r/AskReddit • u/DrCompenomics • 12h ago

Who’s the best real-life example of “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and what happened?

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u/thirty7inarow 7h ago

I do wonder if that was his intent from the start, if at some point he just decided he liked the power, or if it was a slow progress of decisions that got him to where he was at the end.

Like was he always skimming the coffers and propping himself up as the hero? Or did he start out genuinely just wanting to make a difference?

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u/justprettymuchdone 6h ago

I read an incredible biography on him, Raven. I highly recommend it. The biographer made a really solid, I think, argument that he was always self-aggrandizing and narcissistic, but that he was initially more or less content with power and control over smaller groups of people, but the addiction grew.

It was one of those things where initially he was more or less happy that he had control over his wife, and then his small congregation, and then a larger congregation, and it just sort of kept snowballing and then in the end, nothing was ever quite enough for him.

Hence Jonestown.

It was a place where he was fully in control and could completely isolate And cut off everyone there from the outside world. He decided what reality was, only him. And he could keep everyone from escaping no matter how bad it got.

And in the end, even that was never quite enough.

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u/papalionking 2h ago

There was also very much real addiction going on. Dude was doing a LOT of drugs in the years preceding the collapse of it all.

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u/paupaupaupau 7h ago

My sense is that narcissism is like addiction. That the trait is always there, but the need only gets stronger. And at some point, it overwhelms everything else about who you were.

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u/Ferelar 5h ago

Yep. And a deep enough long term addiction suddenly running full speed into the brick wall of potential narcissistic collapse probably means that that narcissistic person will engage in some pretty out there behavior any way you slice it

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u/gotenks1114 3h ago

Like starting a war with Iran.

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u/ceelogreenicanth 1h ago

Just like invading Russia. Or a mass murder suicide of your family.

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u/AllShallBeWell 1h ago

At one point, Jim Jones was hospitalized and either accidentally or 'accidentally', they put him in the black wing of the hospital. He refused to leave, and instead went around making beds and emptying bedpans for the black patients. If it was a long con, he committed to the bit for quite a while.

One reading of Jim Jones is that he was at one point a true believer in all the arc of history bending toward justice stuff, and then he saw MLK and JFK both get murdered, and felt that those in power were never going to let society get better.

Go listen to Alabama 3's "Mao Tse Tung Said" (on YouTube, not the abridged version some streaming services have) for snippets from Jim Jones. Guy knew how to give a speech.