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William golding view on human nature
Instinct in lord of the flies
Instinct in lord of the flies
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The lord of the flies was written by William Golding a British philosopher who’s beliefs of human nature is that all humans are inherently evil and need rules to control their evilness. Golding’s lord of the flies is about a group of British school boys that survive a plane crash during world war two and end up on an island where they slowly start to forget their morals and turn into savages hunting carelessly and killing two of their own. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a French philosopher who believes that all humans are inherently good and that society corrupts them which is contrary to Golding’s beliefs on human nature (Rousseau). I believe Rousseau’s philosophy because I believe that people can do much greater things then what society expects and that if people didn’t have to depend on society they would be less tempted to do wrong if they were allowed to be themselves.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a French philosopher in the 18th century that believed that humans are inherently good and that if humans went back to their natural state they would still be compassionate. Rousseau believes that society creates corruption and that if people are left alone they can do much greater things then what society wants. Rousseau believes that society makes you desire things that aren’t necessary and he also believes that the reason man turns savage is because it is only concerned about self-preservation, "let us conclude that, being self-sufficient and subject to so few passions, he could have no feelings or knowledge but such as befitted his situation". (Rousseau) Rousseau believes society causes people to make rules to judge themselves to the point were it ruins and confuses and makes them hide their true nature, "man frequently deviate...
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... in the novel because jack and his hunters were too concerned with finding meat to eat to preserve themselves rather than watching the fire so all of the boys could get rescued. Rousseau states that society makes you desire things that aren’t necessary for example the boys desire to hunt aimlessly lost their chance to be rescued because of their greed.
I believe Rousseau’s philosophy conserving human nature because I believe that people can do much greater things then what society expects and if people were not guided by society and societies prejudices they would be less tempted to do wrong if they were allowed to be themselves. I believe that society can help us be more productive but not necessarily better people. I also believe that without society we might be less productive but not less evil. In conclusion man is basically good even without society.
Rousseau, however, believed, “the general will by definition is always right and always works to the community’s advantage. True freedom consists of obedience to laws that coincide with the general will.”(72) So in this aspect Rousseau almost goes to the far extreme dictatorship as the way to make a happy society which he shows in saying he, “..rejects entirely the Lockean principle that citizens possess rights independently of and against the state.”(72)
Rousseau writes that humanity is a mixture of good and evil. There are people who follow the education of nature and become self-reliant individuals. There are also those who tamper with nature and deprive individuals of their freedoms. They are the evil ones. Rousseau held such a position because he was raised much in the manner he wrote of, with no formal education until his twenties. His work is a production of the Enlightenment. Although he was unaware of psychology, his views on how to educate and raise a child are studied in current theories of human development. Rousseau had a mixed view if humanity was good or evil.
Lord of the Flies has several themes that are the key to understanding of literature. Three of the themes of this novel are the fear, courage and lastly survival. Fear has been surrounded throughout the entire novel. With the amount of fear because of an apparent beast, many of the people on the island have changed. Most of the boys have become more violent throughout the novel and have no sense of direction as what to do next. Jack was one of those people who had changed majorly throughout the novel. Courage is one of the most important things to have mentally and physically when you’re stuck in an unknown island. Ralph’s courage in the book became strong when he had lost two of his close companions in Simon and Piggy. Survival is the best theme in this novel simply because of the lack of tools and the laziness of the people throughout the book. These themes show how great and wonderful this book is, and if you read it thoroughly, you will understand the perils and the adventure of Ralph, Jack and the rest of the boys in Lord of the Flies.
Humans are intricate. They have built civilizations and invented the concept of society, moving accordingly from savage primal instincts to disciplined behaviour. William Golding, however, does not praise humanity in his pessimistic novel, Lord of The Flies, which tells the story of a group of British schoolboys who are stranded on an uninhabited tropical island without any adults – a dystopia. Golding evidently expresses three views of humanity in this novel. He suggests that, without the rules and restrictions on which societies and civilizations are built, humans are intrinsically selfish, impulsive and violent.
Often in our lives other people affect us in both negative and positive ways. In the case of Lord of the Flies, the kids influence one another while on the island, in mostly negative ways. These influences cause for mental changes in the brain. Most of the time, mental changes affect physical changes. However, in some rare occasions it is the other way around. While on the island the boys go through numerous physical and mental changes. Although mental changes are somewhat more significant than physical changes, physical changes are still very much apparent and can sometimes cause for mental change.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a great philosopher who lived in the Enlightenment. He was a very influential philosopher and “Thinker” he has written many books including The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Rousseau’s theory was in essence that humans were created naturally pure and innocent but over time and new technologies become more evil. He had thought that in the very first light of man he was completely innocent, a being who had no intention to harm anyone else. However as time progressed and the growing capacity for man increased and the
Human nature has been debated for centuries, everyone coming up with their own theories, pulling their sources from religious texts, wars, experiments, or daily life. William Golding and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born in very different times and countries were very opposite in their views compared to one another. William Golding believed that human nature was immoral and evil, and there has been evidence of this all the way to the beginning of human society. Without laws or moral boundaries, humans would plunder, steal, and murder to their hearts content, delighting in their new found freedom to let go of social philosophies imposed upon them. Rousseau, however, believed that human nature was naturally just and moral, and it was society’s laws that made them immoral. Social norms and laws create limitation and superfluous need, and it is within those boundaries that humans become enslaved to “moral inequality.” Without laws and social norms, humans will revert back to their natural goodness. It is the polar opposite of Golding’s belief. Golding’s philosophy, however, is more in line to my own, as in my opinion, Rousseau’s belief is a rather naïve outlook on life.
In the novel, "Lord of the Flies," a group of British boys are left on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. Throughout the novel, they have conflicts between civilization and savagery, good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, and reason vs. impulse. What would it be like if the boys were replaced by a group of girls? Would they behave the same way they did in the novel? I believe that the girls would act in the same behavior as the boys in all ways because, everyone is installed with evil inside them which is their natural instinct, also because in life there is always a power struggle in all manners, and the outcome with the girls would be similar-since both sexes would plan on getting rescued.
One of the interesting things about Rousseau was that he had different views than previous philosophers, such as Hume and Locke, on the state of nature. In Rousseau’s point of view, humans in the state of nature would be most like a noble savage. What this means is that Rousseau believed that in the state of nature humans are naturally good, and are lead by basic appetites or sentiments. This would also be a prehistoric place where humans would not have discovered rationality or morality. This mainly applies because Rousseau believes that these prehistoric humans made, as later discussed, decisions based on sentiment and not on reason, thus since morality requires the ability to choose between right and wrong it would be impossible to be moral.
...ion with the general will. This may sound like a contradiction but, to Rousseau, the only way the body politic can function is by pursuing maximum cohesion of peoples while seeking maximum individuation. For Rousseau, like Marx, the solution to servitude is, in essence, the community itself.
"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways." (Buddha) Is man basically good or is man basically evil? In the popular novel, Lord of the Flies, William Goldings shows that man is basically evil, but that man can overcome those instincts if he tries. Simon, Ralph, and Piggy are prime examples of keeping their good character. In each of them there is a desire to do good. They show throughout the novel that it is possible, even when surrounded by evil, to put aside desires and keep good morals.
He absolutely favors this stage over contemporary society for a multitude of reasons. These include the vanity and materialism promoted by other major enlightenment figures, as well as the rampant inequality in contemporary society. This inequality was the result of division of labor and property that required laws and powerful states to enforce them. Rousseau viewed hut society as a much more permanent state for humans than that of the state of nature, citing the existence of hut societies in his day. For Rousseau hut society, while it had its problems, still maintained much of the freedom and equality present in the state of nature making it the most appealing
The novel Lord of the Flies was full of challenges that the boys overcame in order to survive. Conflicts within themselves, with nature and with each other constantly test the children’s ability to endure. Struggles against the natural elements of the island, rival groups or fear of the unknown continually appear throughout the story. Some of the boys on the island did not survive the quarrels that they faced. They perished because they were lacking something that the surviving boys did not. The survivors had a natural primal instinct or a physical or mental advantage over the boys who did not make it. ‘Only the strong survive’ is an important element that runs through the novel Lord of the Flies because in order to survive the boys must turn to their primitive instincts of physical strength and savagery.
According to Rousseau, the reason that morals have become corrupted is due to the advancement in the arts and sciences. He believed that we are only concerned with materialism. Rousseau viewed the enlightenment as a time that corrupted the morals of society due to its path of science and art that it expanded. Rousseau believed that the arts and sciences had corrupted man. Although the advancement of the arts and sciences have led to breakthroughs in human civilization, Rousseau believed that they caused us to become self-centered and materialistic. He believed that the enlightenment had corrupted man to only focus on what they may gain and what they may improve for themselves or society. He argues against the materialistic teaching of John
Being that a human wants to be held in a higher esteem than another human in the same society, he also wants to be valued more, thus establishing inequality. At this point amour-de-soi is not entirely out of the picture but almost entirely obsolete. The place where humans went wrong, in terms of solidifying their own demise, is when they began to rely on each other, rather than rely on themselves for sustenance, the introduction of metallurgy and agriculture accentuates this. Once metallurgy and agriculture arise the small physical inequalities that were not a problem before are taken advantage of. A stronger person is able to plow and harvest the fields and therefore are more able to exponentially abuse their advantage over time. Now that humans are able to harvest land deduction leads humans to claim the lands as their own, thus the need for laws and justice. Progress and technology put some ahead of others and also creates divisions within a particular society. Harmful artificial inequalities follow from benign natural inequalities. Amour-propre’s role in founding inequality is solidified in the last part of Rousseau’s theory with the foundation of society. Because the rich have an illicit incentive to harm others, but have the most to lose from constant war, they are able to seduce the