A real-world Lord of the Flies event and modern science both suggest that Golding’s darkest assumption about us may have been profoundly mistaken
Whenever Lord of the Flies resurfaces, as it now has with a dramatic new television serialisation, we are invited to revisit the same bleak conclusion: scratch the surface of civilisation and out spills the savage. Remove teachers, police, governments, parents, and apparently we revert to painted faces, sharpened sticks, and ritual murder before it’s coconut milk time.
