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William Golding used Lord of the Flies as a historical allegory and a pulpit from which to address the darkness in all men. While that subject is certainly worth exploring, it is too often forgotten that Lord of the Flies is fictional. The fictional Lord of the Flies is used to equate anarchy with savagery and justify authoritarianism. This true story shows that reality is far more interesting:

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

It’s time we told a different kind of story. The real Lord of the Flies is a tale of friendship and loyalty; one that illustrates how much stronger we are if we can lean on each other. After my wife took Peter’s picture, he turned to a cabinet and rummaged around for a bit, then drew out a heavy stack of papers that he laid in my hands. His memoirs, he explained, written for his children and grandchildren. I looked down at the first page. “Life has taught me a great deal,” it began, “including the lesson that you should always look for what is good and positive in people.”

Thanks for the link, fantastic story.

That was a great read. Thank you for sharing!

Incredible story. Lie nearly everyone else my age, the book was mandatory reading for my freshman year of high school, but I hadn’t heard of the real life version before. Fascinating.

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 10:47 pm Incredible story. Lie nearly everyone else my age, the book was mandatory reading for my freshman year of high school, but I hadn’t heard of the real life version before. Fascinating.

A few years ago a friend was home schooling his son. We were talking one that about his reading list and I was surprised that most of the books were the same as we read in high school. I ended up buying a copy of a few of them and read them again. I got a lot more out of them than I did in high school. LOL

I just read a short bio of Golding in Wiki. He was a very interesting and strange character.

Good link, thanks for sharing. Lord of the Flies was indeed more meaningful when I re-read it at an older age.

I first read Orwell's 'Animal Farm' in 5th grade and got teased for reading a kiddie book. It became part of my kid's mandatory reading list when they were in 5th or 6th grade. I don't think schools are assigning this one.

Great story. I think it’s interesting that, conversely to Lord of the Flies, these boys were bored kids acting out (they stole the boat) and the situation they found themselves in actually brought out amazing character, compassion and resourcefulness. Pretty inspiring.

iratollah wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2020 4:51 pm Good link, thanks for sharing. Lord of the Flies was indeed more meaningful when I re-read it at an older age.

I first read Orwell's 'Animal Farm' in 5th grade and got teased for reading a kiddie book. It became part of my kid's mandatory reading list when they were in 5th or 6th grade. I don't think schools are assigning this one.

I’d be surprised if they assign anything written by George Orwell below graduate school level classes in social justice theory today, on the notion that his brand of calling out authoritarian collectivism for what it is, is a dangerous notion which cannot be entrusted to the easily malleable. They must be "protected" from such ideas until their indoctrination has firmly taken hold. In fact, I’m fairly certain that most (but certainly not all) of the educational establishment would have no problem with public burnings of Orwell's books. The ones that object would be largely confined to STEM areas of studies, and it is well known that their opinions in matters of properly inculcating the correct values into students don’t really count.

My very liberal, democrat, true social justice activist, humanities professor father would be rolling in his grave (if we hadn’t cremated him) if he saw what passes for a "liberal" education today. OTH, his generation of liberal teachers/professors had bled in places like Iwo Jima and Normandy, and they actually understood and cherished the general values of liberty they had fought for .... whether or not they were right or wrong in the end about ideas of big gov’t and free versus managed economies.

The vast majority of today's teachers/academics have never had to put their health and lives on the line to protect the values of liberty, and so they are perfectly comfortable suppressing books that warn children against giving it up too easily, and are instead teaching them to put their faith in their "superiors" to guide them along the "correct" path. And of course, only they get to decide who does the guiding. It’s a devilishly clever system, isn’t it?

I’m sure that, somewhere, there are little dust devils of my dad's ashes, whirling furiously at what has become.

I read in junior high the following
Lord of the flies: in the abscense of "Society" human devolve into animals
Animal Farm: All animals are equal but some are more equal than others! Power Corrupts, Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely!
Jonathan Livingston Seagull: this one was down right weird! I believe the jest of it was the human mind can make you greater than you are!

My very first term paper in 9th grade in high school, assigned in September and due in December, was to compare and contract 5 Utopian and anti-Utopian novels. The assigned novels were Fahrenheit 451, Gulliver's Travels, Lord of the Rings, Brave New World, and 1984.

Boy did it set me up for disappointment when I got a different teacher in 11th grade and he assigned books like The Mill on the Floss.

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I also had to read "The Pearl" and then write what my take away was about the story! Soooo in my youthful enthusiasm I wrote that the shot taken at the end of the story was ballistically impossible! Teacher informed me that wasn't what she was wanting (she was typical liberal) and yes, I was baiting her!
I got a C on my paper!

crazy2medic wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2020 12:15 pm I also had to read "The Pearl" and then write what my take away was about the story! Soooo in my youthful enthusiasm I wrote that the shot taken at the end of the story was ballistically impossible! Teacher informed me that wasn't what she was wanting (she was typical liberal) and yes, I was baiting her!
I got a C on my paper!

Ah my biggest gripe about English / Literature class! Read this story and regurgitate what the teacher or professor thinks about it for an A.

Fortunately the better ones were not like that but my junior year teacher, a loud and outspoken liberal, was very much so. It also didn't help that I thought Thoreau and "Walden" was overrated and he loved him.

SQLGeek wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2020 5:08 pm

crazy2medic wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2020 12:15 pm I also had to read "The Pearl" and then write what my take away was about the story! Soooo in my youthful enthusiasm I wrote that the shot taken at the end of the story was ballistically impossible! Teacher informed me that wasn't what she was wanting (she was typical liberal) and yes, I was baiting her!
I got a C on my paper!

Ah my biggest gripe about English / Literature class! Read this story and regurgitate what the teacher or professor thinks about it for an A.

LOL, all brings back memories!!!

English teachers were suppressing my non-PC creativity early on... but what really lowered my opinion of them the most was that English teachers loved all things verbose when most of the world STRONGLY prefers CLEAR and CONCISE communication.