A real and positive Lord of the Flies

[IndigoChild5559]

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

The book "Lord of the Flies" paints humanity as innately destructive and barbaric, barely held in check by the constraints of civilization, and ready to revert to barbarism at the simplest opportunity. It revolves around a group of schoolboys who have crashed on a deserted island. It isn't long before they have let the rescue fire go out, and are running around naked and killing each other.

But is this realistic?

According to the following article about a real life similar instance, it is not. These six boys actually were shipwrecked on a deserted island and quickly set up a pact never to argue. They kept the rescue fire going for the entire 15 months. And most importantly, they worked cooperatively.

It says some good things about human nature for a change. I found it was a relief to my heart to hear this.

How about you? And for those of you who believe mankind is corrupt by nature according to your religion, how do you square with it?

 

[Dawnofhope]

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

The book "Lord of the Flies" paints humanity as innately destructive and barbaric, barely held in check by the constraints of civilization, and ready to revert to barbarism at the simplest opportunity. It revolves around a group of schoolboys who have crashed on a deserted island. It isn't long before they have let the rescue fire go out, and are running around naked and killing each other.

But is this realistic?

According to the following article about a real life similar instance, it is not. These six boys actually were shipwrecked on a deserted island and quickly set up a pact never to argue. They kept the rescue fire going for the entire 15 months. And most importantly, they worked cooperatively.

It says some good things about human nature for a change. I found it was a relief to my heart to hear this.

How about you? And for those of you who believe mankind is corrupt by nature according to your religion, how do you square with it?

Baha'is view humans as being created noble.

O SON OF SPIRIT! Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou wast created.
Bahá'í Reference Library - The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, Page 9

We don't believe we are fallen creatures or the doctrine of original sin. We are exhorted to see the positive in all people and where possible to overlook the faults of others.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I remember we had to read that in high school, I guess all of that was a waste of time then.. the educational system likes to assert many things about human nature that may not be true..

When you think about it, maybe it's the macro level social style that makes more allowance for harsh cliques. When the social plane is reduced down to only a few dozen people, or however many small amounts people we are physiologically able to understand as primate animals, then maybe there is no room left in that equation for rabble rousers. It is no longer impersonal enough to allow for it, the pressures of individual utility and goals in common become too great for that. So for me, it's not really that relieving, since our society probably has more of mistrustful, 'lord of the flies' view of people who separate from the greater hive

 

[sun rise]

Lord of the Flies comes from an era when it was commonly believed that people were inherently evil by nature and only by strict discipline was that evil kept in check.

We're learning how wrong that view truly is.

 

[Twilight Hue]

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

The book "Lord of the Flies" paints humanity as innately destructive and barbaric, barely held in check by the constraints of civilization, and ready to revert to barbarism at the simplest opportunity. It revolves around a group of schoolboys who have crashed on a deserted island. It isn't long before they have let the rescue fire go out, and are running around naked and killing each other.

But is this realistic?

According to the following article about a real life similar instance, it is not. These six boys actually were shipwrecked on a deserted island and quickly set up a pact never to argue. They kept the rescue fire going for the entire 15 months. And most importantly, they worked cooperatively.

It says some good things about human nature for a change. I found it was a relief to my heart to hear this.

How about you? And for those of you who believe mankind is corrupt by nature according to your religion, how do you square with it?

By reading the news. Looking at our government.......

Maybe introducing some females into the mix and add another set of 15 people on the other side of the island and have them compete for resources. Our collective true nature will become obvious soon enough. ;0)

 

[questfortruth]

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

How about you? And for those of you who believe mankind is corrupt by nature according to your religion, how do you square with it?

Google: evil, evil spirits, crime, satan. Do you reject all these problems?

 

[Heyo]

By reading the news. Looking at our government.......

Maybe introducing some females into the mix and add another set of 15 people on the other side of the island and have them compete for resources. Our collective true nature will become obvious soon enough. ;0)

15 is not enough, more like 150.

 

[Heyo]

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

The book "Lord of the Flies" paints humanity as innately destructive and barbaric, barely held in check by the constraints of civilization, and ready to revert to barbarism at the simplest opportunity. It revolves around a group of schoolboys who have crashed on a deserted island. It isn't long before they have let the rescue fire go out, and are running around naked and killing each other.

But is this realistic?

According to the following article about a real life similar instance, it is not. These six boys actually were shipwrecked on a deserted island and quickly set up a pact never to argue. They kept the rescue fire going for the entire 15 months. And most importantly, they worked cooperatively.

It says some good things about human nature for a change. I found it was a relief to my heart to hear this.

How about you? And for those of you who believe mankind is corrupt by nature according to your religion, how do you square with it?

Thank you for this OP. I was thinking about asking for peoples "idea of man"* but had difficulty to formulate it.
My position is that "most people are good, most of the time". If all people were good all of the time we wouldn't have wars.
Following anthropology one can explain and predict when societies turn to evil (or at least to conflict). Dunbar's Number for example gives a rough upper limit of the size of a tribe. The availability of resources determines when it is better to cooperate or to fight.
And last but not least, one sociopath, when not reigned in, can turn a whole country to the worse.
With these findings a vigilant society can remain on the good side.

* "idea of man" was the translation that LEO gave for the German "Menschenbild" (human image). Is that the standing phrase in philosophy?

 

[Curious George]

15 is not enough, more like 150.

That is interesting. Both what you have wrote and the OP make me wonder how the robbers cave experiment would have worked out if the kids were not instilled with external motivation for competition.

 

[Heyo]

That is interesting. Both what you have wrote and the OP make me wonder how the robbers cave experiment would have worked out if the kids were not instilled with external motivation for competition.

The experiments goal was to model a "Realistic Conflict". For that they set up a competition for limited resources. In that case conflict is almost preprogrammed. It's practically you and your sibling fighting over the last piece of cake.
There are a lot of factors that go into individual and group behaviour at that time. Someone who has had faced hunger and fight for food in the past will be quicker to start a conflict than someone with a past life of abundance who might try to share first.
So, without the priming (artificially induced competition) the groups would probably have joined after a short period.

 

[Twilight Hue]

What's really interesting is the converse of what if you give everybody everything they ever could have wanted or needed in a virtual Utopia? Would they get along? Would human behavior be benign and peaceful?

If it's anything like the Utopia Mouse Experiment....

 

[Heyo]

What's really interesting is the converse of what if you give everybody everything they ever could have wanted or needed in a virtual Utopia? Would they get along? Would human behavior be benign and peaceful?

If it's anything like the Utopia Mouse Experiment....

I don't hope so but I see the risk. Humans (and probably mice) need more than just food and living space. And humans are good (or at least better than mice) at creating purpose for themselves.

 

[Mock Turtle]

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.

Why is that so often one's own perspective, and experiences, do tend to distort what one perceives as being inherently something about all others ? Sad but true. Facts often presents themselves as the lies that are fiction.

But too many seem to think we are still savages at heart, and where religions no doubt benefit, but the kids were from a Catholic boarding school, so it might be argued that religion did play a role here - or simply discipline. No doubt there are plenty of other examples though to suggest savagery is not so far away when we are confronted with our own survival over that of others, but there are as many examples to show the opposite is the case.

 

[Heyo]

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.

Why is that so often one's own perspective, and experiences, do tend to distort what one perceives as being inherently something about all others ? Sad but true. Facts often presents themselves as the lies that are fiction.

But too many seem to think we are still savages at heart, and where religions no doubt benefit, but the kids were from a Catholic boarding school, so it might be argued that religion did play a role here - or simply discipline. No doubt there are plenty of other examples though to suggest savagery is not so far away when we are confronted with our own survival over that of others, but there are as many examples to show the opposite is the case.

A society that is held together by discipline will implode when those who uphold the discipline are gone. People with an understanding of why self discipline is necessary (and how much of it) can easily survive.

 

[Vinayaka]

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

The book "Lord of the Flies" paints humanity as innately destructive and barbaric, barely held in check by the constraints of civilization, and ready to revert to barbarism at the simplest opportunity. It revolves around a group of schoolboys who have crashed on a deserted island. It isn't long before they have let the rescue fire go out, and are running around naked and killing each other.

But is this realistic?

According to the following article about a real life similar instance, it is not. These six boys actually were shipwrecked on a deserted island and quickly set up a pact never to argue. They kept the rescue fire going for the entire 15 months. And most importantly, they worked cooperatively.

It says some good things about human nature for a change. I found it was a relief to my heart to hear this.

How about you? And for those of you who believe mankind is corrupt by nature according to your religion, how do you square with it?

Interesting story. It's always nice to have the opposite view out there. In high school, over 50 years back, I read that book, and found it really depressing at the time. Now I see it as one perspective ... Holden's primarily, but others who hold that view too.

Really, I think if we had 100 social experiments along the same line ... a group of people trapped somewhere, we'd get 100 different outcomes. So much depends on just who these people are, what their subconscious entails, whether they lived in a co-operative or competitive society beforehand, and much much more.

But it's good to open your eyes to other possibilities. As a teacher, one of my favorite exercises was to have the kids write an alternative ending.