This idea, popularized by narratives like Lord of the Flies, furthers the notion that society is just a thin veneer and people are just going to become animals the second civilization isn’t around to tell them what to do. Ideas like this were/are used to justify colonialism.https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/1259248932326170631 …
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Replying to @thelindsayellis
My own personal reading of LotF is that everything goes to hell precisely because these are sheltered British upper class white boys with a twisted sense of entitlement
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Replying to @thelindsayellis
I mean, it's informed by knowing the origin story (from reading the little essay that comes at the end of the classroom edition), where he wrote the book out of his disgust at The Coral Island based on his own experiences teaching at a British prep school
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Replying to @arthur_affect
I’m familiar with the origin story too - i never got that Golding took much issue with the colonialst elements in Coral Island, and the idea that it’s taking down the privileged rather than exposing the idea that all humans are potentially barbarous without a daddy is charitable
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Replying to @thelindsayellis @arthur_affect
My teacher had an take wherein LotF is a critique of (fascist) demagoguery. It doesn't collapse because humans are inherently vicious - they are driven to self-destruction by Jack, who projects a false image of discipline and uses the imaginary threat of the Beast to take power.
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Replying to @LatwPIAT @thelindsayellis
I keep pointing out it's a crucial plot point that Jack is already an alpha dude running the choir as an army of his minions *before* he gets to the island, and Ralph is seduced into letting Jack run things because his pre-existing authority makes his job easier
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If you wanna get super deep and allegorical about it it's about the military and authoritarian military culture being this constant threat to the democratic rule of law that we nonetheless tolerate
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