Thanks for that, Joel. Both great books, read them years ago.
As to, “What happens when constraints slip, when civilization recedes, and we discover what we are without them?”
Well, I think of people like Luigi Mangione, Antifa, BLM mobs, those sorts. They’re all mostly young folk. Young people are being programmed to believe that violence is acceptable if the person dishing it out is ‘right.’ Young people are being programmed to believe that they can do anything, and be whatever they want, simply by saying they are that thing.
The movie, Apocalypse Now borrows one of the themes of The Heart of Darkness. The Congo’s Kurtz descends into savagery in his pursuit of ivory, becoming the most ‘successful’ ivory hunter. The Vietnam War’s Kurtz, descends into savagery in his pursuit of dead Viet Cong. Both Kurtz’s also embody Jack’s pronouncement, “Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong.”
Apocalypse’s Kurtz adopts the rules (savagery) of the communists Viet Cong, taking names and heads. He becomes better at the madness and mayhem of war than the Cong and any of the perfumed princes of the Pentagon.
All three of these stories (The Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse NOw) mine this rich and important (to understand) vein.
Lord of the Flies was a Junior High School/Middle School English Class reading assignment. I remember being somewhat underwhelmed which may have had something to do with the experience of sharing space with packs of adolescent boys at Scouting campouts and locker rooms- I knew they were all savages at heart. I didn’t read Heart of Darkness until a late 1970s posting to what was then called Zaire - and mostly for a sense of the environment both human and natural. There were still some diehard old colonials to encounter, residual elements of tribal cultures, and the missionaries - generally Catholic and Baptist. Despite surprising to me roots in the Protestant world I found the Catholic Mission Stations preferable as they invariably offered visitors a beer. Major parts of the country despite modern infrastructure were deteriorating including the infrastructure- the jungle was often winning.
Your concluding paragraph is exactly what Hobbes asks us when he asks us to imagine the state of nature. It remains a sobering question. Thanks for the essay on a pair books I read, oh, 30 or so years ago. Worth revisiting today.
I just read Lord of the the Flies and Animal Farm back to back and there are so many interesting connections with those two books. I've been wanting to write my own post on that because I've been thinking about those connections for a long time. One thing that really struck me with LOTF is how Jack shrugs off the "law" of the conk shell and with "Bollocks to the rules! We're strong, we hunt. If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down, and beat, and beat!"
I see the same type of thing in today's US politics and around the world. The rules are free to be broken if your strong (or rich). Then you're immune and can intimidate and threaten others. But it's a reminder that the rules (good ones) are guard rails against those who would abuse us. Because strength is ultimately very corruptable.
I recall Lord of the Flies being a chilling read in high school (back in the days when novels were still assigned reading), and I don’t think I’ve read Heart of Darkness. Thankfully my library has it on audiobook so I checked it out today. Thanks for the nudge!
Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.
And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.
W.H. Auden - from "Law Like Love"
The real life Lord of the Flies story is incredible! I had never heard of that before.
Thanks for that, Joel. Both great books, read them years ago.
As to, “What happens when constraints slip, when civilization recedes, and we discover what we are without them?”
Well, I think of people like Luigi Mangione, Antifa, BLM mobs, those sorts. They’re all mostly young folk. Young people are being programmed to believe that violence is acceptable if the person dishing it out is ‘right.’ Young people are being programmed to believe that they can do anything, and be whatever they want, simply by saying they are that thing.
The movie, Apocalypse Now borrows one of the themes of The Heart of Darkness. The Congo’s Kurtz descends into savagery in his pursuit of ivory, becoming the most ‘successful’ ivory hunter. The Vietnam War’s Kurtz, descends into savagery in his pursuit of dead Viet Cong. Both Kurtz’s also embody Jack’s pronouncement, “Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong.”
Apocalypse’s Kurtz adopts the rules (savagery) of the communists Viet Cong, taking names and heads. He becomes better at the madness and mayhem of war than the Cong and any of the perfumed princes of the Pentagon.
All three of these stories (The Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse NOw) mine this rich and important (to understand) vein.
Lord of the Flies was a Junior High School/Middle School English Class reading assignment. I remember being somewhat underwhelmed which may have had something to do with the experience of sharing space with packs of adolescent boys at Scouting campouts and locker rooms- I knew they were all savages at heart. I didn’t read Heart of Darkness until a late 1970s posting to what was then called Zaire - and mostly for a sense of the environment both human and natural. There were still some diehard old colonials to encounter, residual elements of tribal cultures, and the missionaries - generally Catholic and Baptist. Despite surprising to me roots in the Protestant world I found the Catholic Mission Stations preferable as they invariably offered visitors a beer. Major parts of the country despite modern infrastructure were deteriorating including the infrastructure- the jungle was often winning.
Your concluding paragraph is exactly what Hobbes asks us when he asks us to imagine the state of nature. It remains a sobering question. Thanks for the essay on a pair books I read, oh, 30 or so years ago. Worth revisiting today.
I just read Lord of the the Flies and Animal Farm back to back and there are so many interesting connections with those two books. I've been wanting to write my own post on that because I've been thinking about those connections for a long time. One thing that really struck me with LOTF is how Jack shrugs off the "law" of the conk shell and with "Bollocks to the rules! We're strong, we hunt. If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down, and beat, and beat!"
I see the same type of thing in today's US politics and around the world. The rules are free to be broken if your strong (or rich). Then you're immune and can intimidate and threaten others. But it's a reminder that the rules (good ones) are guard rails against those who would abuse us. Because strength is ultimately very corruptable.
I recall Lord of the Flies being a chilling read in high school (back in the days when novels were still assigned reading), and I don’t think I’ve read Heart of Darkness. Thankfully my library has it on audiobook so I checked it out today. Thanks for the nudge!
I reread Lord of the Flies the other summer, I was curious after my son read it for school.
Having not looked at it since I was a young teen like him, I was struck by how wonderfully descriptive Golding’s writing was.
Made me think of this recent tale from Naomi Kanakia https://open.substack.com/pub/naomik/p/when-your-leading-intellectuals-gather?r=zpjg&utm_medium=ios