6 ms·

Lord of the flies was written shortly after world war 2, which also really happened... I don't take it seriously as a story of what would really happen if boys

Lord of the flies was written shortly after world war 2, which also really happened... I don't take it seriously as a story of what would really happen if boys ended up on an island, but humans killing each other for dumb reasons is not the stuff of fantasy.

filleduchaos 5y ago
"Distasteful" and "dumb" are far from the same thing, and the second world war happened for the former and not the latter.
- anotherman554 5y ago
  It's a distinction without a difference- one could argue a less primitive species wouldn't have found itself caught in world wars. The man-children starting world wars are paralleled by the children-children killing each other on the island.
  - jpttsn 5y ago
    Your ”less primitive” species would have had what reason to split the atom?
    - anotherman554 5y ago
      I think it's fair to say that pacifists do in fact, sometimes invent things.
  - filleduchaos 5y ago
    Reducing the historical and contemporary reasons why humans engage in war to people being "man-children" is a level of sticking-my-head-in-the-sand that I hope to never attain. I've never understood the urge to think of people and things one morally/politically disagrees with as simply stupid, braindead or immature - but there seem to be way too many people who seem incapable of contending with the idea that humans can be intelligent and highly amoral/immoral.
    - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
      I have had the privilege to visit concentration camp museums. I actually didn't have the feeling these were unintelligent savage places. It was actually trying to be orderly, efficient and exceedingly bureaucratic. These institutions were very much a part of civilization. Everything was thought through. They weren't run by man children.
      - filleduchaos 5y ago
        Exactly. My parents lost members of their families to genocide. The people who planned it were not stupid. Ruthless yes, calculating and callous and cruel yes. But not stupid, and it's both amusing and highly frustrating to see people who've mostly never had to confront these things pretend that it's just the work of "man-children" (because gods forbid that we contend with the idea that the intellectualism and intelligence we place on pedestals might ever be morally bankrupt).
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- abraae 5y ago
  Pointless pendatry over words doesn't move discussion forwards. I wouldn't personally use either of those words to describe Nazis, which is largely what WWII "happened for".
  - filleduchaos 5y ago
    I'm curious about what the pointless pedantry is in drawing a distinction between "stupid" and "morally abhorrent".
    - abraae 5y ago
      Those were not the words you used, and (continuing the pointless arguments about words), "morally abhorrent" does not mean the same as distasteful, at least to most english speakers.
      - filleduchaos 5y ago
        The (very clear, to me at least) point was that calling war "dumb" because it is unpleasant is irrational. WW2 was very clearly not the product of stupidity. It's interesting though that you are nitpicking about "distasteful" vs "morally abhorrent" (and will probably do the same about "unpleasant") while calling my point pedantry.
- samatman 5y ago
  World War II happened largely because the Great War happened. I'm comfortable describing the reasons for the Great War as "dumb". Your mileage may vary.
XorNot 5y ago
No, but the why is. It's worthwhile being very careful taking fiction books as a depiction of how peoples minds work, because they're just plainly not - they're a depiction of how a very small subset (authors who publish books) think peoples minds work.
- NateEag 5y ago
  Smaller than that - each author's mind is unique. Any piece of fiction should be considered on its own for whether its characters are plausible and consistent.
croes 5y ago
>humans killing each other for dumb reasons is not the stuff of fantasy. But it's the exception not the norm in human behaviour.
- TheOrange 5y ago
  It depends on whether you have social constructs in place which take priority over human behaviour. Remove all of this.. what happens.. humans will eventually go back to primal instincts
  - croes 5y ago
    And one primal instinct is social bonding.
    - esyir 5y ago
      Which is also the primal instinct that allows for tribalism, which is really important when the other tribe is competing for a scarce resource. Humans are social creatures, but not social with the entire world.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        Not social with the entire world yet. Give us time.
      - simiones 5y ago
        Tribalism is generally closed, but not automatically antagonistic with other tribes. In contexts where there is no forced competition, tribes rarely fight. The modern view is that most likely hunter-gatherer societies, which didn't have fixed lands and had no general reason to be territorial, had little warfare. It is only with agricultural societies, where competition for land becomes a factor, that we start finding evidence of warfare, as far as I understand.
        bernawil 5y ago

filleduchaos 5y ago

"Distasteful" and "dumb" are far from the same thing, and the second world war happened for the former and not the latter.

anotherman554 5y ago
It's a distinction without a difference- one could argue a less primitive species wouldn't have found itself caught in world wars. The man-children starting world wars are paralleled by the children-children killing each other on the island.
- jpttsn 5y ago
  Your ”less primitive” species would have had what reason to split the atom?
  - anotherman554 5y ago
    I think it's fair to say that pacifists do in fact, sometimes invent things.
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  Reducing the historical and contemporary reasons why humans engage in war to people being "man-children" is a level of sticking-my-head-in-the-sand that I hope to never attain. I've never understood the urge to think of people and things one morally/politically disagrees with as simply stupid, braindead or immature - but there seem to be way too many people who seem incapable of contending with the idea that humans can be intelligent and highly amoral/immoral.
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    I have had the privilege to visit concentration camp museums. I actually didn't have the feeling these were unintelligent savage places. It was actually trying to be orderly, efficient and exceedingly bureaucratic. These institutions were very much a part of civilization. Everything was thought through. They weren't run by man children.
    - filleduchaos 5y ago
      Exactly. My parents lost members of their families to genocide. The people who planned it were not stupid. Ruthless yes, calculating and callous and cruel yes. But not stupid, and it's both amusing and highly frustrating to see people who've mostly never had to confront these things pretend that it's just the work of "man-children" (because gods forbid that we contend with the idea that the intellectualism and intelligence we place on pedestals might ever be morally bankrupt).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
abraae 5y ago
Pointless pendatry over words doesn't move discussion forwards. I wouldn't personally use either of those words to describe Nazis, which is largely what WWII "happened for".
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  I'm curious about what the pointless pedantry is in drawing a distinction between "stupid" and "morally abhorrent".
  - abraae 5y ago
    Those were not the words you used, and (continuing the pointless arguments about words), "morally abhorrent" does not mean the same as distasteful, at least to most english speakers.
    - filleduchaos 5y ago
      The (very clear, to me at least) point was that calling war "dumb" because it is unpleasant is irrational. WW2 was very clearly not the product of stupidity. It's interesting though that you are nitpicking about "distasteful" vs "morally abhorrent" (and will probably do the same about "unpleasant") while calling my point pedantry.
samatman 5y ago
World War II happened largely because the Great War happened. I'm comfortable describing the reasons for the Great War as "dumb". Your mileage may vary.

XorNot 5y ago

No, but the why is. It's worthwhile being very careful taking fiction books as a depiction of how peoples minds work, because they're just plainly not - they're a depiction of how a very small subset (authors who publish books) think peoples minds work.

NateEag 5y ago
Smaller than that - each author's mind is unique. Any piece of fiction should be considered on its own for whether its characters are plausible and consistent.

croes 5y ago

>humans killing each other for dumb reasons is not the stuff of fantasy. But it's the exception not the norm in human behaviour.

TheOrange 5y ago
It depends on whether you have social constructs in place which take priority over human behaviour. Remove all of this.. what happens.. humans will eventually go back to primal instincts
- croes 5y ago
  And one primal instinct is social bonding.
  - esyir 5y ago
    Which is also the primal instinct that allows for tribalism, which is really important when the other tribe is competing for a scarce resource. Humans are social creatures, but not social with the entire world.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      Not social with the entire world yet. Give us time.
    - simiones 5y ago
      Tribalism is generally closed, but not automatically antagonistic with other tribes. In contexts where there is no forced competition, tribes rarely fight. The modern view is that most likely hunter-gatherer societies, which didn't have fixed lands and had no general reason to be territorial, had little warfare. It is only with agricultural societies, where competition for land becomes a factor, that we start finding evidence of warfare, as far as I understand.
      - bernawil 5y ago