Right now, at this very moment, I have a strong urge to listen to C & C Music Factory's 1990 hit Things That Make You Go Hmm.
This urge has nothing to do with the fact that I (possibly) miss 1990 or that I find the previously mentioned song far superior to Everybody Dance Now. The urge is directly related to the fact that I have just finished teaching William Golding's Lord of the Flies. And after comparing the plot of this classic novel to the less-than impressive years of the Bush administration, I feel the need to say that the plot similarities between the two sagas are most definitely things that are making me go hmm.
In case you slept through sophomore English or have simply forgotten, Lord of the Flies is a novel about a group of British adolescents who get stranded on an island - with no parental supervision. After a few days of eating fruit, disregarding their sanitary habits and eventually getting frightened by a dead parachutist, the majority of the kids turns into savages and disregard any form of logic or rational thought that they had previously possessed.
The following moments from the novel, which was released in 1954, somehow seem quite relevant to the present. (If you haven't read Lord of the Flies then you should be ashamed, and if you intend to read it at some point be advised that the rest of the column contains spoilers.)
I. After the conch (a seashell) is blown and the kids on the island meet for the first time, it becomes clear to the young Brits (as well as the reader) that Ralph and Jack are the two dominant characters. Although Ralph wins the actual election, Jack, who has a group of loyal followers, ends up being chief of the island.
II. Ralph, with advice from the wise but annoying character Piggy, is concerned with trying to maintain order so the kids can survive until they get rescued. They focus on building shelters, gathering food and water, and most importantly, keeping a signal fire going. Jack, who treats the disaster like a vacation, ignores his only real responsibility and allows the signal fire to go out when a ship passes by.
III.When one of the younger children mentions a beast, Jack uses this opportunity to offer protection with his group of hunters. Jack, who had very little interest in long-term problems prior to the creation of the beast, becomes fully engaged in a search for a beast that only exists in the minds of the children. Water, shelter and rescue take a back seat to the beast, which is basically a product of fear.
IV. While engaged in a chanting craze, the hunters kill another boy, Simon. Jack justifies the murder by saying that the beast had taken over Simon's body and can change form at any moment. The fear tactics keep Jack's hunters in line, and the young savages eventually tie Wilfred to a tree, capture Sam'n'Eric and crush Piggy with a rock (after stealing the symbolic glasses).
V. Unconcerned with the environmental consequences of setting fire to the island (such as destroying the food), Jack, destined to capture and kill Ralph, smokes him out (yes, those exact words). The hunters then chase Ralph, causing him to run onto a beach where an officer from the British Navy is standing.
After two murders, a talking pig's head and a final battle, the kids get rescued. Golding makes an interesting point in the novel's notes section: The kids end up in a war that gets stopped by the adult world, which oddly enough, is at war (WWII). Who stops their war?
I happen to think we can learn a great deal by re-reading books. Sure, our president, the leader of the free world, has a self-declared fear of intellectualism. He has made this fact very public. And in the last election, the intellectual, the debater, the thinker ... lost. It takes too much effort to think critically about long term solutions to problems that affect us. It's much easier to go on vacation. Or go hunting.
The Bush administration has made it very clear that they are huge fans of a certain book that is available at any (or many a) church, motel or street corner. Obviously, the book I'm referring to is not Lord of the Flies. However, if you compare the plot of Golding's classic to the years under the Bush administration, one has to think that somebody in the White House must have at least flipped through the Cliff's Notes.
I'm not blaming all of the world's problems on the Republicans, and I'm not saying that Bush is Jack, Roger or the beast. What I am saying is that fear is often created when reasonable people stop thinking. That, above all things, is what we should be afraid of.
Oh, and another C&C Music Factory album. That would be frightening, too.
- Trace Hacquard is a graduate student in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Send him an e-mail at lh303403@ohiou.edu.
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Trace Hacquard
