The author himself said he wasn’t making any points about human nature, but of his observations as a school teacher of the children of rich British “people”.
Yup, if there is one demographic group this kind of behavior seems plausible for it is definitely immature, adolescent, spoiled rich kids!
I always thought that was the point of the novel. At the end, they get rescued, and the ship captain sees what they have done. He is astounded that there could be such barbarism among British children.
It’s not about human nature, it’s about the assumptions of what civilization means.
Anon is correct. In the only documented case of children actually becoming castaways, they proved the premise of Lord of the Flies false. They all survived for a year, treated wounds, planted a food garden and even kept a fire alight. Read more about it in Human Kind by Rutger Bregman.
And got arrested immediately after being rescued for “stealing” the boat. They were released after it was cleared up, but so for coming back to “blessed law and order” and glorious civilization. Ironic, how the thing Locke said we’d all instantaneously combust without, imposed violence immediately upon return.
Oh and one of the boys was a different ethnicity, and was actually the one who broke his leg, and even then, there was no bigotry or resentment between them. They took care of him for weeks, and didn’t leave him to die.
And EVERYONE knows that it NOT happening once means it can NEVER happen. That’s how statistics works, definitely…
It’s a data point, which Lord of the Flies isn’t. Yet the book has huge cultural sway. The point being made is that stories of violence and greed are often amplified whereas those of healthy, normal human interaction aren’t.
Phew! Thank god people being bad to each other is just fiction. I was so afraid they could actually be like that, now I feel much better knowing it doesn’t happen and I can trust people with my well-being.
I also thought previously that I experienced violence toward me in two different schools, but now I see those folks must’ve meant well.
Were they british? No? Oh then it doesn’t count.
Also by the way you say children but like there was a 19 year old in that one.
Yeah ngl I hated having to read that book in secondary school. It’s just not believable
have you met children?
they don’t need to be a castaway on an island to be savages to each other.
A girl was gang raped in my school when I was 10, by other grammar school kids.
fights and beatings were constant too. i was involved in several myself.
Yeah but they will not kill eachother
right, so children murdering people never happens…
except it happened 1,106 times in 2022 in the USA.
So, a statistically insignificant number of times then?
Was this is the 80s when everyone suffered from lead poisoning?
no it was the late 90s in a town that was poor.
20 years later it also had one of the worst opioid death rates. woohoo.
Seems believable to me if you look at the US as 1 big island and we are all the nice kids being bullied by the 1 orange asshole.
I also despised this novel, both in school and afterwards. Villains chewing the scenery for 200 pages, pontificating on their villainy and then being villainous while the protagonists just watch in horror
Yes, but it gave us the greatest phrase in the English language:
Sucks to your ass-mar.
I say this every now and then to my friends and nobody ever has any idea what the fuck I’m talking about :c
What a novel idea. ☝️🤓
Bro needs to read The Dawn of Everything.
I really struggled with reading (well, listening to the audio book) Dawn of Everything. The narrator just seemed to take this tone of “I’m smarter than you and you’re a fool for having ever thought to the contrary of what I’m saying”. Seems like narrator was British, so maybe that’s just my sensitive American ears.
Nonetheless, I really felt talked down to and couldn’t muscle my way through it on account of that. Don’t suppose there’s other books that convey similar message / lessons with different tone that you’d recommend?
I didn’t get that tone, so I generally found the book to be entertaining. I am still chewing through it, though.
I have not read anything more from an anteopological perspective, but I have to say that I have found other works of ethical philosophy and, curiosly enough, neuroscience, to reach similar high-level conclusions from a different perspective. Heck, even bell hooks, All About Love, comes to mind. However, I imagine that this is not what you had in mind and I might be biased in how I want to see the picture painted.
User:
reads a book, encounters a perspective they hadn’t previously considered
feels insulted
accuses the narrator of talking down to them.
The narrator is just a voice inside your head. Why are you looking down on yourself for learning something new?
Is that you, narrator of The Dawn of Everything?
I’ve actually never read it, not even sure what it’s about, but from the other user’s comment it sounds like it’s not so bad.
And I’ve certainly encountered some people who will accuse someone of being arrogant just for saying something that they didn’t know. It’s kind of annoying.
Like I love it when someone says something I don’t already know. It means I get to learn something new. Why does that bother some people?
It’s usually the type of people who can’t admit that they don’t know everything.
Found a Piggy.
Sucks to anon’s ass-mar
Obtuse
does OP not understand the internet is mostly fake stories made up in people’s heads?
GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!
I always thought it was a metaphor for a broken society. As for the cast-aways, most of the time they will probably be peaceful. But if you get any of those cluster B people stranded with you, I absolutely expect it to descend into madness.
I can’t decide if only reading one third of something that’s all on one page is better or worse than divining the contents of an article from its title.
