I've been wondering whether or not I can be arsed. I can't even remember why I set up this account. I think I was a bit pissed at the time. Oh well....
A week or so ago Angry Exile did a rather (as usual) good post, in which he mentions studying Lord of the Flies at school... T'appens I studied this piece of shit too. In fact, we did it in the third year, and by luck (?) for our O level too (that's kinda like GCSE for younger readers, innit). Also, t'appen, the same day Angry Exile made his post my mother came a-visiting... this needs some background.
I home-educate my son. He can do a bit of maths, he can get excited by science, but he has no time for stories... and my mother comes 'round, after having spent the previous night with a bunch of ex-nurses where the subject of young male literacy came up. (What you expec? Women, innit...)
Long story, short: the old trout comes to tell me that the reason boys fail at literacy is because they would rather be doing something else.
Like climbing trees.
Or something.
I pointed out that the problem was the type of fiction we were being expected to appreciate. The first book I ever studied at senior school was Black (fucking) Beauty. Can this be more girly? This was followed by Tom Sawyer (paint that darn fence boy), and then Lord of the Flies. During this time, when I wasn't climbing trees, playing football, and trying to look up girls skirts, I read lots... mostly SF, like many of the lads in my class. I read The Lord of the Rings in my third year (over-rated guff) and lots more by the likes of Vance, Heinlein, van Vogt, Dick, etc.. but I am apparently illiterate because I don't appreciate the value of Jane Austen or Shakespeare. Fuck them dullards.
Then last night: some writer (BBC speak, he's important because he's a writer) come on t'telly. sebastian Fucks, or something. And lo, and behold, he does a piece about Jack from Lord of the Flies... well, as a woman I know oft says, these things come in threes. It struck a chord, and the bile doth rise....
Lord of the Flies is a pastiche/parody/response of/to Coral Island by RM Ballantyne. In Coral island, a bunch of kids are shipwrecked, and have an adventure, and they survive. They have a sense of communal well-being, and come through their ordeal.
In Lord of the Flies, a bunch of kids are shipwrecked... and without authority, their world desends into chaos and violence. Most of the kids, lead by psychopath Jack, become savages.
These two books exemply the two mind sets of modern political thought: there are those who believe people should be free to make their own (informed) decisions about their lives, and those who believe that (no matter how informed) the "people" are, they are ignorant animals, just one stop short of cannibals.
Forget Left/Right... there are only authoritarians/libertarians. Lord of the Flies, a vile view of humanity, is distinctly of authoritarian bent, and this has Establishment accreditation.
Be afraid.
