This Guardian article about “the real Lord of the Flies” (an excerpt from Rutger Bregman’s upcoming book Humankind) describes a situation in 1966 where six teenage boys were stranded on a remote island for over a year. Spoiler alert: they didn’t descend into anarchy. (A comforting conclusion given the state of the world today.)
It’s time we told a different kind of story. The real Lord of the Flies is a tale of friendship and loyalty; one that illustrates how much stronger we are if we can lean on each other.