Re: Society
For anyone confused, my argument is this: Given the imperfect nature of man, how can modern society thrive without leaders? If so, which society in our history has thrived without one?
If we didn’t need leaders, I doubt even the Noble Qur’an would have placed such a large emphasis on laying out laws and principles for leaders to follow, otherwise, shar’iah law would’ve just focused solely on personal embetterment, no?
Re: Society
Have you read Lord of the Flies.
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No I haven’t. What’s it about?
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Yes you’re on the right path. Apologies for the late reply, missed this.
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It’s an interesting book targeted towards high school students - an excellent parable attempting to explain this very topic of leadership and its role in our society. Book kinda illustrates how men will self-select an hierarchy in society to establish and assign power by default. Interestingly enough, even when our survival depends on it, the self-selection by no means ends up as the most beneficial or wisest selection!
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Which is exactly the case with our current situation. We self-select but make some poor choices that aren’t necessarily for the ‘greater good’.
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Sounds like an interesting read. It’s just our innate nature that we want leaders. Taking into account almost every major leader elected into power in the modern world, maybe just a handful were actually people who rightfully deserved their seat. Be it via election or self-selection, in an ideal world, we wouldn’t need leaders because our communities would be perfect. We’d all know how to keep ourselves in check, all of us, but sadly we live in a world dominated by those who are willing to sacrifice anything or anyone, no matter what the cost or how many people they could effect, to attain their selfish and worldly desires.
Oh and as for the book appearing to target men, I actually think women do it more than us believe it or not – but that’s another topic LOL.
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Funny. Book didn’t have any females.
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Perhaps he was too scared to venture into that territory…
All I gotta say is… ever seen Donald Trump’s TV show The Apprentice?
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Think of it this way. The way the kids reacted to “piggy” and the beast and the whole fall from grace, how much more of an adult turn would that book take if there were teenage girls involved. Knowing the message that was protrayed in the Lord of the Flies its a good thing that it was only boys.
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Yes, have seen the Apprentice. Why do you ask?
Zafra, I thought since the book was published in early 1950s, when the schooling in Britain was not yet co-ed, is the reason for the absence of female characters in the book? I also thought perhaps it was more to do with the political and social behaviour of our male leaders (which were the only ones we had back then).
Book should be rewritten with addition of girls!
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There was an episode of men vs women. One of their challenges was to set up a lemonade stand and be successful in selling it. In the beginning, the male group seemed very organized, motivated and they appeared to be working great together while the female group was disorganized and busy bickering amongst one another about who should lead and what to do. Eventually, the women came out on top since they decided to try the sex-appeal-approach (go figure).
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When we read the book back in 7th grade I believe the focus was more on the devolution of man without societal rules and constructs. Atleast that is the elements the teacher focused on for our English Lit classes. Like the Great Gatsby people can read into many elements when it comes to a book. It just depends on what they teach you. But the point being is that after the leader I forget his name can’t control the mass of boys they go native. The lack of rules, structure and the ability to speak as equals was thrown out the window as soon as the conch was destroyed. They start being abusive and rude to the weak. Specifically target piggy and then hunt and form of native tribe focusing on war, abuse and such. Considering it was written after world war 2 but set in that era we also discussed if the nature of man was inherently evil or good. But that is what our teacher focused on. It could easily focus on leadership and political behavior.
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The essence of society is lost between debates and so-called theories of developing better societies. Today, “best society” is one in which most of the people are unsocial.
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Can you elaborate on that? How exactly is the essence of society lost in debates? And please explain your reasons for believing the best society is comprised of mostly unsociap people?
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Your teacher sure did a good job there! While reading the book, I had zero appreciation for it. Only in hindsight do I realize its worth.
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Societies evolved and developed naturally are “revolutionizing”. Less the interaction among people, more the society is modern. Concept of family is deteriorating in modern societies. People are supposed to mind their own business on the name of social ethics. People don’t even know who is living in neighbor. Even a family member cannot advise other member let aside neighbor. Groups organize social gatherings and mostly are business purpose. Everything has commercialized, commercialization is sacrificing social values and we don’t even bother. All is coming from modern education.