I don’t think it’s complete bullshit. Not a universal truth as some make it out to be, but not completely false. Cultural background plays a role, as well as social setting.
The Tonga boys were all from the same group for one.
In Lord of the flies, they were separate groups.
Tonga boys had a shared culture.
Lord of the flies groups had 2 separate cultures: 1 religiously militant, the other not.
That second factor might be the most important one. If you’re taught growing up to villainize and hate an “other”, that’s what’s more likely to happen.
Or to put it in a more US centric way: if 7 kids from deeply racist families were stuck on an island with 4 black kids in the 1960s, would they still have gotten along as well as the Tonga boys?
I think this is a great point. However, and I don’t think this takes away from what you are saying, the kids (in your US-centric example) would have a better chance of getting along than if they were kept together in society. For one, shared hardship has been shown to be a very effective means to breaking down tribalism. For two, being left in society would mean they’d have external forces bearing down on them to keep them in tribal lines. It’s precisely “civilization” that creates and inculcates these prejudices. But people take the opposite lesson home: that apart from “civilization”, humans become brutal and violent.
I don’t think it’s complete bullshit. Not a universal truth as some make it out to be, but not completely false. Cultural background plays a role, as well as social setting.
The Tonga boys were all from the same group for one.
In Lord of the flies, they were separate groups.
Tonga boys had a shared culture.
Lord of the flies groups had 2 separate cultures: 1 religiously militant, the other not.
That second factor might be the most important one. If you’re taught growing up to villainize and hate an “other”, that’s what’s more likely to happen.
Or to put it in a more US centric way: if 7 kids from deeply racist families were stuck on an island with 4 black kids in the 1960s, would they still have gotten along as well as the Tonga boys?
I think this is a great point. However, and I don’t think this takes away from what you are saying, the kids (in your US-centric example) would have a better chance of getting along than if they were kept together in society. For one, shared hardship has been shown to be a very effective means to breaking down tribalism. For two, being left in society would mean they’d have external forces bearing down on them to keep them in tribal lines. It’s precisely “civilization” that creates and inculcates these prejudices. But people take the opposite lesson home: that apart from “civilization”, humans become brutal and violent.