but “good” and “evil” are human constructs meaning they can’t be intrinsic? That teacher was a idiot.
Comment on Unified Theory of American Reality
erin@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks agoIntelligent, 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.
NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
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.
dbtng@eviltoast.org 2 weeks ago
And its long in the past, my friend. But the more you reveal, the more foundational the experience sounds for you.
Step back. Look again. It helped make you who you are.erin@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Well, I’m glad you have a such a broad picture of my psychology from a one off Internet comment about an even that I hadn’t thought about in years. It didn’t make me who I am, the people I chose to spend time with and the excellent teachers that taught me did. Encouraging a lopsided debate about a topic where even discussing the racist bias isn’t allowed is not something that teacher did to help teach or form me.
PeacefulForest@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Where in the book does it reveal racism?
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].”
PeacefulForest@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh dang, I just read this book for the first time and did not catch that. I wonder if it was removed from my version… 🤔
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.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
It’s possible that despite a “good” nature, humans still have a few, but very fatal flaws that cause them to keep electing the worst people. This is a key problem that makes every other characteristic irrevelanr.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
I’ve always appreciated Douglas Adam’s take on this:
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.
NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
In hindsight it’s kind of surprising that people wouldn’t expect most of the kids to work together to help eachother survive because that’s why we have cities, towns, villages, etc…
Valmond@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The island? Planet earth.
😁
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.
KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Just looked it up. I now see the guards were told to abuse the prisoners. Thank you for informing me. I was unaware.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
I prefer to take a more The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street approach to the worst acts of humanity, is not that it comes from a place of evil, but instead a place of fear that a very small handful have used to manipulate those who wouldn’t commit these acts otherwise.
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
KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
It’s the same people throughout. The post is about the USA.