit society has always felt entirely plates because the leters hapfree about meddling in. Ameri-pened to by GAY. One driver cans have traditionally been fearful of defying their group. Too much is at stake in doing so. For here you are challenging the very principle of society. Remember this nation was not founded by gods or kings. We have no mythical tribal background. Our society was formed entirely selfconsciously on the basis of mutual consent and is supposedly valid only as long as you and I agree it is valid. And if it is not valid there is the chaos of the heartless jungle that surrounds our little utopian community.

The intent behind this thinking was to make people free and responsible. But the fear of the jungle became too great Since this society had no basis in religion,society itself became the religion. All religions deal with the private lives of their members for there is where true loyalty and virtue grow. The less privacy the better. And Americans are known to be very religious

reported that when he was driving through Chicago with the plates on his car and happened to stop for a traffic light some people began kicking the side of

his car.

There is more for the general public in this story besides a few cheap laughs. There is also a warning: being a so called straight is no guarantee that a person will not be injured by antigay hysteria.

The man whose car was kicked was quilty of having on his license plates three letters randomly assigned by a computer. To a number of people there was no reason to seek any explanation; he was somebody to molest first and ask questions about later.

Anti-gay prejudice is a danger not just to gay people but to everybody. All too many so called straights smuggly assert that gay matters have nothing to do with

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them and that there is no reason thing about the subject of being for them to bother learning anygay. For many of them this could very well end up being pride betore the fall.

Most gays spend most of their so called straights. Consetime looking and acting like most quently most so called straights look and act exactly like most

gays. No accusation of homnosexuality against anybody can ever be entirely disproved. There is nothing that so called straights do regularly that there are no examples of gays doing also There are gay construction workers, gay professional football players, gay priests; many gays are married and are the mothers and fathers of several

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children. Having done someconclusive evidence that an indithing "manly" or "womanly" is no vidual is a so called heterosexual.

A persons's being regarded as being heterosexual depends upon a combination of taking the number of people who want to person's word for it and having a believe it. There is no, definitive way of proving it.

A humorous, trivial matter chiefly to those too lazy or selfindulgent to see beyond humorous trivia, the license plate story is evidence that no one will be very safe until the general public knows more about being gay than just idle supersition. Those moved by anti-gay prejudice tend to behave as rationally as dogs infected with rabies.

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