{"id":27520,"date":"2013-06-16T00:20:47","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T00:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=27520"},"modified":"2014-04-01T23:05:13","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T23:05:13","slug":"q653","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=27520","title":{"rendered":"Q653 Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

To return to the Tape Index, click here.<\/a>
\nTo read the Tape Summary, click here<\/a>. Listen to MP3<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mike Prokes:<\/strong> Testing\u2013<\/p>\n

(tape edit)<\/p>\n

Prokes: <\/strong>Don, you\u2019ve just returned from, I guess, three days in Jonestown, and I\u2019m just curious as to what your impressions are, of course, maybe what the most outstanding feature of Jonestown is to you and uh, how you might want to describe that to our listeners.<\/p>\n

Don Freed:<\/strong> It\u2019s difficult to describe Jonestown from an overall point<\/em> of view, because it is so phenomenal, literally, and because our disciplines<\/em> of description in sociology and psychology and anthropology uh, are all vocabularies for describing uh, either inferior\u2013 what are considered inferior historical cultures, such as pre-literate groups, or uh, large national cultures uh, which have a different ideology, such as a communist China. Uh, but these disciplines and their vocabularies were never designed to describe very radical human (unintelligible word) community innovation of a size that is really ideal, uh, uh, a so-called\u2013\u00a0what you might call a controls of a thousand to twelve hundred people, much smaller than a nation but much larger than a transient neighborhood population. Uh, here the people are uh, space-bound, you might say, they\u2019re all together in a wilderness, and so you have a pristine conditions for measuring and judging and looking, but the only problem is that the interaction of the people and the small institutions of\u2013 of\u2013 of Jonestown, and the motivation of the people and the personal stories of the population are such that, taken together, they are so superior, the result is so unexpected\u2013 I use the word \u201csuperior,\u201d the result is so unexpected and so radical, I uh, uh, uh as to leave the viewer<\/em>, the social scientist at a disadvantage. He\u2019s used to imposing<\/em> a vocabulary, after all, on other cultures from a superior point of view, whether that\u2019s admitted or not. Here<\/em>, it\u2019s as if you were going to another planet, and (clears throat) and, uh, being introduced as a scientist and being asked to describe a culture in\u2013 which in human<\/em> terms and<\/em> in terms of ingenuity and resourcefulness and creativity, is so superior to the scientist\u2019s own culture, uh, uh, that it becomes an act of uh\u2013 of vanity<\/em> to attempt to use traditional concepts to encompass this kind of\u2013 of experiment. So, uh, the honest thing to do, I\u2013 I<\/em> think, is to say, that we\u2019re reminded here, as we are by other events, some of them terrible, such as elements of the Holocaust and so forth, that we have misunderstood human nature and we have not<\/em> begun to redefine it sufficiently so as to really understand this, but it\u2013 it creates a sense of awe, and you can only go\u2013 feel your way along, go blindly and silence some of the rhetoric that you use to explain away uh, these events, uh, to try to see the relationship between the phenomenal material power that an act of\u2013 a group act of will has created, uh, just the work<\/em>, the intensive work. The relationship between that and a population, many of whom, it\u2019s my opinion, were not only considered non-entities \u2013 that\u2013 that is obvious, and I\u2019ve read some of the oral histories \u2013\u00a0uh, but I question whether a large number of them would not be, not only perhaps ill physically or in institutions such as uh, state prison, I\u2013 I know there\u2019re lot of young people who in America are in a groove heading towards a state prison who here are making a large contribution \u2013 but in my opinion, actually dead, uh, that\u2013 that there would be a large number of these people actually dead, and I wouldn\u2019t question if some by suicide. And so, when you\u2013 we\u2019re used to explaining growth and ci\u2013 the civilizing process as a matter of progress of slow adaptations that lead to other adaptations, but more and more in the twentieth century, it appears that when change comes, it comes like lightning. Although there may be a long period of preparation, or there may be a readiness, but then that\u2019s all\u2013\u00a0that\u2019s just words that ma\u2013 because you can\u2019t see that. But whether it be the Holocaust or whether it be the Chinese revolution or whether it be Jonestown\u2013 but Jonestown is on a measurable scale. It is like lightning. It is\u2013 There\u2019s a core of will uh\u2013 of love, of will, of uh (pause, sighs) of a life force there which comes out of uh, a\u2013\u00a0a community, a large\u2013 m\u2013\u00a0many members of which uh, are starting from scratch in terms of their own image and identity, as far as the outside world goes, so that there\u2019s a kind of a uh\u2013 a\u2013\u00a0a\u2013 a\u2013 a birth<\/em> uh, process there, uh, a\u2013\u00a0you know, you have to reach for biblical phrases like a new heaven, a new earth to uh, to suggest it, and uh\u2013 so at this point, just having been there four days, I\u2019m very much using borrowed phrases and\u2013<\/p>\n

Prokes: <\/strong>Rather elegant borrowed phrases, right?<\/p>\n

Freed:<\/strong> Yeah, but they\u2019re not authentic. Uh\u2013 (tape edit) \u2013the social scientist of the world will be beating a path to Jonestown within the next decade, if enough monographs get out.<\/p>\n

(tape edit)<\/p>\n

Prokes: <\/strong>Don, tell me, what\u2019s your favorite part of Jonestown? Thank you for that beautiful description, that eloquent description, but what is your favorite part of Jonestown, the community that you enjoyed while you were there?<\/p>\n

Freed:<\/strong> Oh, I think the open forum, I mean uh, because, you know, you couldn\u2019t\u2013 you\u2013 you\u2013 you couldn\u2019t see the who\u2013\u00a0everything being built, you just see the\u2013 the mute testimony to that much work, and it\u2019s uh, awesome<\/em>, but the open forum is at a human\u2013\u00a0is at a level that you can see just that evening with people singing and putting on some very<\/em> good street theater, I must say, and the guerilla theater, as it\u2019s called, and uh\u2013 and some uh, wildly energetic singing, and some very, very humorous, I thought, too. And\u2013 and all\u2013\u00a0all in all, uh (pause) tremendous uh, feeling and joy.<\/p>\n

Prokes: <\/strong>Yeah. That\u2019s true. That\u2019s true (unintelligible word). Did you get to spend some time at the\u2013 at the nursery? I know you\u2013<\/p>\n

Freed:<\/strong> I did. I did. Uh\u2013 The most stunning\u2013 I\u2019m aware of that age very much now, of three to five and uh\u2013 oh but all the teachers, the\u2013 the\u2013 the\u2013 the ratio of te\u2013\u00a0students to teachers, uh, (laughs) it\u2019s uh\u2013\u00a0you cannot find that anywhere and uh, the environment, the\u2013 I talked to the teachers, too, and uh\u2013 It\u2019s as if these teachers at Jonestown and almost everyone, as you talk to people uh, find out what their task is, and you talk to them, and they seem to brpeople who have been extremely sensitized by the life experiences and who (pause) managed, and probably by treading water wi\u2013 hanging on to the Peoples Temple at some point in their career, managed to not only remain intact and to reorganize their\u2013 their energies uh,\u00a0and\u2013 and their original talents, but then to come out of it much stronger. Uh, that\u2019s the a\u2013 amazing thing of\u2013of uh, the\u2013 the strength coming through the weakness or the strength coming through the vulnerability, a kind of supple uh, adaptive<\/em> strength which is\u2013 uh, which we\u2019re not used to measuring. We\u2019re used to measuring hardhats pounding things and skyscrapers going up and so forth. This is something different and it is a uh, a\u2013 uh, it\u2019s as unexpected as uh, putting a throttle uh, backward when the airplane breaks the sound barrier. I mean, it\u2019s the reverse of wh\u2013\u00a0of what you\u2019d been taught, so I ma\u2013 make\u2013\u00a0make that little detour to\u2013 because I talked to the teachers and (clears throat) they\u2019re pretty frank about where their philosophy comes from, their educational philosophy, and it\u2019s not uh, uh, an unheard of philosophy, I was familiar with it, but\u2013\u00a0but what you don\u2019t see is the kind of uh, commitment and the kind of context for it that I saw in the nursery there, and indeed, in the hospital and in the kitchen and everywhere one might go.<\/p>\n

Prokes: <\/strong>Everyone might go. We\u2019ll have to\u2013 Listen, we\u2019ll have to excuse the uh, barking in the background, we\u2019re (clears throat) at\u2013 at home, and Don is just finishing its\u2013 his meal, and he\u2019s going to be leaving shortly, we\u2019re of course sad to say. Uh, just one more question, Don, and then it\u2019ll be all. If there was a\u2013\u00a0a lesson\u2013 if you want to call it a lesson that might be learned from the Jonestown\u2013 just from what has happening in Jonestown, uh, for people that are not living there in the community, what\u2013 how would you describe it, if there is\u2013 is such a lesson or something that might be learned from Jonestown.<\/p>\n

Freed:<\/strong> Well, it certainly, I think, powerfully reinforces the growing (pause) awareness that broke over uh, uh, all thoughtful people with the Holocaust and then later at Hiroshima, that uh, we have misunderstood everything, and uh, we have to start over at ground level, and we are flying blind, and we have to throw away these old compasses which uh, have led to sort of super-industrial power, but human disaster<\/em>, the twentieth century, and survival is going to somehow depend on that kind of radical gamble of which Jonestown is the unparalleled example, and uh, it\u2013 it\u2013 it\u2019s an existential town, and to study it requires some courage too, I would think. You just have to shut up inside and stand open and uh, let that stimuli and that information pour in, uh, and organize it later.<\/p>\n

Prokes: <\/strong>Hmm. Kind of\u2013\u00a0There\u2019s a lot. Well, thank you very much, thank you very much, Don, it\u2019s been a\u2013 a pleasure. It has been a great pleasure to have you here with us this week.<\/p>\n

End of tape.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tape originally posted May 2013<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you. To return to the Tape Index, click here. To read the Tape Summary, click here. Listen to MP3. Mike Prokes: Testing\u2013 (tape edit) Prokes: Don, you\u2019ve just returned from, I guess, three days in Jonestown, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":27291,"menu_order":433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-27520","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27520"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59602,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27520\/revisions\/59602"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}