Leadership By Force

This week in class we spent a day around the Harkness Table discussing leadership and exp owed by great leaders. The discussion we very productive and there was great insight from everyone. The leadership qualities that were shared included charisma, good speaker, courage, and leading by example. The night after the discussion I went home and I talked leadership with my parents. I told them that during the discussion two people came to mind with very similar leadership style. These to people are Jack from The Lord of the Flies and the President of the United States Barack Obama. Jack was a very forceful leader who instilled fear in the people that followed him. President Obama during the campaign was a very good speaker, had great charisma, and was a very likable person. To this day, President Obama has led by force. He is not a forceful leader in the sense Jack was but President Obama is a very manipulative leader. The president is a great speaker and this helps him to manipulate people into whatever he wants. People are so in awe of his wonderful charisma and verbiage that they do not think for themselves and they go with whatever he says may it be right or wrong. Jack was also a forceful leader but he led by putting fear in people and then taking violent actions against his rivals. Jack was savage unlike President Obama and Jack had a great following. Jacks' piers always complied with what he said and they never questioned him. Neither of these people has true leadership qualities like leading by example, or being able to listen to someones' ideas. Jack and President Obama always have their way; their way or the highway. By no means am I saying that President Obama is violent or savage, I just think he leads by force and so did Jack. These two men exemplify how to lead by force but they both have completely different ways of going about it.

Interconnection between Rules and Ethics

The beginning of this year has set off with a bang as we dive deeper and deeper in to what Golding has to say in his book, The Lord of the Flies. I believe the greatest point Golding instills in his book is how we all take better to ethics than we do rules. In other words we should be expected to rely on the pre-existing ethical principles of people more than the enforcement of laws when trying to make a well-established society. I think this statement is true but I look at all these other countries around us where poverty is abundant and suicide bombs go off, and I think to myself, "why aren't we like that?". Is it because we're all forced to go to school and practice proper etiquette? Or is it because we are better at enforcing laws than other countries are? I don't think I'm mature enough to fully understand every aspect of forming a well-to-do society but I think I have a theory. I have an explanation that truly voices my opinion on the subject. I believe at the heart of a strong nation there has to be standards and principles, but in order for that heart to work there has to be laws that act as the blood that that heart pumps through the body that is society. That blood nourishes and cleans that body and keeps it intact. Without the heart the blood cannot be pumped and without blood the heart becomes useless. I believe Golding was trying to say that laws enforced on people without ethical understandings to back them up become hollow and are easily broken. This concept applied to my friends and I a couple summers back. One day we decided we would improve our treehouse in our backyard by adding a roof , carpet, tv, xbox, dvd player, disco ball, and a couple kids who were too adventurous to stay inside the house. We lived in our own little world away from our parents when we were in that treefort. We could talk about whatever we wanted and do anything we wanted, as long as we didn't get caught. So we made rules to make sure none of us would ever make a catastrophic mistake and get us in a lot of trouble. Our rules were: 1. Take your shoes off before you come in, 2. Don't spill your drink anywhere, 3. Don't do anything Jesus wouldn't do. But after a while we forgot to take our shoes off, we spilled a lot of drinks and stained the carpet, and we did do a lot of things Jesus wouldn't do. So the treefort became a place where we would try to bend the rules. One day we bought a mega-phone and yelled at our neighbors telling them they were ugly and another day we threw urine-filled water balloons at them. The treefort became more about having fun than making sure we were taking care of ourselves. If we ever had a conch up there it would have been gone by that time. Much like in The Lord of the Flies, we stopped caring about rules, we just wanted to live our lives in the most lively ways we knew how, because we didn't fully understand the ethical principles of proper behavior, the rules were easily broken.

Lord of the Flies/Aniaml I Have Become

The boys on the island have become monsters, which is caused by man's essential illness, which states all humans contain evil. In 3 Days Grace's "Animal I Have Become", Adam Gontier, the vocalist of 3 Days Grace, sings that even he has " become...this animal" that he "can't control". He continues saying "it's not the real" him and pleas for "somebody [to] help [him] tame this animal". In Lord of the Flies, all the boys, except for Simon, turn into the beast/animal that is created due to evil. Because the boys have become so evil, they cannot control themselves for they don't understand what is right from wrong. Only the boys with conscious, Ralph, Piggy, and the twins, ask to be released from the beast/animal inside them. Like Adam who says that he "can't escape this hell", the boys are trapped and cannot escape off the island. Adam wishes he "could get through this nightmare" like the littluns wanting to stop the nightmares of the beast. Although Adam and the littluns believe that it is a nightmare, the beast/animal is real. Because the animal/beast "still [has] rage inside", it strives for more. Jack is constantly wanting to strive for his wants, and goes with his instinct which is to become leader and to kill. Adam begs for someone to "help [him] believe it's not the real" him. When the boys are rescued, the boys come to their senses and cry because they understand what they have done and their real selves come back.

The Most Dangerous Game

A few months ago, I read a story called the Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. This is a story about a man who also gets left on an island while going on a hunting expedition. He falls off his yacht and finds the nearest island. Long story short, he meets another hunter and that man decides that he is going to hunt the the most dangerous game, that being a human being. The main character, Mr. Rainsford is being hunted and he must make smart decisions or else he will be killed. He uses his knowledge to outwit and defeat his opponent. I chose this to represent the Lord of the Flies because of the savagery that was implied for humans to hunt humans. Both Ralph and Rainsford are being hunted by humans and both actually make it out alive. Although the tactics and opponents are different, both of these humans find a way to save themselves from the horror that would come had they been captured. They were both suited for the mental composite for both of their opponents, Rainsford was a well respected hunter and was even on his way to go on a hunt, he had been all over the world hunting all kinds of animals, so he used the techniques that he had learned on his adventures on his enemy. All Ralph knew how to do was run, and that is all that he needed. Jack and his clan were not as smart as the other enemy but since they were kinds it was reasonable. As Ralph ran and ran, the group that followed was still chasing him all the way to the beach. Once there he stumbled to the feet of a naval officer, who saved the children. Rainsford on the other hand had to save himself with clever wits and ingenious tactics. Both of these humans had to avoid the savagery that was forced upon them and overcome it with something that could over come the savage human nature that was chasing them. The savagery only come out in the most sincere occasions when only violence can solve the issue for that particular person. Ralph and Rainsford were not overcome by savagery but yet they knew how to counter act it and finally escape the clutches of the enemies.

Travis Conine

Similarities to Football

In a way I can compare football to our discussions over Lord of the Flies and how the boys give the impression like they will never be go home to their parents. The boys on the island are stranded and it seems like they will never get saved and will have to stay on the island forever. For a week of our football two a day’s we went to Detroit, Texas (I still don’t know where that is) and I especially knew that week was going to suck when our coaches started calling it hell week. Every day was degrading I remember counting off the practices with my teammates until we were leaving that Friday and finally going home. It seemed like an eternity everyday waking up early going through two painful practices, two hours each, and then the easy but still annoying special teams practice. Even though none of the guys cried at night wanting to go home I remember a couple of guys calling their parents asking them to come pick them up just so they could get out of the misery of practice. I don’t know how the boys on the island could survive without air conditioning especially on a tropical island with humid temperatures. In our two a day’s the Texas heat was unbearable the humidity was god awful and we were physically being tortured but to manly to admit it until after practice. The boys on the island must have been miserable because at least we had something to look forward in leaving they had no hope and were just sitting there hoping and hoping to be saved. Also on the island the boys turned more and more like savages everyday and in football people turn into different people when they step out onto the gridiron. In football as one of our coaches says, “You have to get nasty so you can turn your swagger on at the end of the game.” In addition to that everybody seems to turn on this new aggression against their opponent like they just killed your best friend and you just want to pound them to the ground. Football is a special game you have a few rules but other than that you’re free to hit each other as hard as you want with no consequences but are actually rewarded when you make a big hit. For example, this year we get Slurpees if we hit a kid hard enough or make a big play like an interception or a fumble recovery. I guess this is kind of like Jack becoming the center of attention for killing the pigs because when you get a Slurpee everyone is surrounding you asking for a sip or asking, “How did you get a Slurpee?” In Lord of the Flies the boys turn into savages because that’s the way they seem right to live and in Football its promoted to hit hard or be nasty but once practice is over or the game we all snap back into reality and become normal human beings just like when the boys were rescued.

Evil yet Effective Leaders

Last week in English Class, we discussed the leadership style of Jack. We decided that he manipulated the kids to join his tribe. And through fear he forced them to stay with him. Last year we learn all about Adolph Hitler and how he did the same thing. He used propaganda to manipulate millions to join him against the Jews and many other victims. Jack did not use propaganda like hitler, but he did say things to the kids like, “My tribe is more cool,” so that the kids would join him instead of Ralph.

In addition to talking about their leadership styles we discussed some of the most important attributes that make up a good leader. The one we all agreed on as being the most important was understanding humans. Jack understood humans, so he used it to his advantage. He knew that usually when humans are scared they will do things that they would not necessarally do otherwise. After manipulating the boys on the island into joining his tribe, he showed them what he could do. He(Roger did, but it proves the same thing) killed Piggy and at one instance he had Sam and Eric tortured. This put fear into the boys, so that they would never leave him, or else they might face the same pain. Hitler understood humans too, just as Jack did(on a smaller scale), he manipulated millions to join him. Then, since they were afraid of the consequences of leaving, they stayed even if they did not want to.

John Teeter

Leaders

Lord of the Flies by William Golding, brings many issues to question. We can see these issues though in our own lives around us. Everyday we go to school and we all see the same thing happening, cliques are forming and leaders are being made. We may not realize it but it is happening. The same thing happened in Lord of the Flies, the boys became split up and leaders were made. In almost anywhere in society there is a leader. You see it with the government, clubs, sports, work and so much more. Having a leader is just natural for us as it was for the boys on the island. One of the first things the boys did on the island was decide a leader. They thought with Ralph as a leader things would get done and decisions would be made, but that wasn't necessarily the case. The boys all wanted different things and couldn't even decide on what to do. This soon lead to the group being separated into two groups, the boys who wanted Ralph as their leaders and the ones who wanted Jack. We see this same idea in our own government when it comes to republicans and democrats. At school there is the same group segregation, some people like one person and others like another causing people to go their separate ways. Many times you will even see trouble between two groups just like there was for the boys in Lord of the Flies. Either way we all have different ideas on what we think is right and who we agree with.