Tag Archives: Lord of the Flies

DISAFFECTED

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The word was once, alienated. Now individuals are lonely. Wisecrackers and smart guys figure loneliness is society’s problem. Let’s make money. The United Kingdom has a Minister of Loneliness. They are wrong. The appropriate word is disaffected, and each person is alone.

If an individual is lonely today – media; cable TV; music everywhere; books and libraries; families; social, political and cultural groups catering to all causes, stamps and ilks; telephones; computers; and social platforms, religions, faiths and belief systems to follow or create – than that human being is not trying. 

The basic problem becomes, can any person entertain her or him self?

Lonely persons in ill-health, physically or mentally, or are handicapped are less capable. Some might abuse alcohol or drugs; or they are like Alice, one pill makes them bigger and the other makes them small; not all humans like the lingering haze of THC and what it does to company.

Lonely people might have just left a job or are retired. They know nothing of life but work and fellow employees. Perhaps they have never heard or heard anything except they themselves are right and righteous. Finally some might now fear other human beings, whom they consider enemies: Consider the trash man who has seen the worst of society.

So what is loneliness today? Having 5,000 friends on Facebook and trying to respond to 50 people might take two weeks – hopelessness of reaching everyone and explaining X. Does anyone truly care? How come no one responds? Each friend has 5,000 friends of her own to respond to. People in this predicament are like attendees at a wedding in the scrum to catch the bridal bouquet. An individual gets a quarter of the flowers, along with pedals and other plant composition. What good are the thorns on a rose stem?

Some famous people and well-known individuals, exposed on social media, have announced they are going dark. The end. After 2015 Kelly Evans of CNBC made that announcement. Perhaps the best way to reach Kelly Evans is by letter delivered by the United States Postal Service – stamp (now 55 cents – two quarters and a nickel for new-school devotees), an envelope, a written address, and some form of return address delivered by a mail carrier to a street address. Old-school, they say. Come out and play.

Is the ability to reach three billion people in the world and become known raise the worrisome issue of loneliness? Over exposure to the masses is not a situation most individuals are prepared for, or like. Individuals cherish isolation. Human beings cling to what is familiar and friendly, sensations that comfort and warm. Does anyone ever wonder why any individual remains and lives in Barstow, California? The cultural center is the McDonalds attached to a few railroad cars converted into shops selling sundries and T-shirts and doubling as a bus stop. A gas station is across the main drag, next to the Freeway off/on-ramp. The biggest thing around is the San Andres Fault, 50 miles away.

It seems isolated, but most human beings like what familiarity delivers: Security. What is known become secure. What is routine becomes predictable. What seems certain and simple become truth. Why wonder? Why ask why? Curiosity is something to overcome, put away and reject. The imagination is fiction and dreams, the fake and the fancy of childhood. So at twenty years of age, human beings may have in place the ingredients to stop living.

Like all other animals human beings feel good being on solid ground, accepting set rules and going forward from there, rather than swimming in a swamp, or stepping into quicksand. This great divide separates home versus taking risks.

On its own communication becomes preposterous because the current length and style confine a tweet or text to a 50-word unit. Emails are short. Oft times one has not seen the person for two years or more. Nothing has changed in those years – life is the same, experiences are the same, human beings have not grown, no sense of living and doing, accomplishment, failure, struggle and solutions. Every person is the same, samo-samo. Time stands still as in The Lord of the Flies: Boys on the island for months maintain all physical, mental, spiritual abilities and relationships as when they were together in boarding school, or wherever. The in-group kills Piggy. Life on earth is always static. Put and keep the best face forward despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. A person can be in luxury or comfort and live a sheltered, rote, routine existence and wonder why life is not satisfying. Hamlet is no longer amongst us.

Will Rogers reacted to persons recommending a facelift: “I want the world to know why I look this way.” It was similar to Abraham Lincoln’s response to his being two-faced during the 1860 campaign for President: “If I had another face, do you think I would use this one?”

Which age of life do curiosity and imagination leave human beings? Two aspects – one regarding one’s own personal outlook, no self-reflection, and the second, looking at the world including human beings around us. The Second: Each of us has observed friends, acquaintances and souls who are or who have checked out no matter their ages. The ardent sports fan might be unable to tell which teams are on the field, who the players are and the sorts of plays. Those persons may be unable to recount a play or a situation. Indeed, some of those fans aren’t unable to comprehend the game without the noise of the crowd on TV. It is why the Whistle Guy, a New Orleans fan, was so annoying. Alert: Whistle Guy was why pass interference was not called against the Rams. The Rams won the trip to the Super Bowl.

Good Luck, Rams. Boston Red Sox versus LA Dodgers. No Babe Ruth. SOX.

Pats versus the Rams. Brady versus The Brady Bunch. PATS.

I know someone, somewhere wants to punch me in the nose for writing these sentences. They aren’t politically correct. Offend someone: I won’t watch because I don’t want to hear the announcers chat between themselves rather than describe the game to viewers. Plus there are loads of advertisements. No one comments about the commercials. There is humor and honesty when someone can present an alternative, cogent reality or faith. However, they are not present during the Super Bowl.

Next are grandparents in their Sixties and older. Many cannot shut up about their grandchildren, primarily because they have forgotten the lives of their own children or have rid themselves of recollections of their own lives. What happens to a young child may seem new and strange, but truly it is close to what was experienced by previous generations. Any grandparent may not feel alone if memory recalls the similarity between their own lives and what the runts, generic off spring are going and experiencing. 

Many people my age, and many younger and lots older, have forgotten that humor – not comedy – plus a sense of ridiculous boost hope throughout society. Human folly. Everyone with a family knows nothing in life is perfect; indeed, nothing turns out perfect. Laugh or cry. Drollness is a good response to occurrences in life and society. The best any individual can expect is a sense of fairness. Old people know this. Young people must struggle with it; they must fight for perfection – it is the glory of being young, enthusiastic and somewhat ignorant and naive. The triumph of youth is sometimes blessed: James Madison was 37 years old when the Constitution was ratified in 1788. He had worked seven years getting a governing document accepted. Off the bad in human behavior Madison took opportunities to exploit the good.

In society Americans are offended. Don’t judge me. Don’t be judgmental. Americans are wrong. Yet, they are revealing they watch too many law programs: Perry Mason gone wild, now Law and Order. There’s no evidence. I have issues. That’s hearsay. I did nothing wrong. Prove it. I’m innocent. You’re judging me. Other legal words and phrases have crept into the American vernacular and are used to ward off preconceived criticisms or to avoid conversation.

Any friend is not judging. At best he is a juror and mostly works on impressions. Issues are problems sometimes revealing mental illnesses. No one can live life bound by rules of evidence – Just the facts, Madame. All human interaction would be frozen by evidence. Hearsay is inadmissible but is frequently true. Human beings infer, feel, suppose, believe and wonder. Every claim to be innocent – innocent until proven guilty – misstates the legal principle: Not guilty until proven guilty. The legal principle is closer to reality, because everyone is guilty: …He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…(John 8:7)

If Americans remain defensive about everything, we are a sorry set of human beings, each an over sensitive crybaby. Our society is odd, foreign and idiotic; it is incomprehensible. Is it all right to be discriminating, or judgmental? Food, stores, clothes, personal hygiene. music, movies, sports teams, games, sports teams, music, cars, etc. Americans make choices, express opinions, have likes and dislikes (thumbs up or down, emojis with a smile or a frown), vote with dollars, and favor many things over others which might be beneficial or a waste of time: Global warming, (climate change, or new term} and pollution need a stronger push and better arguments to be accepted by persons other than benevolent enthusiasts. 

What is the difference between making choices and being discriminating and being offensive when doing your own thing or making comments about behaviors and attitudes that offend, are gross or arise from curiosity? Most people do not make the distinctions. They say nothing; they end friendships; they are silent; they become isolated. Ideas offend or an individual’s behavior can be entertaining: Comments say more about the person making them than the recipient. Americans do not always believe adverse words carry benefit or are funny. Is any comment accurate or true? An individual should evaluate. Should an American have to reflect on comments? Yes, we are human beings. Someone on Facebook told me I wasn’t part of the Twenty-First Century because I didn’t smoke marijuana. I’m taking that comment to the bank. Should Americans distrust that which is perceived to be criticism? The immediate reaction is do the macho thing, make fools of defending oneself in all circumstances, and lose: Americans should be celebrate the manifestation of human diversity, opinion and folly, and recognize all that in ourselves. 

An unquestioning mindset over decades separates thousands of individuals from more wondering human beings. There is security in isolation – I’m right; no one else tells me otherwise. That person may as well be living in Barstow, California. What anyone says reveals deficiencies: Spout cliches and dated ideas, like the person has lived on that island with boys and none had changed. What does any human being think now, about existence, life or the news, rather than events 40 years ago? Who to talk to? How to entertain oneself? Cable TV, Doctor Phil. Change the channel to Judge Judy. Think TV was once better? Indeed, did Edward R. Murrow ever ask anyone he interviewed: “How did you feel?” Eventually most human beings want society after fifty years of confined, narrow thinking. How to break out? Human beings lose the ability to socialize. It is why principle topics that emotionally come to people – religion and politics – are forbidden subjects in many retirement homes.

It is all education of a lifetime, not lessons of don’t judge, don’t question. Show no curiosity. Misunderstandings reveal weakness. Show ignorance, never! Listen to the exotic and believe it automatically. However being stupid and curious is fun, inspiring and harmless:  A supernova produces energy, radiation and light. I’ve never heard anyone ask an expert whether any sound or noise is emitted from a supernova which humans have detected, or whether it exists at all. [If a tree falls in the forest and no person is there, is there noise?] It seems absurd that noise would come from an exploding supernova a billion light years away! Perhaps it is the sound and sight of deity.

Finally, laugh. Laugh at yourself/ Follow Herman Melville’s advice in Moby Dick, Chapter 5:

A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scare a good thing: the more’s the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent on that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.  

And there is nothing more pleasing and refreshing than a human being who is honest, frank and well-balanced, willing to admit what was once stupid, miscalculated and a jump into the abyss. That human being has learned, knows honesty, become conscious of the world and fellow beings, and is comfortable giving lessons, relaying experiences and telling stories. What all human life is, nothing is perfect: Mistakes, regrets and blunders speckle our lives. There is humor, irony, joy or love in all that.

 

 

BAD TV: Lord of the Flies

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I got to the end of Lord of the Flies by William Golding and found the whole problem with the book in a few lines:

“We saw your smoke. And you don’t know how many of you there are?”

“No sir.”

“‘I should have thought,’” said the officer as he visualized the search before him, “I should have thought that a pack of British boys – you’re all British, aren’t you – would have been able to put up a better show than that…”

In the last analysis it is not the fault of Britain or the British boys on the island. It is the fault of William Golding who did not write a novel, but structured this book to support this phony conclusion, a condemnation of Britain or of something equally nonsensical.

Lord of the Flies is not a novel. It is a fable advanced as reflecting reality which is only possible on paper. How does a novel differ? There is setting, characters and what happens (story). There is an element of time – something happens before something else, and the reader understands that or the reader appreciates some order of events.

Lord of the Flies differs. The setting is a tropical island, I assume in the Pacific. The identified characters are primarily older boys, biguns Golding calls them. What happens on the island without adult input or supervision is questionable, inconsistent and in the end unreal. Time, the relations of events to one another, is scattered to the winds – the only means the reader can tell that something happens later than an earlier event is become it comes later in the text. It should be noted some events can be read before others, and it makes no difference to the reader’s comprehension or understanding.

The book begins with Ralph and Piggy, pampered fat boy with asthma, arriving on the island. They wonder how many boys survived the plane crash into the sea. As the reader learns at the end, no boy on the island has ever counted. Thinking back to my childhood, counting would be the first thing boys would do to know whether everyone survived each day. But Golding neglects this boyish whim; he wants no count. Indeed, he calls the young boys, littlums, and bigger boys, biguns. As events happen littlums and biguns are here and there when Golding needs them in increasing or decreasing numbers.

The island is explored, and the kids seem to know where they are going when they walk around, but no one knows how large the island is: Two miles, four miles, six miles long. The island is large enough to have remote areas and to support feral pigs which have not devastated all the plants. But it can only be inferred that it is small – there is one pit with a fire to cook hunted pigs [dead pigs are difficult for boys to move a great distance], and a signal fire. When Ralph is running for his life at the end, he thinks and acts like there is no place to hide (although the pigs hide pretty well) so the island is small. However, another boy Jack, breaks away from Ralph and Piggy and takes his “tribe” to another settlement on the island, so the island is larger. At best there are mixed signals about the size of the island.

Fat boy, Piggy, is on many pages but remains a mystery. Golding reports he has “brains,” but there’s little indication of them. It is suggested he is a bigun who likes to hang around with the littums, but I’m not sure how long that lasted. Piggy is fat because he is an orphan raised by Auntie who allows him to eat “sweets” and bon-bons all day from her candy shop. He also has asthma which limits his activities. Piggy remains fat throughout the pages, I suppose. His behavior doesn’t change. He is obstinate and obnoxious especially when his glasses are used to start fires [magnifying sun to get leaves and wood to burn].

It remains a question, how long are the kids on the island. Long enough to know hunting pig is real work; building huts is real work; maintaining a signal fire which always peters out [and Piggy’s glasses must be used again] is real work. Hair grows long; clothes are ripped, frayed and disintegrate. Golding doesn’t tell the reader how long, but it seems four months, perhaps six. Why is this important? Piggy. I was a fat kid once, and despite eating everything in sight at a one-week summer camp, I lost five pounds. Piggy is away from the candy shop for a time, and he’s eating fruit and occasionally pig but nothing else. [British kids are on an island and no one thinks to drop a line into the water to catch fish.] I figure after four months Piggy would lose 40 pounds, if he needed to lose that many. For a kid – lose weight, become more active, have more energy, perhaps the asthma symptoms are alleviated or eliminated – there is character development: “No one will call me Piggy, any more!” HOWEVER, William Golding has no sense of time or setting. Piggy is a person who is static, worthless, nonsensical and someone to kill, which Golding does.

Who is important in the book and disposed? Jack, the hunter, who invents the competing “tribe,” and who raises fears about the island “beast.” Somehow, Jack got most of the biguns and littums, how many no one knows (10, 12, 50) to join him. Activities Jack organizes include putting on paint (symbolizing primitive man) and dancing around a fire (when available), a primitive man activity. But how did Jack get the others to join him? Still no one knows; there is no reasonable or plausible explanation. What we know is the littums were worthless when work was necessary; they want to play, interacting with one another in that arena of a fantasy/reality world. Will they put on face paint and dance if there’s no Halloween candy? Will they abandon huts built in one place to go to another? None of this reality is spelled out in an organized, regular and straightforward manner. It seems Jack’s activities are planned but involve work, not play. A reader can infer elements of fear and terror are part of Jack’s tribe: Simon, Jack’s fellow hunter is killed, Jack raids Ralph and Piggy’s encampment, Jack organizes his encampment so it is defensible and Piggy is killed. There is no reason to stay with Jack’s tribe.

There is no part of Lord of the Flies which represents reality. There are holes, lacunae; there is no character development; after Jack breaks away and lives in his own camp newly invented biguns (Roger, Robert and Maurice) show up. The tale is myth and fantasy. What does it have to tell us about human beings? There are better novels, studies and histories to read to learn about the stuff which William Golding conjectures.

There is a curious feature about the book. The characters are set and remain the same throughout; the setting is the same although undefined; the activities don’t differ greatly from one another; one activity does not progress easily from one chapter to the next. The dialogue is very mediocre and somewhat repetitive. Early in the book I had the sensation that each chapter was a episode of a TV show: Arrival on the island. Getting organized. Signal fire. Hunting – hut building. Looking for the beast. Successful pig kill. Painting bodies, dancing, tribalism. So episodic are the chapters that they suggest the reality TV shows today, whether set on a tropical island or in a house. What William Golding has written is a TV show for a season.

There are novels which are episodic and can be told in a series of episodes. Lord of the Flies is not one of them. In those books an episode is presented, and a second episode set out, adding to, developing and telling of the characters, although the time and the setting may be static. When I read that the biguns were searching for the beast, I thought, they have no memory, no experience and no knowledge of where they came from[British society] and what they learned there. They and the story are contrived. None of those kids has ever heard of a snipe hunt. Lord, this is a bad TV show.

Another static fixation at the beginning is the conch. Piggy and Ralph find a conch shell which Ralph learns to blow and make sounds. Island Rule One: When the conch sounds there will be an assembly; the person holding the conch has the floor. Golding sets this rule into cement for the remainder of the text, but in reality any group, even biguns and littums will change or modify the rule. The rule in cement is a reason why Jack splits, forming his “tribe.” The group psychology of that is not part of the text. Golding is interested in making an unsupported fantasy point. He does not want to represent reality. He is remarkably unsightful about the politics and the psychology of anyone or any group on the island, an extraordinary coincidence considering that the whole mess is coming from his mind. This is a bad TV show.

There is one setting, transplanted to the island, that might support Golding’s story: A private British Boarding School. I sense a lot can be written about those schools and those places, the horrors that are perpetrated and the demented boys they matriculate. They are not best represented by “Good-bye Mr. Chips.” Possibly, Golding wrote but didn’t want to identify the school. He thought, I’ll drop the kids on a tropical island. They won’t know why they are there, just use the word “evacuate,” like World War II. There will be no adult supervision; the kids can go hog wild. Using those bases the book is incomplete and imperfect. It is bad TV.

I suspect the boys are not British, despite Golding’s nationality and identification at the end. Nowhere among the thousands of words is “queue” mentioned. The world knows (especially in the 1950s) that queue and queuing were part of the genetic makeup of every person living on those islands. This omission gives the book no anchor, leaving the words adrift seeking the safety of land. Golding maybe writing about Latin American boys, or Chinese or Russian but certainly not British. He is not writing about Americans who are trained to numbers: 68. Look at the counting-box, 36. That’s a long wait, but the solution is obvious. As the clerk finishes one customer, he looks ahead and asks, Who’s next? Someone points to the counting-box, and everyone waiting learns the clerk can read and count: “37, 38, 39…61.” Suddenly life becomes more sensible and manageable.

There should be more sense and order in Lord of the Flies.