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I was speaking with a couple of friends this morning on a website we have been running for many years. They both expressed a fear that something was going to happen to keep Trump from assuming his office in January. Their fears got me thinking. I am not at all pessimistic. I think Trump will get inaugurated and will serve out his full term. I feel a certain mood in the country, a kind of collective sigh that the nonsense is over — that we are going back to adult rule.
As I examine the last four years I am reminded of the William Golding book, The Lord of the Flies. A group of young boys is set down on an uninhabited island; their one adult, the pilot of their transport, a rotting skeleton. The children, male children especially, without adult supervision devolve into savages. Their savagery intensifies over time. More and more of the artifacts of civilized life are dispensed with, and the worst instincts drive them. It all comes to an almost magical end with the arrival of an adult. Normalcy is reinstated. They are once again children, disciplined and orderly.
It is feeling to me that this is the stage at which we are currently. The adult has returned to the island. The children are no longer in charge. The wild, untamed impulses no longer rule, and the nation is once again ready to resume its journey and its example as the city on the hill. It is only a little strange that it is Donald Trump, of all people, who will Make America Great Again.
Discussion (15)
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What a great comparison. That feels exactly right. Thanks for making it.
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There was another novel, written at about the same time as LOTF, with a very different outcome. A group of high school students is stranded on a planet in a far-away galaxy and have no reason to believe that they will ever be able to return to earth. Although there are some early trends of degeneration into savagery, these are arrested and the kinds are able to organize a functioning society. It's an interesting book: Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky, which I reviewed here.
In 1965, there was a real incident in which a group of students (only boys) was stranded on an island for a prolonged period of time. The events that unfolded were closer to those in Tunnel in the Sky than to those in the Golding book. Although these students all knew each other prior to the stranding, which may have been a significant point.
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Order is better than chaos. Freedom is better than enslavement. Societal unity is better than disunity.
This is not hard. Multiple versions of society enable one to choose by recognizing comparative advantage.
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RE: your friends fear that Trump will meet an untimely demise from a left whack nut. Let us Pray that does not happen.
RE: Your Lord of the Flies analogy, I agree it feels like we are on a similar transition. I hope we do. I suspect there will be massive spasms of resistance as the culture shifts. Like a spoiled child, they act out in ever greater levels of anger and frustration when they first encounter proper structure and discipline. It takes consistent and repeated adult behavior before the kids break their pattern of destructive behavior. It will be the same with the left. They have experienced no push back on their abhorrent behaviors for almost two generations. This will not be easy, nor quick.
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Well done, Eugene. An apt analogy!
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