It has become a cliche, understood by nearly everyone as a metaphor for the unique brand of cruel chaos that only humans can inspire.
It has been assigned high school English class reading for decades and is widely recognized as a classic piece of literature.
And, as it turns out, the United States of America is acting it out at this very minute.
Lord of the Flies
Surely you remember Lord of the Flies.
An airplane during an unspecified time of war crashes on a nameless Pacific island and the only survivors are a bunch of British middle school boys.
Their attempts at civilized behavior and building an organized hierarchy of leaders gradually crumbles as jealousy, greed, fear, paranoia and brutal abuse and cruelty rise.
Spoiler alert: there is no happy ending.
Well guess what?
We are living out the storyline of Lord of the Flies in real time, right now.
It is called the presidential election for the United States of America.
Think about it.
Prior to the start of this insane circus of a presidential election the United States was functioning. There were no shortage of challenges facing our country and more than enough haters lurking in our shadowy corners. There was tension. There were eruptions of violence. There were paranoid worries and legitimate worries.
It was not all rainbows and unicorns. Yet it wasn't where we were now either.
But then the presidential election began ramping up, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump became the leading nominees and CRASH.
We all found ourselves trapped on our own massive island struggling even more than we usually do to stay civilized.
Just as in Lord of the Flies, we followed the examples that our leaders-to-be gave us.
Some of us retreated from the fray.
Some of us followed our chosen candidates into the battle, trying to keep our civility, our reason, our logic intact.
Some of us followed our chosen candidate--in truth one particular candidate--into a terrible place of intolerance, hate, violence and viscousness.
As in Lord of the Flies none of us are perfect. Inasmuch as there is no such thing as a perfect person, there is no such thing as a perfect leader, and I'm pretty sure most of us would agree that we aren't looking for perfection. We are looking for determination. Vision. Humility. Intelligence. Empathy. Strength. Balance.
But in any society, large or small, there is a line of self-control and shared decency that should never be crossed, and it has been crossed in this election.
In Lord of the Flies that line was crossed and boys lost their lives--murdered by classmates caught up in the intoxicating cocktail of power, fear and paranoia.
And we find ourselves now fractured and shattered into pieces that may never fully come together again.
The Donald Trumps of this world will come and go, roaring through our lives in a bitter storm and leaving destruction behind.
I find myself wondering how many times we can keep destroying and rebuilding ourselves before we cannot be fixed again?
Mr. Golding asked the same question 62 years ago and he was no closer to an answer than I am...than any of us are.
It may be time for me to re-read Lord of the Flies.
