The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months
When a group of schoolboys were marooned on an island in 1965, it turned out very differently from William Golding’s bestseller, writes Rutger Bregman
I read Bregman’s book and can recommend it. The boys in question collaborated, grew crops and fished. Whenever they had a fight amongst them they’d retreat to cool down. One of them broke his leg and the others cared for him.
Hey, thanks man, that was an interesting read, perfect for insomniacs trying to fall asleep.
Honestly, I think six is likely the right number for this to work. I don’t recall how many boys were in Lord of the Flies, but you get to 10-15 and you’re absolutely going to start forming factions. And a hierarchy. And with more opinions you get more disagreements, and you’re right back to Lord of the Flies.
Yeah, fragmenting into groups was an important part of the book.
that’s a confident assertion with 0 evidence
Anyone know what the movie mentioned in the article is called? Could be a fun niche watch.
The movie mentioned turned out to be a 10 minutes long documentary:
I hated that damn book, but this (complete with conch) is hilarious.
I both dislike the book and dislike this comic for missing the actual point of the book, which is not in fact, haha, this is what would actually happen and it’s just a group of random kids. It was specifically portraying british aristocratic children to criticize the colonizer mindset while discussing larger issues of human nature and civility and structure vs chaos.
I haven’t read the book but how did it criticize the colonizer mindset? A cursory look makes it seem like a justification of paternalistic authority, so propaganda for kids to blindly listen to their parents haha.
If anything wouldn’t this be justification for colonization, as colonized nations were often infantalized/dehumanized?
It was specifically a contrast on the colonizer mindset that was common both in culture and literature at the time. Showing a bunch of useless british aristocrats coming to “savage lands” and rather than taming the land they were shown that without their wealth and power and being taken care of by competent natives and labourers they became the savages they claimed to be inherently divinely better than.
Can I ask why? It was actually one of my favorites in school, so just curious for a differing opinion.
I hated it because it was totally unbelievable, just a paternalistic rationalization for authority
I was confronted with the knowledge that the adults around me all thought the only thing keeping me from murdering someone was layers of rules and supervision. Like we’re all just rabid animals barely held back by a watchful eye
Even then, I knew myself better than that. I knew people better than that
But that’s how our society treats people. Like monsters that must be managed
Hmm, interesting. To be fair, I haven’t read it since HS and that was…decades ago. Based on what you said I might reread and reassess.
Humans aren’t monsters until they reach a critical mass. Then they’re just awful.
Watch out for that boulder, Piggy
Sucks to your assmar
Uhm guys we should have a meeting ☝️🤓
this is how my world history teacher introduced us to locke and hobbes
Still better than the class about John Wayne Gacy, featuring Pogo the Clown.
deleted by creator
