The Lord of the Flies
Coolmac
Date:
02/09/2005
William Golding obviously didn't have much respect for humanity in general, believing that we were just a small step away from descending into barbarism and savagery. But The Lord of the Flies was fiction, wasn’t it?
I’ve just finished reading about what is going on in New Orleans, the National Guard moving in, people starving, and death everywhere. One is almost reminded of the devastation following the Christmas tsunami earlier this year.
However the two seem quite different. Maybe it is just the way the media is spinning it, but my memory of the aftermath in Asia was that of communities banding together to find and bury all the dead. Aid workers faced an almost impossible job, but they were able to keep helping. While there was looting, and no doubt many other crimes, they did not overshadow the good.
Now turn to New Orleans. The dead lie unattended, the National Guard is moving in with weapons loaded (and fresh from Iraq), and people are complaining that no one is helping. When one woman asked a police officer for help, the reply she got was “Go to hell — it's every man for himself!” What? Isn’t he supposed to be helping the people? When aid workers flew into the city to bring food, and to evacuate the sick and wounded, they were shot at. Shot at?
One tends to think of the US as a first world country, yet when disaster hits, you’re all so fucking selfish that you end up shooting at the people trying to help. Okay, so not all, but when your society has enough people who react like this, one has to start wondering where it all went wrong. I mean I like to try and believe that humans are basically good, but maybe Golding was completely right.
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