California culture:nOne comes across Sears, Roebucktypencatalogues catering exclusivelynto seekers of the exotic. . . . You can,nthrough the Accelerated PersonalnGrowth Program (forty dollars fornone and a half hours), achieve rapidnpersonal transformation and growthnin self-awareness and self-integration.n… Actualism (no price supplied) willnactualize your untapped potential forncreative self-expression and enablenyou to communicate joyfully with allnforms of life by awakening the innernlight-fire. And so on and on throughnall the pages of the catalogue. Thesenorganizations are not the inventionsnof unfriendly fabulists or satirists.nThey exist; they have hourly rates.nOne must assume that to some extent,nsupply mirrors demand. Intellectualnand spiritual adventurousness becomesnindistinguishable from intellectualnand spiritual collapse.nIt is therefore essential to grasp thatnwhat happened at Jonestown was notnthe manifestation of individual insanitynbut the acceleration of a cultural trend.nFor almost two decades the self-proclaimednintelligentsia of the UnitednStates has divorced itself from reality.nSocialist slogans, cultural fads and spiritualistnexperiences have become increasinglynimpervious to reason, criticismnor control. Trendy “revolutionary”nconcepts, spewed forth by deracinatednbut ambitious social technocrats rottennwith boredom and pleased to identifynthemselves with the alleged victims of anIn the Mailncontinuing American Holocaust, reverberatenaround the world pregnantnwith destruction. Jonestown, in short,nwas both a physical and a mental linknbetween American liberal decadencenand Third World fanatics:nTheir language tells much. Despitenthe ostentatious obsession with theninner life, with ‘wholeness’ and ‘selfrealization,’nit is a language of fragmentation,nof mechanistic self-degradation.nPerpetually externalizing andnabstracting, it becomes the perfectntool of a robotized spirituality.nAnd so, to the extent that Naipaulnfinds a key to the tragedy of Guyana,nit turns out to be an echo of Americanncultural dementia. Huey Newton, BlacknPanther “theoretician,” coins the phrasen”revolutionary suicide” as a bastardnadaptation of an earlier concept espousednby the Russian Nechayev. Years of rhetoricalnexcesses firmly plant the notionnof fascist threat:nJones had tortured his black followersnwith nightmare visions of imminentnfascist takeover and genocidalndoom. . . . But he had not inventednthese nightmares. The basic groundworknhad been done by his black radicalnprecursors—and by their whitenfriends; the requisite conditioningnhad already taken place by the timenJones appeared on the scene.nAnd the “requisite conditioning” isnof course not limited to Jones and hisnA Preview and Summary of ‘The Wayward Welfare State’hy Roger A. Freeman;nHoover Institution Press; Stanford, California. A comprehensive analysis of the growthnof the welfare state from the New Deal 30’s to the Great Society 70’s and its consequencesnfor America.nUnconditional Surrender: God’s Program for Victory by Gary North; Geneva Press;nTyler, Texas. An introduction into the basics of Christianity which covers issues likenthe nature of God, man and law and the conflict between Christian institutions and theninstitutions of secular humanism.nThe Hospital That Ate Chicago by George Ross Fisher, M.D.; The Saunders Press;nPhiladelphia. An in-depth, detailed study of the cost of health care and hospitals, includingnMedicare, Medicaid and private insurance.n24inChronicles of Cultttrennnfollowers; it reinforces itself as itnwashes over the globe:nBecoming part of the Third Worldnis, to some degree, a psychologicalnprocess; a quasi-religious conversion.nIt is, at bottom, a mode of being, anstate of mind. That state of mindnspreads like an infection and begins,nafter a while, to create its own political,nsocial and personal realities, stimulatednby the vocabulary of resentmentnand racial self-assertion.nThus, on July 19,1981 CBS rebroadcastna previous 60 Minutes programninspired by the fad for Rastafarian popularnmusic. Rastafarians, we were told,nbelieve that Haile Selassie was the TruenMessiah and that reports of his deathnwere the result of a racist media plot.nTheir ritual appears to consist of smokingnimmense quantities of marijuananand hurling tympanic anathemas at,nparticularly, the Bishop of Rome as thenpredominant symbol of white malignity.nThe program was narrated by DannRather. By turns vapid and groveling,nhe told us how these beatific innocentsnhave been “harassed” by the police (thenonly Rastafarian who was asked aboutnthe cult’s criminal activities easilyndodged the question and was not pressednfor an answer) and how their marijuanancrop has been spitefully (if ineffectually)nsprayed with aerial poisons by the repressivenJamaican government. Nothingnin Rather’s attitude suggested the slightestndoubt that the Rastafarian creed wasnat least as wise, just and true as thenJudeo-Christian beliefs which it monstrouslynparodies. As Naipaul (who wasnborn in Trinidad) puts it:nThose who ought to know betternnourish our crazy dreams of resurrectionnand redemption; those safelynbeyond the borders of our madnessnunderwrite our lunacies.nThe “conditioning” of which Naipaulnspeaks is already deeper than we darenbelieve. For everyone who wants tonunderstand the process this book isnessential. Dn