Note: This is an archived site. All articles and sections were written for specific audiences, for particular purposes. Without the proper context, a given piece can be puzzling or off-putting. Please only read what is directly recommended to you. What’s below is UNEDITED. This was written for Sam Simon and for select others (9/3/10… 18 days short of my 68th birthday).

Golding Rules For The Moment
by Ricardo X and W. R. Mueller and T.M. Coskren

“Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you.”
—Muhammad, The Farewell Sermon

“It’s the thing to do.” — Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs

In the early sixties (’62?), when I was about twenty-years-old, having just transferred from the University of Wisconsin-Madison back to my hometown in New Jersey to matriculate at Rutgers-The State University-Newark for my sophomore year, and not knowing for sure what I wanted to major in, but very much wanting to make a difference in this world, my mentor-to-be, George W. Weber, Jr., one of the world’s two major experts in the ornaments of Late Chou Bronzes, escorted me to John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where I attended a life-changing lecture given by British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate William Golding, most famous for his Lord of the Flies.

Golding said that his 1954 hit was a study of sin. Being a person who George told me used words with great precision, I knew at the moment he made his statement that “sin” was not to be confused with crime. He was clearly talking about transgression of divine law, not a transgression of human law.

Near the end of his presentation, the author underscored that he didn’t believe that the Jacks of this world were going to be reconstructed through social legislation eventuating in some form of utopianism. He said that he was at one with Mr. Kurtz in James Conrad’s Heart of Darkness — which he had not read prior to the publication of Lord of the Flies — in evaluating societal laws as being important/necessary, but exercising minimal external restraint as a rule, having only a slight effect on the human heart.

The theme of the Lord of the Flies is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature.” So said Golding. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.

[Pause.]

I figure that if we create a gubernatorial coalition for 2014 in California (with the thrust of what’s delineated at http://oxtogrind.org/archive/687 as the foundation for its formation) featuring a dozen unaffiliated, non-politician citizens with heart, head and soul in a healthy place… well, we’ll make a huge difference, putting ourselves in a position to bring out the best in people.

When I’ve proposed this to people in the past, resignation, apathy, ignorance and atomization often kick in as the basis for rejection, lack of interest. Cynicism too, about NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND SUFFICIENTLY GOOD PEOPLE TO SET A PROPER EXAMPLE, often has its impact.

But I disagree that good people can’t be found. So does Golding.

If Golding had presented people as essentially depraved — which is how many readers view Lord of the Flies — why are three of his four major characters good people? Ralph, Piggy and Simon possess a limited goodness, granted, but measured against the perfect symbol of essentially depraved man (Jack)… well, one is left with three out of four favoring at least a limited goodness in the human community. That’s a good set of numbers.

And that’s what I’m rolling for in contacting you.

Personally, I see the Lord of the Flies‘ Simon as a Christ figure. But that’s neither here nor there. Such a force is not necessary to create the necessary institutional change we all cry for.

For you will do.

[Pause.]

William Golding’s story is as old as the written word. The figure of the Lord of the Flies, of Beelzebub, is one of the primary archetypes of the Western world. The novel is the parable of fallen man. But it does not close the door on that man; it entreats him to know himself and his Adversary, for he cannot do combat against an unrecognized force, especially when it lies within him.

“I can’t stand politics as things stand, but relatively good people who are not career politicians could totally transform life throughout California, and — thereby — impact on the world… positively, legally, non-violently, immediately… in the electoral arena… if a new paradigm for change were embraced, acknowledging our complicity in all that ails us.” — Ricardo X to his ten-year-old son.