What is “The Kool-Aid”?

Dead Bodies surrounding the “punch bowl” of poisoned grape Kool-Aid (actually Flavor Aid) laced with potassium cyanide

I’ve gotten several emails asking me about the “No Kool-Aid Web-Ring: I Don’t Drink It” logo on the right.

“Drinking the Kool-Aid” usually refers to blindly following of a line of (indefensible) arguments without thinking them through. They refuse any critical thought and stick tenaciously to an argument regardless of any evidence to the contrary. The origin of the phrase dates back to the Jonestown Massacre:

It is also now closely associated with the 1978 cult suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year, he then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Flavor Aid laced with potassium cyanide. In what is now commonly called the “Jonestown Massacre,” a large majority of the 913 people later found dead drank the brew. (The discrepancy between the idiom and the actual occurrence is likely due to Flavor Aid’s relative obscurity, compared to the easily recognizable Kool-Aid.) The precise expression can be attested in usage at least as early as 1987^[4]. One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” This has come to mean, “Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side,” or “Whatever they tell you, don’t believe it too strongly.”

Actually many of the Jonestown cultists were shot reportedly by the more staunch “Kool-Aid Drinkers” - who later “drank the kool-aid” themselves. On a more mundane level people who consume Fox News, for example, are usually referred to as “Kool-Aid Drinkers”. They simply repeat verbatim the talking points fed to them like a mindless drone. One is not allowed to disagree.

As for Muslims, in addition to the above, I am usually referring to the kooky conspiracy theories that have circulated at different times and the blind loyalty to personalities and movements. “Kool-Aid Drinkers” have been known in the past to engage in an assortment of distasteful practices: relentlessly questioning a dissenter’s Islam, name calling, making unsubstantiated charges against opponents, employing accusation as a scare tactic designed to pressure a person into adhering to narrow and conformist methodology, and the use of shameless demagoguery. Additionally, there have even been brothers beaten, shot and even killed over minor disagreements - the end product of a “kool-aid overdose”.

Unfortunately, there are brothers right now that are quite ready and willing to cut down their fellow Muslims. All that is required is an order from the right person. A few weeks ago I was informed by a friend that he had an argument with a brother who wished the ulamaa would “pass a fatwa” on a friend of mine, who happens to be an Imam in New Jersey, so that “someone would kill him”. This is another classic example of kool-aid drinking. These guys are so filled with hatred that they are ready to kill someone because of a basic disagreement. Kool-Aid Drinking is dangerous (even ultimately to oneself after burnout sets in) and this is why I say that I do not drink the Kool-Aid.