The boys on the island

In the words of writer Vergílio Ferreira, "the history of man is the history of his utopias," which are expressions of his permanent dissatisfaction. But the personal relationship we establish with the idea of ​​utopia actually depends on an anthropological perspective: how do we view man and his nature?

If we admit that human nature is imperfect, capable of good but also evil, eutopia, the good place, becomes impossible. After all, an imperfect being will not be capable of realizing a perfect project, and it would therefore not be surprising if all utopias turn into dystopias.

But if we deny the idea of ​​human nature, if we deny that there is a way of being human that conditions how we behave, we can believe that it is possible to solve all social problems. It is precisely this exercise that Rafael Hitlodeu, the Portuguese navigator who occupies a central place in Thomas More's Utopia, translates in the following formulation: all social injustices would stem from the existence of private property, so if we abolished private property, we would create a just world of complete happiness for humankind.

Herein lies the core of metapolitical reflection par excellence: if there is no human nature, if everything is a social construct, then anything becomes possible. It would be enough to abolish unjust institutions and reform those that seem wrong to us, no matter how old they are, to create a perfect, problem-free world. Everything would depend on human imagination, which would act without limits, and thus we could dream of a world without property, without police, without prisons, and without borders, à la John Lennon.

We can't deny it: it's a comforting hypothesis, as all good lies are. The only problem is that, as Vergílio Ferreira says, "every utopia pays the price life presents it, that is, the price reality presents it with."

And the reality is that, although we seem naturally inclined to imagine better worlds, we simultaneously reveal ourselves incapable of realizing eutopia. We are, after all, as sacred texts teach, fallen beings, constantly predisposed to sin, error, envy, gluttony, and greed. And it is for this reason that we need to constantly discipline our instincts and resist temptation.

This lesson has been validated by the most recent scientific knowledge, particularly in the fields of social, cognitive, and evolutionary psychology: we are born subject to moral biases that make us more inclined toward manipulation than truth, and cognitive biases that incline us more toward survival than objectivity. Furthermore, we are deeply tribal, which predisposes us to constant aggression.

As Sigmund Freud says, using the Latin expression popularized by Thomas Hobbes: “Homo homini lupus; after all that life and history have shown, who will have the courage to contest this truth?”

It is this truth that William Golding sought to explore in 1954 in his book "Lord of the Flies," a classic that quickly became a cultural touchstone: it was adapted into films in 1963 and 1990, and inspired songs and television programs. It also appears in many school curricula so young readers can discuss the book's theme: if a group of pre-teen boys suddenly found themselves on a desert island with no adults around, what kind of society would they create?

(The issue of them being boys is not a detail here, but that is a topic for another text.)

3. The boys on the island

In later texts and interviews, William Golding clarified that his intention was to write a more realistic account of human nature than the adventure versions that dominated the Anglophone imagination with books like Treasure Island and Swallows and Amazons. The author says: "I decided to adopt the literary convention of boys on an island, but to make them real boys instead of lifeless paper cutouts; and to try to show how the kind of society they developed would be conditioned by their sick and fallen nature."

The author specifically criticizes R.M. Ballantyne's book "The Coral Island," challenging the idea that these boys, a product of British civilization, were radically different from the wild. Besides having lived through World War II, Golding had been a teacher and knew that the games between boys were anything but peaceful and innocent. Civilization is merely a veneer covering an unchanging nature, and nature reveals itself to be fearful and violent as soon as fears and hardships persist.

Thus, faced with an initial happiness of freedom and adventure – “Here, finally, was the place imagined but never reached, leaping into real life” –, the boys would quickly discover that evil and danger lay more within themselves than outside: “Maybe, maybe there is a beast. (…) Maybe it’s just us,” as Simon understands shortly before the tragedy.

Against the notions of the noble savage and natural innocence, Golding reminds us that, even in a paradisiacal place, far from all potentially perverse social institutions and with children who would still be free from the worst social influences, human nature does not change and will always contain, latent, the potential for conflict and violence.

The civilizing effort would represent a continual struggle against our natural tendencies, and not even children, no matter how young, are safe—an idea represented by Roger, a boy the author describes in chapter 4, throwing stones at one of the younger children with that childish malice we recognize at this age. But, "there was a space around Henry, perhaps twenty feet in diameter, into which he dared not point. There, invisible but powerful, held sway the taboo of the old life. Around the crouching child rose the protection of parents, school, police, and laws."

Throughout the book, the civilizing effect loses its strength and Roger himself, in the penultimate chapter, will not hesitate to use violence, being responsible for throwing a huge rock that causes the death of one of the boys.

Golding's argument may, of course, be subject to criticism, but it seems to capture an ancient and instinctive wisdom: there is a human nature that, while not determining us, largely conditions our possibilities for utopia. And it is because this human nature belies Rousseau's noble savage that we must be particularly cautious with our political ambitions—especially when we propose the abolition of ancient institutions that have stood the test of time.

Video about “Lord of the Flies”