A Red American Analyzes Lord of the Flies.
Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite books. It is a book that can, in my opinion, be of all things to all men: a brilliant social commentary, a pessimistic analysis of the human character, an answer to the debate about humanity's natural tendencies.
I wonder how Red America would view this chilling commentary on civilization and chaos.
Note this isn't my personal view of the book, or any attempt to make a definite statement about the state of nature. I don't believe I am qualified to make that kind of judgement. This is how I feel someone would view the message of the book from a red-tinted perspective. And if some things aren't fully accurate, then it is the reflection of the in-universe bias of the writer.
The Miami Herald-Literary Section
Cynicism, Hobbes and the Leviathan, and the Acceptance of Tyranny-William Golding's Lord of the Flies
March 10, 2005
Harold Martinez
Coming to London was...an incredible shock to say the least.
My grandparents on both my parents' sides were refugees from Cuba during the late MacArthur years.
The stereotype of Cubans being more Red than Marx himself was no exaggeration in my flat. My parents and family friends would often gush about the day when they would bring revolution to the "cochinos", as I often heard them describe the Cubamerican elites. (Along more colorful language I will not describe on this review.) Whereas most kids practice the violin on Sunday, my parents were giving me combat practice just in case the eventual liberation of Cuba would come.
This all the education I received made me think every Blue country as this evil and wretched place.
So when my class trip to Spain had to be diverted to London Heathrow due to...turbulence, I was scared out of mind. My first instinct was "the bobbies are gonna kill me" [1], as I was always taught that the British government were tyrants who were ready to slaughter the first Red they came across, since my grandparents themselves had been nastily persecuted the bougies.
So I was in for a massive shock when the first British person who ever approached me wasn't some bougie thug, but a kindly stewardess who escorted me to a terminal.
Then we learned the plane was grounded for a few hours, so we were allowed to explore the city of London. Under supervision, of course, for "reasons."
Having grown up the way I did, my impression of England was Oliver Twist being punished for asking for more, or streets full of impoverished beggars being mistreated by a corrupt ruling class, and where all children were chimney sweeps who never got to go to school. Instead London was...nicer than I imagined. The streets seemed clean, the people were well-dressed, and there were plenty of cars.
For a small moment, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, my parents exaggerated when talking about their time in Cuba. Maybe the capitalists were not nearly as they said, and peaceful coexistance was possible, as my more mellow friends debated with me.
But then we saw a homeless man lying in the street, I asked my British tour guide, this dark-haired 20 something with a posh voice and the name "Alistair, who was going to help that poor man stay alive.
"Nothing you can do," Alastair muttered with a shrug and a small smile, and then he immediately changed the subject, asking me if I was a Venezuelan. And with that, I suddenly realized my parents were right all along. All their invective, their diatribe, their tongue-lashings didn't do it justice. Things were as bad as they said. My inner Cuban was prepared to give me a tongue lashing, but my teacher kept me under control. Still I couldn't help but notice, to my deeply-hidden outrage, the complete disregard other passerbyers showed for the man lying in the streets. Had it not been for our schedule, I was sorely tempted to go and help that poor man up.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, and the Culture of Apathy
There are two reasons, in my opinion, why the tide of revolution has been slowed and much of the world remains under capitalist rule.
The ruling classes of today in Blue nations understand the maxim of Robert Kennedy: he who make a peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. While they bash Red subversion, they embrace just enough elements of socialism to deter the revolutions that destroyed the Romanovs, the 1776 Constitution America, and the old French monarchy under Louis XVI.
But this does not make them good people. The British aristocracy especially only change when their selfish interests are threatened. They didn't clean up the filth its residents had been living with until the smell got so bad, they couldn't work in parliament.
In the London I saw, most people have enough of a good life that they don't feel the need to overthrow their government. Their children aren't being fed gruel and forced to work in dangerous factories. Unions do exist and get some concessions from the ruling class. The streets are clean enough. The food isn't too toxic. And people have just enough TV and beer to distract them.
Modern day capitalist nations are "bread and circuses" brought to perfection.
But the other issue is that capitalist nations are able to convince their subjects this: that this is the best things can be. Not that Red nations are bad, but because the idea of something better is impossible to achieve. Alistair wasn't a sadist or some aristocrat. He, like many British, accept the excesses of the ruling class.
This attitude is best typified by Thomas Hobbes, and his believe that humans, without some kind of structure, would lead lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes was a man who lived through the horrors of the English civil war, and what he experienced convinced him that the only way human beings can be structured, the only way to avoid the chaos he so dreaded, was Leviathan: an absolute government to whom all would supplicate themselves too. That human history is not class warfare, but simply a war between utter chaos and those trying to bring order to society.
Underneath their democratic veneers, the Blue nations of the world are in fact Leviathans. But their power comes not from merely conditioning the masses to distrust revolution, but to simply believe that the boot on their necks is the best way, and the only way human beings can live.
One man in particular came around to this idea, William Golding. Like Hobbes, Golding himself was traumatized by the horror of war. The Second World War saw the most "civilized" people in the world commit the most horrible crimes of modern history. But while the Second World War was pure capitalism run amok in its evil, fascist interpretation, Golding remain wedded to the cynical mindset instilled into him by his capitalist overlords, and wrote a book which argued that man without absolute authority was a pure savage beast.
Lord of the Flies, the Modern Day Leviathan
Lord of the Flies has a relatively simple plot: several school boys end up on a deserted island and attempt to build a functioning society while also looking for ways call for help.
But they gradually lose their minds over the course of the story: they start believing in the existance of a "beastie", the head choir boy named Jack gradually becomes a power mad dictator, they forget about their attempt to be rescued, the boys who argue for civilization are brutally murdered, and eventually the boys set the entire island on fire, and while this leads to them being inadvertantly rescued, they weep over what they've become and are made aware of the true darkness that lurks inside every person.
The book's message is plain: without a boot neck, we are all savage children who would murder our own best friends and burn our cities to the ground.
But within the book, the truth is this: the evils of humanity are not born from human beings having no authority to reign us in, but the very actions of Leviathan himself.
Jack Merridew is Not Anarchy, but Leviathan Himself.
Merridew is a character who supposedly represents savagery: he wears face paint, organizes tribal dances among the kids he has manipulated, hunts for meat, and is quick to kill people.
But this is not the act of a savage: this is the act of a wannabe Leviathan.
The evils of society are not born from simply the innate savage impulses of man, but from those humans sought power and pure wealth at the expense of others, and manipulated man's worst tendencies to that end.
King Leopold of Belgium claimed to be "civilizing" the people of Central Africa, but in fact created a murderous colonial regime so awful, even the racists of the time found it too terrible. The Nazis claimed they were defending the Old World from savage Judeo-Bolshevism, but in fact unleashed the most unabashed evil in modern history. The evils their armies unleashed upon their enemies were not the "savage impulses" of man being unleashed, but the result of men being manipulated into seeing their fellow human beings as vermin needing to die, or simple-minded children too feeble to know what is best for themselves.
Jack Merridew's rise to power doesn't come about because the boys on the island are eager for murder. The cadaver of a pilot lands on the island, and the children are convinced that a strange "beastie" is threatening their tiny oasis. Jack's power comes from his ability to manipulate the fear of the children to defend themselves against "the beastie".
Merridew is a wannabe autocrat, and like all wannabe autocrats, the preservation of their power is their top priority. The worst of Jack's misdeeds, the brutal killing of Piggy, the torture of his opponents, and his willing to set fire to the island just to smoke out his rival Ralph, are not a savage operating free from the constraints of society, but someone wanting to build society according to his whims.
MacArthur and his cabal rose to power because the structures of the political system ran roughshot over their interests and so they sought to destroy them. The conch ran roughshot over Jack Merridew's lust for power, and so it was destroyed along with Piggy.
Golding's book makes the argument for Leviathan, but in reality, he describes how a Leviathan-type of government is formed.
Leviathan Shall Not Endure
The UASR is not utopia. The creation of a workers' state has not eliminated the evils of man. Bullies still exist in our schools along with anti-social behavior, and superstition still affect us.
But what our society has done is to educate man to resist those caprices and to work with his fellow man. To teach him that problems do have solutions, that there is a world beyond the corrupt Levithans that have existeed since civilization, and one does not have to supplicate himself to a master to earn the crumbs of life. To teach him there is more to life beyond the vapid accumulation of wealth and power.
Capitalism teaches us that Leviathan, whether democratic or fascist, is the only mankind can organize itself.
But the Leviathan is not invincible. Even though the Leviathan of Capitalism hangs over much of the world, it still must make concessions in order for it to continue to enjoy its meals.
The Jack Merridews of the world may have power, but when faced with a mighty proletariat, history has proven they will fall. In many cases, one Leviathan replaced another, but in the UASR, we have found an alternative to that Leviathan, a system by which man's best atittudes and beliefs are allowed to spread.
While the spread of global revolution seems to be stunted, history shows that universal brotherhood is the final endpoint, and that the Leviathan itself is not the permanent condition. The truth is that all Leviathans destroy themselves. The same way Jack Merridew's Leviathan burned itself to the ground in a fit of megalomania, so did the Leviathan of Nazi Germany and Constitutional America.
Leviathan is not the rule of history, but a structure with a limited time frame. Even when Leviathan dominated, mans goodness and desire to help still shines through.
[1] My dad came from a Jewish household, and feared something similar the first time he entered a church.