What a timely, “word in season”. Thank you, Matthew, for discerning and articulating the true nature of the Spirit that is calling us forward, in this challenging, bewildering season, to renew our love, faith, determination, vision, hope, compassion … in what it means to be human, fully human: full of “Ubuntu“ as African communities refer: “I am, because you are” — without one another, we are diminished, together we are made more whole.
Surely, this is the challenge of our time: to learn, relearn, what it means to be human, amidst a culture that undermines humanity: encouraging people to avoid responsibility for themselves, giving it over to government and corporation’s, teaching us to fear trouble and suffering, rather than embracing them as a pathway to a more abundant life.
I love this Mathew. I came across this story a few years back and felt so relieved. Nicholas Christakis has written about the many historic examples of, I guess ,"our better angels" revealed in trying times. Like you, I am short-term pessimistic but long-term very hopeful that we'll get through this mess into something much more beautiful. I suspect the technocrats forget that the ordinary person is inherently not too bad. Thank you
I'd like to think this story represents humankind, but I suspect it reflects more the culture those boys had come out of. It was a culture of community.
In Greece, during the "financial crash" which brought so much misery and devastated the economy, the Greeks managed to survive and rebuild using the barter system and working in "community".
"Increasingly, I look to the real world for understanding of humanity (or anything else), and am skeptical of every fictional signal, no matter how much I'm begged to believe it. Has the real world spoken about the Lord of the Flies?"
This is a wonderful example of how most of us do find our better selves when we are faced with the challenge and forced to find collaborative solutions. My long time favorite, real world inspirational faith in humanity to save ourselves is 9-11 Boatlift story. Uncle Sam? pffft.. regular good folks!
Wow. I was bombarded with LotF in school and realised in my 20s that the teacher's esteem for it, and my having been directed to read it 3 times, created exactly what is required to put me to sleep: distrust in the truth of my self, the heart of who I am. That has taken many years to work through and out of my mind-body system. Thank you for providing this wonderful demonstration of the lie of LotF. (And this is a rather curious synchronicity, as my sister mentioned LotF the other day to create a fictional account of a guru retreat on a remote island going 'Lord of the Flies' when the guru becomes incapacitated due to sickness.)
Indeed. That we are already in a kind of un-civil information war seems obvious to me. But it is one the media inflames at every opportunity, and by way of politicians and marketeers, divide the people that we may be ruled. Scare us silly so as to nudge us to look anywhere but up.
Golding wasn't writing about kids. He was writing about adults gone feral, and mostly upper class adults for whom such depravity and ruthlessness has been a way of life for decades, always just below the surface. Whether he knew that I don't know, but he certainly did kids a disservice. It is just a rehash of social darwinism, which is a crock. It is not competition but cooperation that is the primary rule.
Yes the lie that humans are violent savages unless governed by 'civilised' bosses, has been around so long that it is seen as indisputable fact when it is nothing of the sort. But it serves those who wish to control us well of course ie that left to our own devices we are vicious amoral selfish and more. Those taking over the world ie Klaus Schwab (WEF and the world leaders it trains) Gates etc own the narrative so that these psychopath billionaire Eugenicists are sold to the world as selfless Philanthriopists. Of course Darwins work helps also ie that we were originally apes ie wild animals. No proof at all of this and the 'missing link' that connects the 2 species over time has been found despite centuries of searching.
If I showed you a missing link you'd point to the gaps either side of it and say "Now there's TWO missing links!"
Of all the theories in science none have drawn as much scrutiny and determined, even desperate attempts to prove it wrong. Every experiment, every test, just proves it even more correct.
That doesn't mean there are no gaps in our knowledge of the last few MILLION YEARS, indeed it would be more unbelievable if there weren't any, wouldn't it?
Just visit some of our inner cities today to see wild animals in human form. We have the same 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 nose, 1 mouth, teeth, bones, hair, skin, muscles, guts, genitalia and assholes as all the other mammals - but we're special? We fart, fight and fuck like them, but we're special? We eat food, drink water and shit n piss just like animals, but we're special? We experience fear, lust and rage just like them, but we're special?
The only thing special about us is we believe we're special and worship invisible alpha males in the sky.
We were not so much "originally" wild animals - we still are! Except now we wear clothes and use pencils, even though none of us know how to make a pencil, let alone the keyboard you're writing on.
I do not believe you have assessed the 'evidence' ie pieces of skulls & skulls which some archaeologists desperately try to link to human skulls. We do not know what animals think about of course but rather than insult animals and say that the worst humans are like them, why not consider that all creatures might have the ability to sense 'divine' or non material world? We can speak which of course makes us think that we are different to other animals but all animals communicate with each other and with other species it seems.
Humans behave worse than animals it seems ie kill their own species in billions. But most people do not behave badly but are surprisingly altruistic given the system of profit before people that we live in ie Capitalism.
Humans are easily influenced it seems which is a shame eg the super rich (psychopaths often) who rule the world, create wars for profit, create 'pandemics' for profit of trillions a year & design the injections so they kill billions which is happening now. Any bad behaviour in humans is inevitably learned - from family, peers, MSM, Social Media, world leaders etc. Children are very loving but often they become less so or even the opposite due to having learned bad behaviours. The tribal peoples who have been almost wiped out, teach respect for the earth & everything on it including other people - the chjldren learn this also. But this type of behaviour does not suit the Profit Before People ethos of the world (taught to us by the super rich psychos who own almost everything on earth). Most of our 'progress' serves the super wealthy and enslaves ordinary people in jobs they hate, in places that are ugly and built up ie cities, with very little reward for the large number of hours they spend working for corporations who could not care less about the workers but only care about profit... Humans seem to be innately good until they learn horrible ways to behave from the system we live in. We might be just animals who can talk and write who knows? But if we are I still do not think there is any real proof that we are descended from apes.
We are indeed in a spiritual war, and some of the Kunlangeta are as aware of it as we are. Epstein's island didn't have a temple with a bar lock on the outside for nothing. And you're absolutely right that their baiting us to hate one another distracts from their misdeeds. You can see it in how the right wants to associate Epstein with the Democrats, and the left wants to associate him with Trump, and virtually no attention is paid to the fact that there is an obvious blackmail system being used to enforce the loyalty of corrupt actors across party lines. No one who can think outside of last week's news cycle thinks that island in the Caribbean was an isolated instance. The public needs to start looking for the big picture real quick.
Indeed, I agree with Ms. Douthwaite and Dr. Clements. This is very timely and uplifting, and I thank you for that.
Methinks that Mr. Golding was projecting his own rather twisted psyche into writing that was eagerly picked up and widely praised and distributed for a purpose that was utterly vile in it's core.
In notoriously brutal, inhumane, and horrific "sport", persons are taught to specifically breed and then fight to the bloody death, game-cocks and dogs, til this day (not to mention the evil of the Colosseum), all as the "Arena Masters" are paid for the cock-pit, attendance fees, and inspiring others into the terribleness of it all...inuring them to how savage it is.
They make money, hand over fist.
Impose upon that the story of warfare throughout Mankind's (known) history. It is known as "Blutgeld": the training into the minds and psyches of an entire mass of people (BOTH SIDES!) to kill one another, while the ones who arm them, train them, feed them, then rebuild the ruins of the bloodbath are paid- with compound interest!
That’s very very good. I agree, reading tales of people in extremes, mostly realise that “If we don’t hang together, we shall most assuredly hang separately”.
I don’t think the analogy holds, though.
Because we’re not in a Lord of the Flies scenario, where all the adults have gone, leaving adolescents to run things.
More like the Killing Fields, where a prison guard class - at imminent risk of being murdered - forces others against each other, fighting for insufficient resources.
Good people die sooner, but the killing continues until they run out of people, or the chain of violence snaps, or the leadership vanishes, or an external force intervenes.
A family politics e-mail thread brought up thoughts on this.
When I was younger, most adults I knew and spoke to knew FOR CERTAIN that most politicians are corrupt and not to be trusted, even the ones they happened to agree with.
These days, I see most grown adults reflexively defend politicians they agree with, even horrendous misbehavior by those politicians. They do this because the "tribal-warfare" propaganda has conditioned them to act like any attack on the people they agree with must be defended in order to defend what they agree with socially/fiscally/geopolitically. They've lost their ability to recognize that politics is a horrendously dirty game regardless of who plays it, and the people they agree with are likely outright criminals who just haven't been prosecuted.
This culminated in an e-mail thread wherein I suggested that there was no problem with defending and even voting for a loudmouthed, fat, self-absorbed blowhard (Trump) as long as the net effect was the destruction of the edifice of corrupt GOP establishment politicians, and then suggested the next target should be the establishment democrats for their equal participation in the evils of what they do.
A family member legitimately responded with, "Well, you must want civil war then."
I can only explain that kind of response by imagining that her mind has been warped by tribal-politics-propaganda to reflexively defend the politicians as if they are the embodiment of their own agreed-upon politics.
It's dangerous to have so many adults in a nation who think this way, and it's very sad that America has come to this.
Terrific, timely essay. While reading, the Summerhill School came to mind. Founded by A.S. Neill in 1921 in Leiston, England. It was founded on the view that children are "innately wise and realistic" .
A few years ago, I thought it would be fun to rework my way through books I remembered from my K–12 curriculum, “Lord of the Flies” being one of them. I remember finding it both enthralling and haunting while reading it in middle school, and it may have tinged my faith in the human spirit at the time.
Reading this real-life counterpart was exhilarating and reinforces the beauty, resilience, and resourcefulness I’ve witnessed in the growing resistance over the past two years.
The true story of these boys surviving and thriving thanks to cooperation and friendship gives credence to the saying that truth is stranger than fiction. We tend to believe the dystopian fiction whereas the life affirming truth is much more uplifting.
thank you, I needed that.
agreed!
What a timely, “word in season”. Thank you, Matthew, for discerning and articulating the true nature of the Spirit that is calling us forward, in this challenging, bewildering season, to renew our love, faith, determination, vision, hope, compassion … in what it means to be human, fully human: full of “Ubuntu“ as African communities refer: “I am, because you are” — without one another, we are diminished, together we are made more whole.
Surely, this is the challenge of our time: to learn, relearn, what it means to be human, amidst a culture that undermines humanity: encouraging people to avoid responsibility for themselves, giving it over to government and corporation’s, teaching us to fear trouble and suffering, rather than embracing them as a pathway to a more abundant life.
Great text. Trust between individuals doesn't need governments in the middle.
I love this Mathew. I came across this story a few years back and felt so relieved. Nicholas Christakis has written about the many historic examples of, I guess ,"our better angels" revealed in trying times. Like you, I am short-term pessimistic but long-term very hopeful that we'll get through this mess into something much more beautiful. I suspect the technocrats forget that the ordinary person is inherently not too bad. Thank you
The people in charge of creating this mess, and administrating the "fallout", misjudged us.
I'd like to think this story represents humankind, but I suspect it reflects more the culture those boys had come out of. It was a culture of community.
Then let us build cultures of community.
In Greece, during the "financial crash" which brought so much misery and devastated the economy, the Greeks managed to survive and rebuild using the barter system and working in "community".
It was a beautiful thing.
"Increasingly, I look to the real world for understanding of humanity (or anything else), and am skeptical of every fictional signal, no matter how much I'm begged to believe it. Has the real world spoken about the Lord of the Flies?"
This is a wonderful example of how most of us do find our better selves when we are faced with the challenge and forced to find collaborative solutions. My long time favorite, real world inspirational faith in humanity to save ourselves is 9-11 Boatlift story. Uncle Sam? pffft.. regular good folks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg
Wow. I was bombarded with LotF in school and realised in my 20s that the teacher's esteem for it, and my having been directed to read it 3 times, created exactly what is required to put me to sleep: distrust in the truth of my self, the heart of who I am. That has taken many years to work through and out of my mind-body system. Thank you for providing this wonderful demonstration of the lie of LotF. (And this is a rather curious synchronicity, as my sister mentioned LotF the other day to create a fictional account of a guru retreat on a remote island going 'Lord of the Flies' when the guru becomes incapacitated due to sickness.)
Indeed. That we are already in a kind of un-civil information war seems obvious to me. But it is one the media inflames at every opportunity, and by way of politicians and marketeers, divide the people that we may be ruled. Scare us silly so as to nudge us to look anywhere but up.
Golding wasn't writing about kids. He was writing about adults gone feral, and mostly upper class adults for whom such depravity and ruthlessness has been a way of life for decades, always just below the surface. Whether he knew that I don't know, but he certainly did kids a disservice. It is just a rehash of social darwinism, which is a crock. It is not competition but cooperation that is the primary rule.
Yes the lie that humans are violent savages unless governed by 'civilised' bosses, has been around so long that it is seen as indisputable fact when it is nothing of the sort. But it serves those who wish to control us well of course ie that left to our own devices we are vicious amoral selfish and more. Those taking over the world ie Klaus Schwab (WEF and the world leaders it trains) Gates etc own the narrative so that these psychopath billionaire Eugenicists are sold to the world as selfless Philanthriopists. Of course Darwins work helps also ie that we were originally apes ie wild animals. No proof at all of this and the 'missing link' that connects the 2 species over time has been found despite centuries of searching.
With you up until the missing link silliness.
If I showed you a missing link you'd point to the gaps either side of it and say "Now there's TWO missing links!"
Of all the theories in science none have drawn as much scrutiny and determined, even desperate attempts to prove it wrong. Every experiment, every test, just proves it even more correct.
That doesn't mean there are no gaps in our knowledge of the last few MILLION YEARS, indeed it would be more unbelievable if there weren't any, wouldn't it?
Just visit some of our inner cities today to see wild animals in human form. We have the same 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 nose, 1 mouth, teeth, bones, hair, skin, muscles, guts, genitalia and assholes as all the other mammals - but we're special? We fart, fight and fuck like them, but we're special? We eat food, drink water and shit n piss just like animals, but we're special? We experience fear, lust and rage just like them, but we're special?
The only thing special about us is we believe we're special and worship invisible alpha males in the sky.
We were not so much "originally" wild animals - we still are! Except now we wear clothes and use pencils, even though none of us know how to make a pencil, let alone the keyboard you're writing on.
Crazy how nature do dat?
I do not believe you have assessed the 'evidence' ie pieces of skulls & skulls which some archaeologists desperately try to link to human skulls. We do not know what animals think about of course but rather than insult animals and say that the worst humans are like them, why not consider that all creatures might have the ability to sense 'divine' or non material world? We can speak which of course makes us think that we are different to other animals but all animals communicate with each other and with other species it seems.
Humans behave worse than animals it seems ie kill their own species in billions. But most people do not behave badly but are surprisingly altruistic given the system of profit before people that we live in ie Capitalism.
Humans are easily influenced it seems which is a shame eg the super rich (psychopaths often) who rule the world, create wars for profit, create 'pandemics' for profit of trillions a year & design the injections so they kill billions which is happening now. Any bad behaviour in humans is inevitably learned - from family, peers, MSM, Social Media, world leaders etc. Children are very loving but often they become less so or even the opposite due to having learned bad behaviours. The tribal peoples who have been almost wiped out, teach respect for the earth & everything on it including other people - the chjldren learn this also. But this type of behaviour does not suit the Profit Before People ethos of the world (taught to us by the super rich psychos who own almost everything on earth). Most of our 'progress' serves the super wealthy and enslaves ordinary people in jobs they hate, in places that are ugly and built up ie cities, with very little reward for the large number of hours they spend working for corporations who could not care less about the workers but only care about profit... Humans seem to be innately good until they learn horrible ways to behave from the system we live in. We might be just animals who can talk and write who knows? But if we are I still do not think there is any real proof that we are descended from apes.
We are indeed in a spiritual war, and some of the Kunlangeta are as aware of it as we are. Epstein's island didn't have a temple with a bar lock on the outside for nothing. And you're absolutely right that their baiting us to hate one another distracts from their misdeeds. You can see it in how the right wants to associate Epstein with the Democrats, and the left wants to associate him with Trump, and virtually no attention is paid to the fact that there is an obvious blackmail system being used to enforce the loyalty of corrupt actors across party lines. No one who can think outside of last week's news cycle thinks that island in the Caribbean was an isolated instance. The public needs to start looking for the big picture real quick.
Indeed, I agree with Ms. Douthwaite and Dr. Clements. This is very timely and uplifting, and I thank you for that.
Methinks that Mr. Golding was projecting his own rather twisted psyche into writing that was eagerly picked up and widely praised and distributed for a purpose that was utterly vile in it's core.
In notoriously brutal, inhumane, and horrific "sport", persons are taught to specifically breed and then fight to the bloody death, game-cocks and dogs, til this day (not to mention the evil of the Colosseum), all as the "Arena Masters" are paid for the cock-pit, attendance fees, and inspiring others into the terribleness of it all...inuring them to how savage it is.
They make money, hand over fist.
Impose upon that the story of warfare throughout Mankind's (known) history. It is known as "Blutgeld": the training into the minds and psyches of an entire mass of people (BOTH SIDES!) to kill one another, while the ones who arm them, train them, feed them, then rebuild the ruins of the bloodbath are paid- with compound interest!
We are living in an engineered "cock-pit".
It must, and will, end.
That’s very very good. I agree, reading tales of people in extremes, mostly realise that “If we don’t hang together, we shall most assuredly hang separately”.
I don’t think the analogy holds, though.
Because we’re not in a Lord of the Flies scenario, where all the adults have gone, leaving adolescents to run things.
More like the Killing Fields, where a prison guard class - at imminent risk of being murdered - forces others against each other, fighting for insufficient resources.
Good people die sooner, but the killing continues until they run out of people, or the chain of violence snaps, or the leadership vanishes, or an external force intervenes.
Decide for yourself how this one ends.
Or the villagers grab their torches and pitchforks and head for the manor house....
A family politics e-mail thread brought up thoughts on this.
When I was younger, most adults I knew and spoke to knew FOR CERTAIN that most politicians are corrupt and not to be trusted, even the ones they happened to agree with.
These days, I see most grown adults reflexively defend politicians they agree with, even horrendous misbehavior by those politicians. They do this because the "tribal-warfare" propaganda has conditioned them to act like any attack on the people they agree with must be defended in order to defend what they agree with socially/fiscally/geopolitically. They've lost their ability to recognize that politics is a horrendously dirty game regardless of who plays it, and the people they agree with are likely outright criminals who just haven't been prosecuted.
This culminated in an e-mail thread wherein I suggested that there was no problem with defending and even voting for a loudmouthed, fat, self-absorbed blowhard (Trump) as long as the net effect was the destruction of the edifice of corrupt GOP establishment politicians, and then suggested the next target should be the establishment democrats for their equal participation in the evils of what they do.
A family member legitimately responded with, "Well, you must want civil war then."
I can only explain that kind of response by imagining that her mind has been warped by tribal-politics-propaganda to reflexively defend the politicians as if they are the embodiment of their own agreed-upon politics.
It's dangerous to have so many adults in a nation who think this way, and it's very sad that America has come to this.
Terrific, timely essay. While reading, the Summerhill School came to mind. Founded by A.S. Neill in 1921 in Leiston, England. It was founded on the view that children are "innately wise and realistic" .
A few years ago, I thought it would be fun to rework my way through books I remembered from my K–12 curriculum, “Lord of the Flies” being one of them. I remember finding it both enthralling and haunting while reading it in middle school, and it may have tinged my faith in the human spirit at the time.
Reading this real-life counterpart was exhilarating and reinforces the beauty, resilience, and resourcefulness I’ve witnessed in the growing resistance over the past two years.
Monika Ullmann’s “Invincible Kindness” (https://monikaullmann.substack.com/p/invincible-kindness) makes a lovely companion piece.
The true story of these boys surviving and thriving thanks to cooperation and friendship gives credence to the saying that truth is stranger than fiction. We tend to believe the dystopian fiction whereas the life affirming truth is much more uplifting.