Jonestown

A past religious settlement established by Reverend Jim Jones in late 1978 provides examples of persuasive tricks known as fallacies. The majority of the followers in the masses were individuals who were victims of discrimination seeking a better and more positive outlook on life, signifying Jones' selection of people. Fallacies are formed within arguments causing it to weaken by indicating a flaw in reasoning. Jim Jones utilized unique and persuasive tactics, which brought him about a thousand followers, all desperate and in need of a leader who provided them with what they believed as faith healing. However, these people carried traits of emotional vulnerability, causing them to overlook the errors within their leader's bold statements and arguments. Jones created the Peoples Temple known as Jonestown that began with immense hope and aspiration for the people, but ended in tragedy. The foundation of the tragic event was built upon Jones and his multiple arguments, which pertained common fallacies. The fallacies created by Jones consisted of appeals to popularity, ignorance, authority, tradition, incomplete comparisons, and false dichotomies. The mixture of various strategies were enforced upon these weak individuals; though unfortunate, a leader with psychiatric issues achieves success through his uses of persuasion and leads nearly a thousand people to self-destruction. Jim Jones strategically built his number of followers through one of his fallacies referred to as appeal to popularity. Appeal to popularity is a task intended to persuade someone to take specific action or simply comply because many others do as well. The appeal motivates the feeling of belongingness and Jones' targeted groups of individuals were the outcasts of society during the time of prevalent discrimination. He made these people believe that they belonged within the Peoples Temple. Moreover, Jones' appeal to ignorance succeeds by telling the people the government would take children