I understood his point to be, to reject the notion that it was really a mass suicide, but instead he argues it was a mass murder with only a minority willingly committing suicide. Its obviously an understandable viewpoint, the idea that of course you can't possibly make hundreds of people kill themselves willingly, that this would be impossible, but to me it seems more like a denial of human nature that is actually unhelpful in preventing those types of atrocities in the future. Its much more beneficial to try to understand how far the human mind can be twisted by blind faith, for even good people to do incredibly horrific things.
(Of course its proven that there was murder involved, but I still think we should recognize it as the mass suicide it was).
(Of course its proven that there was murder involved, but I still think we should recognize it as the mass suicide it was).