Map of island:
https://goo.gl/maps/DRmA2F5roGeHmyKs7
And Wikipedia page:
When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
41–50 of 212 posts
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be a voracious consumer of fiction, but somehow critical reading of Lord of the Flies knocked that out of me in sophomore high school English. I think it was all the deeper meaning analysis I was forced to do moreso than the book. It just seemed like we were going far beyond the author's intention in a joyless analysis exercise.
> I think it was all the deeper meaning analysis I was forced to do moreso than the book. It just seemed like we were going far beyond the author's intention in a joyless analysis exercise. That was literally my entire high school honors English program. You must interpret everything, to the satisfaction of the English teacher, or else. It quite reliably took people who absolutely loved reading and made them hate boo…
I was also one of those students who loved to read going into high school only to have it beaten out of me by English teachers over-analyzing everything. But... as an adult I can definitely see and appreciate the value of it.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen comments on r/TheHandmaidsTale along the lines of “why do people keep bringing up abortion laws here it has nothing to do with this show!” or have discussed Avenue 5 or South Park or some other satire with someone only to realize they’ve _completely_ missed the underlying message the writer(s) had made exceedingly obvious.
I remember my teacher used to talk about the “what level” and the “so what level” and he definitely went overboard in exploring the so what level but I’m also grateful I’m not blind to it. I think there are a surprising number of people who are unaware of any meaning beyond the literal words they read or hear.
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#43From the other end of the spectrum, a famous case of (adults) getting shipwrecked and going batshit insane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavia_(1628_ship)
To be fair, it didn’t help that they left a psychopath in charge.
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#44It's not quite as simple as "it works like 'Lord of the Flies' or it doesn't". Nicholas Christakis, in his book "Blueprint", devotes a chapter to a database that he and his grad students made of shipwrecks, where the survivors lived long enough, in enough isolation, that they had to more or less put together a temporary society. There were lots of cases where they turned on each other, and lots of cases where they di…
Nice review. In a sense I find this something akin to the late David Graeber point on it’s column about bulling. How you can find data pointing towards the human society propensity for violence, and also data of human society propensity for cooperation and refusal to engage on violence even when confronted with losing their way of living, although he also raises the point when historically there has been more propensity to consider only the violent ugly aspect, as you can almost certainly find it on people who appeal to “human nature”.
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#45That's a wonderful story and and an uplifting rebuttal to Lord of the Flies. But to be fair, six Tongan boys were probably far hardier and well equipped than the typical British schoolboy of that time would have been. It seems they thought nothing of stealing a fishing boat and heading to sea, and they most likely had abundant life skills already - they basically relocated from life on one pacific island to another.…
I think it's fair to say "don't bet against human ingenuity and spirit".
I mean, we're here aren't we? We are alive, because of the will, intellect, and energy of those who came before us. Survival is essential to living things, so why expect that humans will degenerate to their worst in the absence of civilization rather than come together and make the best of it?
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#46This story is examined nicely in Rutger Bregman's book Humankind: A Hopeful History . TL:DR; It turns out that in the real world, nothing like the Lord of the Flies happened; in fact the opposite happened. Highly recommend Bregman's book, by the way, which shoots down many of the faulty foundations of what we take for granted as fact today about human nature. I believe this article is an excerpt from the book.
Does the book cover the experience more from
the boys’ perspective? I was a little disappointed the article was so light on the details of how they managed.
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#47My high school's district required students to read The of Lord of the Flies. My freshmen English teacher hated the book so much he broke district requirements and told my class he was giving everyone A's on that assignment. He asked the class to read any substitute book in its place. To this day I still consider him to be a wise teacher.
I used to be a voracious consumer of fiction, but somehow critical reading of Lord of the Flies knocked that out of me in sophomore high school English. I think it was all the deeper meaning analysis I was forced to do moreso than the book. It just seemed like we were going far beyond the author's intention in a joyless analysis exercise.
I already had the skepticism in high school to think “How do you know what they wanted?”
English got worse for me in undergrad so I never reached the real experts.
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be a voracious consumer of fiction, but somehow critical reading of Lord of the Flies knocked that out of me in sophomore high school English. I think it was all the deeper meaning analysis I was forced to do moreso than the book. It just seemed like we were going far beyond the author's intention in a joyless analysis exercise.
> I think it was all the deeper meaning analysis I was forced to do moreso than the book. It just seemed like we were going far beyond the author's intention in a joyless analysis exercise. That was literally my entire high school honors English program. You must interpret everything, to the satisfaction of the English teacher, or else. It quite reliably took people who absolutely loved reading and made them hate boo…
Luckily I just never made an effort - I got by reading cliff notes and writing C/B grade essays. Enjoyment of reading intact.
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#49[deleted]
Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)
#50These children set out together with the intent to escape, an entirely different scenario than the novel. I imagine a racially diverse set of kids in the novel and my take is genocide would happen fairly frequently. Lord of the Flies is a wonderfully insightful book on human nature.