William Golding’s novel about a group of adolescent boys who are stranded and create their own society has been a staple of English classes for many years. It is a cautionary tale about the brutality that lies within the human heart.
Dutch historian Rutger Bregman was fascinated by the story but unpersuaded by its thesis. In this article in The Guardian, he describes his search for a counter-narrative, which culminated in success. He discovered a true story of a group of boys from Tonga (in the South Pacific) who were marooned for 15 months. What they did to survive is very different from the boys in Lord of the Flies.
Bregman’s article is fascinating.
He begins:
For centuries western culture has been permeated by the idea that humans are selfish creatures. That cynical image of humanity has been proclaimed in films and novels, history books and scientific research. But in the last 20 years, something extraordinary has happened. Scientists from all over the world have switched to a more hopeful view of mankind. This development is still so young that researchers in different fields often don’t even know about each other.
When I started writing a book about this more hopeful view, I knew there was one story I would have to address. It takes place on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific. A plane has just gone down. The only survivors are some British schoolboys, who can’t believe their good fortune. Nothing but beach, shells and water for miles. And better yet: no grownups.
On the very first day, the boys institute a democracy of sorts. One boy, Ralph, is elected to be the group’s leader. Athletic, charismatic and handsome, his game plan is simple: 1) Have fun. 2) Survive. 3) Make smoke signals for passing ships. Number one is a success. The others? Not so much. The boys are more interested in feasting and frolicking than in tending the fire. Before long, they have begun painting their faces. Casting off their clothes. And they develop overpowering urges – to pinch, to kick, to bite.
By the time a British naval officer comes ashore, the island is a smouldering wasteland. Three of the children are dead. “I should have thought,” the officer says, “that a pack of British boys would have been able to put up a better show than that.” At this, Ralph bursts into tears. “Ralph wept for the end of innocence,” we read, and for “the darkness of man’s heart”.
This story never happened. An English schoolmaster, William Golding, made up this story in 1951 – his novel Lord of the Flies would sell tens of millions of copies, be translated into more than 30 languages and hailed as one of the classics of the 20th century. In hindsight, the secret to the book’s success is clear. Golding had a masterful ability to portray the darkest depths of mankind. Of course, he had the zeitgeist of the 1960s on his side, when a new generation was questioning its parents about the atrocities of the second world war. Had Auschwitz been an anomaly, they wanted to know, or is there a Nazi hiding in each of us?
I first read Lord of the Flies as a teenager. I remember feeling disillusioned afterwards, but not for a second did I think to doubt Golding’s view of human nature. That didn’t happen until years later when I began delving into the author’s life. I learned what an unhappy individual he had been: an alcoholic, prone to depression; a man who beat his kids. “I have always understood the Nazis,” Golding confessed, “because I am of that sort by nature.” And it was “partly out of that sad self-knowledge” that he wrote Lord of the Flies.
I began to wonder: had anyone ever studied what real children would do if they found themselves alone on a deserted island? I wrote an article on the subject, in which I compared Lord of the Flies to modern scientific insights and concluded that, in all probability, kids would act very differently. Readers responded sceptically. All my examples concerned kids at home, at school, or at summer camp. Thus began my quest for a real-life Lord of the Flies. After trawling the web for a while, I came across an obscure blog that told an arresting story: “One day, in 1977, six boys set out from Tonga on a fishing trip … Caught in a huge storm, the boys were shipwrecked on a deserted island. What do they do, this little tribe? They made a pact never to quarrel.”
Bregman embarks on a journey to interview the captain who found the lost boys and the one of the rescued group.
What he learns will surprise and reassure you.
William Golding was wrong. Human nature is not destined to be evil.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Awesome!!!
Children are born in a tearing away from the mother. What they want most, then, is reconnection. A cared-for toddler is always there, wanting to help. Kids have to be abused into being selfish monsters. See, for example, the GREAT books by the child psychologist Alison Gopnik: The Scientist in the Crib and The Philosophical Baby.
“I should have thought,” the officer says, “that a pack of British boys would have been able to put up a better show than that.” At this, Ralph bursts into tears.”
It would have been far more realistic if Ralph had burst into laughter when the British naval officer said that.
A monster of narcissism, like Trump, for example, is someone who was abused, neglected, belittled, shut out as a child.
Thanks so much for this. It is inspiring and hopeful.
I am reminded that the view of man as flawed resonated with people in their intellectual maturity during the days when the Nazis came to power with the blessing of so many people who were complicit in their willingness to go along. I grew up listening to sermons from ministers who, like William Golding, brooded over the potential of man for cruelty. But other voices saw man other ways, just as Locke and Hobbes differed on the matter. A Physics Professor who taught an interdisciplinary seminar on the Philosophy of Science at my university suggested one day that man was basically neither good nor bad.
Golding himself left us with the last scene of the novel with the reader looking out of the island where the boys had just been rescued and seeing the navy ship, a symbol for the war that had just turned Golding’s world into something very like his little book. In our day, we run the risk of considering the hate spewed out of the pens and mouths of those who would gain power for themselves by despising others, and we too are led to brood. We should resist this, and in our resistance create a culture of redemption instead of damnation.
Our lives depend on it.
When we consider the US military, we see similar behavior. Some violent types get even more violent in the military, but this is untrue for many. While the hierarchy of the military is autocratic and absolute, the fighting military becomes collectivist in practice. Many soldiers sacrifice their own safety to save their brothers. When soldiers sign on for another tour of duty, they often cite the need to help their brothers. The whole idea of “not leaving anyone behind” is an ideological expression of collectivism.
Interesting
Social insects like ants have raised this particular type of altruism to its highest form.
But it is actually not something that society as a whole should aspire to because it relegates the individual to little more than an expendable cog in the system .
Maybe human nature isn’t meant to be evil but our Great Leader definitely isn’t showing his best these days. He’s just antsy to start holding rallies. Poor Trump if he is ‘glum and shell shocked’.
Didn’t McEnany say she wouldn’t lie? “…the American people recognize his leadership’. Yeah. Trump doesn’t care about how many would die BUT don’t mess with his MAGA rallies.
………………………………….
As deaths mount, Trump tries to convince Americans it’s safe to inch back to normal
May 9, 2020
…White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also backed the administration’s response, saying, “President Trump is committed to a data-driven approach to safely reopening the country. His steadfast leadership has saved American lives, and the American people recognize his leadership.”
Some of Trump’s advisers described the president as glum and shell-shocked by his declining popularity. In private conversations, he has struggled to process how his fortunes suddenly changed from believing he was on a glide path to reelection to realizing that he is losing to the likely Democratic nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, in virtually every poll, including his own campaign’s internal surveys, advisers said. He also has been fretting about the possibility that a bad outbreak of the virus this fall could damage his standing in the November election said the advisers, who along with other aides and allies requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The president is also eager to resume political travel in June, including holding his signature rallies by the end of the summer in areas where there are few cases, advisers said. Trump’s political team has begun discussions about organizing a high-dollar, in-person fundraiser next month, as well as preliminary planning about staging rallies and what sort of screenings might be necessary, according to Republican National Committee officials and outsider advisers. One option being considered is holding rallies outdoors, rather than in enclosed arenas, a senior administration official said…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-deaths-mount-trump-tries-to-convince-americans-its-safe-to-inch-back-to-normal/2020/05/09/bf024fe6-9149-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html
TRUMP DEATH CLOCK: CREATOR EUGENE JARECKI SAYS “RECKLESS MISHANDLING” OF COVID-19 MUST BE QUANTIFIED
STORY
MAY 11, 2020
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/5/11/eugene_jarecki_trump_death_clock
Bad news from Ohio again. Not quite Lord of the Flies (fiction or non-fiction truth)
This week, Governor DeWine is proposing $355 million in K-12 education cuts with $300 million coming out of foundation aid to local school districts from the current state budget that expires in July.
While public education accounts for about 42% of state expenditures, it will absorb about 45.8% of the loss.
He has not asked private schools that take public funds to sacrifice anything. This proposed cut will exacerbate the underfunding of public schools in favor of EdChoice vouchers that raid public school dollars for private schools.
In addition public school funds should not be supporting charter schools that are the pet project of billionaires who think they are entitled to raid public dollars for their preferred undemocratic system of education.
This proposed cut will shift a large portion of public school funding from the state to local districts. I have not looked at all of DeWine’s proposed budget cuts but these sure look like they are designed to hit public schools and favor private schools as well as charters schools that have declared they are eligible for small business loans, these likely to be foregiven.
If you are in Ohio, please open the link below and follow-up with emails to the people who are planning for this cut to be passed well before school starts. Start with this link:
https://mailchi.mp/ac594ace4a33/action-alert-355-million-in-education-cuts-in-ohio?e=ba8653e702
I was raised as a Christian to believe that people are inheritly evil and needed Jesus to make them good.
Then after teaching for a while and having kids of my own I discovered that are mostly good hearted.
But the Christian crowd feels threatened by that concept and becomes more insistent upon our evilness and the only way to fix things.
It’s as if inherit evilness is the keystone for their mass deception.
“I was raised as a Christian to believe that people are inheritly evil and needed Jesus to make them good.”
This has bothered me. All children are born with original sin…only to be forgiven when baptized by a priest. The fear of hell is supposed to keep us attending church and regularly having our sins forgiven by a priest.
Fear is the motivation to keep people going to church. Do you really want to spend an eternity in hell?
How many cultures have been wiped out by Christians to spread their faith?
We berate the current Muslim extremists but Christianity wasn’t much better. Why not rob people in S. America of their wealth and bring it back to Europe? Why not give native Americans blankets filled with small pox to destroy their culture? The expansion into the Wild West was our best attempt at genocide. Why not take children away from their parents and put them into decent white schools to learn about the real way to think?
Why not make political decisions based on corporate need for more wealth? Destruction of cultures doesn’t matter as long as we put into power the right leaders.
Look at what happens when one gets too much wealth. Most of these extremely wealthy people aren’t working to really help anyone. Greed seems to be their motivation. How many politicians in our country have been bought out by money from wealthy donors?
I still battle with whether or not mankind is inherently evil. There are many good people. Look at the work of Sister Theresa who worked in the ghettos of India.
Certainly mankind can do better. Here is my thought on how we should think: “Love yourself as much as possible and then love others a wee bit more.” This should include people who dress differently, speak a different language or have a different religion. When we reach that level, then mankind will be the caring people that we should become. [I’m NOT speaking of a romantic love, simply about a decent caring for others.]
A perfect metaphor to highlight the age-old definition of conservatism—do you believe the fundamental nature of man is bad and selfish—and liberalism—do you believe the fundamental nature of man is good and beneficent. Based on this experience, Bregman’s answer would seem to be very clear.
On Babies and the Psychological Deficit Theory of Republicanism
One thing about babies: Freud got it wrong. They aren’t born into the world little monsters of selfishness. From the very beginning, they seek connection (major goal) AND they are thinkers. The crying is frustration at having limited abilities, yet, to accomplish goals like seeking connection or food or comfort generally. But from the very beginning, they are making hypotheses and testing them. This is why the great child psychologist Alison Gopnik called her wonderful books The Scientist in the Crib and The Philosophical Baby. If you find yourself hanging out with a baby, keep an eye out. Observe carefully, and you’ll see this. OK, what if I try this? Ah, that worked. Let me try that again. Babies do that ____ all the time.
There is a lizard who has decided that my porch is his territory. When I first met him, he was missing his tail. “Life in the grass,” Annie Dillard said, “is one great chomp.” For months now (how long does a lizard live? Surprisingly long—five to ten years—thank you, Google) I have been trying to teach this lizard not to be afraid of me. But every time I go out there, he scurries to the perimeter, stops cold, stares at me, and makes a threat display. So, I’ve taken to looking at him and making kindly cooing sounds (can lizards hear? Yes, they don’t have ears, but they have eardrums just below the surface of their skin; they don’t hear well, but they hear better than snakes—thank you, Google, again). But my cooing is to no avail. He’s not going to be my buddy. He has a very, very tiny lizard brain and is, like a Republican, incapable of learning.
Babies aren’t like that. They are magicians of learning. And what they learn early makes a BIG difference. People used to think that babies brains grew, and they do, a bit, for a while. But the fact is that they are born with enormous numbers of brain cells and more connections between those cells than there are grains of sand by the oceans, and much of what happens in the first few years is PRUNING AWAY connections. Use ‘em or lose ‘em. So, they are born with brains that are the clay from which a sculpture is made by the world the baby encounters. And for the first while, you are the world around that baby. You are the sculptor. If someone teaches the baby to be afraid and angry, then he or she will grow up to be a Republican. Personality testing shows that Republicans are a LOT more afraid athan Democrats are. That’s why they like guns, which is ironic. The warmongers are the most cowardly, deep down. The lizard on my porch never had the trust hardware in his brain; the Republicans lost theirs. Those trust circuits were pared away when they were still tiny. It’s really very, very sad.
Human nature for most people is NOT destined to be evil, but evil persists among the wealthiest 1%, and that minority includes Donald Trump and his immediate family.