How it all goes Downhill
How it all goes Downhill
By Eli Zimmerman
William Golding’s fictional novel, Lord of the Flies, is a world renowned classic that tells the story of a group of grade school boys who hailed from the Home Counties. The boys have been stranded on a deserted island. In order to survive the kids must work together, so they appoint a chief via the democratic process of voting. They decide on Ralph, who is one of the eldest. As the book progresses we see another figure rise to power, Jack another older boy, who challenges Ralph’s position and wins it over by using fear to his advantage. Jack overthrows Ralph by using fear to unite the boys, and gets them to join him. The book raises the point that fear and misinformation lead to the unwinding of democracy. Recent political events in the United States and Europe confirm that relationship.
Towards the beginning of the book the boys join in meeting to discuss what the group's agenda should be. They use a conch shell as a tool to create order. Whoever has the shell in their hand is the only person that can talk. As they talk, a little boy who is too shy to talk raises a point about a mysterious beast on the island. At one point a very young boy attempts to share what he has seen in the woods. With a little reiteration by Piggy, the boy tells the group what he has seen. “Now he says it was a beastie.” “Beastie?” “A snake thing.” “Ever so big.” “He saw it.” (35). Although the older kids take the little boy”s comment as a joke at first, the beast morphs into the theme of fear recurring throughout the rest of the book. The creation of fear is what drives the book’s main plot. Fear of the beast subliminally fuels every single decision made by the boys throughout the rest of the novel. The beast’s actual physical appearance is not important rather the symbol of fear it represents is what drives the plot. With the beast in play, the boys have a real life representation for their fear. The symbol makes the boys disorganized and leads to trust issues. Before they know it, the power of fear begins to take control of the group.
Much later in the book we see that things have gotten out of control for Ralph and his trusty advisor, Piggy. Jack has distanced himself from the group and has developed a few very close allies. As the story progresses,so does Jack’s power. We see the boys flocking to the leader who shows the least amount of so called fear. Some of Jack’s friends have stolen Piggy’s glasses, forcing Piggy to go and retrieve them. The rock struck Piggy, a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. (181). Jack offers the boys protection and food if they join him. While Ralph sticks with the original plan of lighting a signal fire and hoping help comes. We can assume Jack is able to persuade the boys to join him, because of the promises he makes. When people are uneducated and fear the unknown they seek refuge and protection. Jack seems fearless which is the only thing the kids look for. Because of fear they toss rational thinking and the possible instability of Jack’s personality out the window, just for protection from the unknown. The shattering of the conch represents the end of order and democracy within the group. Fear unravels democracy. With order turned on its head, Jack has the ability to strike and take his place as leader. He chooses to do this with force, and anarchy is unleashed within the group.
A New York Times article, written by Amanda Taub states that Western democracy is on the decline. If you look at the numbers you begin to see America is falling behind on global test scores. This article concludes that a majority of America is becoming less and less intelligent. As of 2017, 75% of silicon valley’s skilled labor needed to be filled by people on the H1 B1 visa. The fact that Americans are increasingly less educated not only affects jobs, but also impacted the recent presidential election. As seen in the last election millions of Americans turned away from a progressive candidate in Hillary Clinton, for a more conservative option, Donald Trump. Donald Trump planned to remove many parts of structured democracy, like the freedom of the press. A study by Fivethirtyeight surveyed 981 counties and found that 48 of the top 50 counties with the highest number of people possessing a four year degree voted for Clinton. But in the 50 counties with the lowest number of four year degrees Trump won the majority. Trump ran on the promises that he would build a wall to shelter America from Mexico and defeat ISIS. Many will debate that Mexico and ISIS should not be the top of America’s agenda. So through his ability to invoke fear and appeal to the uneducated side of America he won the presidency. A similar scenario is also found in the book when Jack promises safety from a thing that the boys couldn’t confirm existed.
On June 23, 2016 the United Kingdom (UK) decided to leave the European Union (EU). The EU is a European trade partnership between 28 countries. Experts call it a liberal trade deal because it involves single market free trade that is backed by the democratic side of Europe. The EU brings Europe closer together through trade ties. In 2016 a campaign was started by the right wing Unionist party to have the UK leave the EU. The party stated that dangerous immigrants were coming into the country due to very few trade regulations and poor border security. Just like Trump, the party ran on a campaign that generated fear. The movement began to pick up momentum and eventually came down to a vote. The day after the vote Brexit was issued, Google reported that the second highest search was “What is the EU?”. The vote in favor of Brexit was backed by a majority of uneducated voters. A study done by Telegraph showed that citizens in the UK lacking a university education who were over the age of 65, overwhelmingly voted against the EU. This outcome confirms that fear and limited education jeopardize the principles of democracy.
Because we all have the capacity to fear everyday things, emotion plays a major role in our decision making. When fear is mixed with limited education, we see people making conservative and protective decisions. As illustrated by Lord of the Flies fear resulting from information that is not critically analyzed is the beginning of the end for democracy.
Works cited:
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Taub, Amanda. "How Stable Are Democracies? ‘Warning Signs Are Flashing Red’." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Nov. 2016. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/world/americas/western-liberal-democracy.html?_r=0
Natesilver538. "Education, Not Income, Predicted Who Would Vote For Trump." FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight, 28 Nov. 2016. Web. 31 Mar. 2017. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/
Dunford, Ashley Kirk; Daniel. "EU referendum: How the results compare to the UK's educated, old and immigrant populations." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 24 June 2016. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.
Zimmerman, Neetzan. "UK's second most Googled question after Brexit: 'What is the EU?'" TheHill. N.p., 24 June 2016. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.
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