To understand the absurdity of public school, consider that Lord of the Flies, a book that condemns public school education, is widely taught in public school. William Golding’s cunning denouncement of education and perhaps of civilization as we know it exposes the fact that school children are not taught the basic survival skills needed for an independent life as a biological being, are not taught to cooperate and share for mutual profit, and are not taught to face their fears as rational beings.
Yes, yes, yes, they were just kids, the eldest were barely teens, and yet, six years of public school education could have achieved so much more than textbook learning!
And little has changed since William Golding wrote his parable about modern man. In our own time, our Jesus-Simon remains an ineffective and ultimately useless figure; our best public figures, our Ralphs, remain ineffective leaders void of creative impulse and ever-ready to stand on their heads; while our tyrants, our Jacks, continue to appeal to the irrational instincts. Finally, half a century of high-tech horrors later, we still have our share of scientific Piggies, too; I refer to men and women who are so in love with their high-tech or nuclear world that they do not see the Garden of Eden before their eyes.
Speaking of the Garden of Eden, was Golding, perhaps, hinting at a vegetarian future? The insane pig hunt of the blood-thirsty children who killed Jesus-Simon may serve psychological fable, but, given Piggy’s name, and given the island’s “edible forest,” the pig hunt may also serve to condemn a civilization that does not even eat rationally.
