Comment on Unified Theory of American Reality
cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Now that I think about it, the situation in the US really does play out like an unconscionable large version of Lord of the Flies.
Comment on Unified Theory of American Reality
cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Now that I think about it, the situation in the US really does play out like an unconscionable large version of Lord of the Flies.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is pretty spot on.
Ralph was just trying to help organize and make everyone’s lives better. He was ignored and his life was threatened.
Simon, the insightful one, was trying to get people to see reason to quell their mania. He was murdered.
Piggy, the intelligent and compassionate one, was murdered.
erin@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Intelligent, compassionate, and a vessel for the author’s racist worldview.
Don’t mind me. I hate that book, and I hate that it’s taught in every school as if it has anything important to say. We’ve run the Lord of the Flies experiment, both accidentally and very intentionally. Every time, we’ve demonstrated that humans are better than that, and the author’s beliefs about human nature were both very incorrect and very racist.
I still resent being forced to debate my classmates about whether human nature was intrinsically “good” or “evil,” directly after reading that book, even though it was 25 years ago. I was the lone voice on the side of “good,” for lack of a “good and evil are subjective terms, but nonetheless humans are empathetic and this book is horseshit” team. I got dogpiled by 20 some other students for about 45 minutes. Fuck you Ms. Brown, and fuck you William Golding. That book has nothing important to say other than exposing its author’s racist insecurities.
KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Stanford Prison Experiment. Slavery. Lynch mobs. Segregationists. Anti-Feminists. Prison-Industrial Complex. The majority of the country voting for the leader passing out signs that said “MASS DEPORTATIONS”. Maybe there’s some inherent cruelty to the mainland USA. Maybe there’s still too much lead particles in the air. As someone who has never left the mainland, I’ve seen overwhelming evidence to the “non-empathetic” side. Or, perhaps, the majority of people are passive, and cruelty is most capable of spurring people to action.
erin@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
The majority certainly doesn’t choose the active misery of others, and on the scale of the Lord of the Flies setting, humans have consistently shown collaboration and mutual aid. We’ve documented many instances of stranded groups, and even some people that volunteered to be stuck on a raft together for months, and they always choose to work together, despite their differences. Capitalism, fascism, and radical individualism/nationalism are the root of the societal scale evils, because they’re ideologies that propagate in the hands of the few that are willing to benefit at the cost of the many. Humans have not always lived under capitalism.
SaraTonin@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a sham.
The broader point, though, is that the scenario of The Lord of the Flies has actually happened. We’ve had a small group of kids trapped on an island for an extended period of time and what happened is that they built a peaceful and harmonious society, which included spending time and resources caring for one of their number who broke their leg.
angrystego@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Stanford prison experiment was manipulative, it was not real science - look it up. The rest of the bad things you talk about are very real and an evidence of the evil side of humanity. That doesn’t mean there’s no good side, though.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
The average person’s attitude is if they aren’t family, they are tools. It’s literaly ingrained in our culture.
“Mind your own business”, “It’s a dog eats dog world” etc.
Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
usa is the whole world
NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
but “good” and “evil” are human constructs meaning they can’t be intrinsic? That teacher was a idiot.
dbtng@eviltoast.org 3 weeks ago
I think its good that you had to read something you didn’t agree with in school. Look what its done for you.
Get over high school. Soon enough, you won’t remember Ms. Brown’s name.
erin@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
My problem is not with reading something I disagree with, it’s how it is taught. It was not taught in a way to demonstrate bias, and the author’s views were never even discussed. There was nearly no critical discussion about the validity of the book’s message, it was taken at face value. That’s not teaching.
PeacefulForest@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
erin@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
When Piggy drops racial slurs in reference to the barbaric behavior of the other boys. Essentially, “We’re white! We’re better than this. Stop acting like [slur].”