The novel Lord of the Flies (1954) reappears from time to time as an uncomfortable mirror, and wherever it is placed, it reflects the suspicion that societies, no matter how sophisticated they may seem, always retain a shortcut back to the tribe. The isolation of a group of British schoolboys (a symbol of rationality and discipline) and their subsequent drift toward violence reminds us that the veneer of civilization can be as fragile as a freshly ironed uniform in the rainy season. William Golding, a former teacher and war veteran, did not write a sociological treatise, but in a few pages he dismantled decades of enlightened optimism about human progress.

One need only observe how the children go from deliberating with conch-microphone in hand to chasing each other as if they had read Hobbes before learning geometry. The transition is not linear but pendular. They begin by voting (direct inheritance from Westminster) and end up painting their faces, invoking a decapitated pig. Golding didn't need a laboratory; he simply understood that culture needs heat and pressure to melt and reveal the raw material that sustains or consumes it.

Anthropologists have spent decades discussing whether humans are solitary wolves or cooperative primates; however, Golding's text offers a dramatic shortcut, just as in Philip Zimbardo's experiments (1971) at Stanford University, collective identity can volatilize in a matter of hours if conditions allow. Here, the tropical jungle serves as a playground without recess, and the need to share snacks gives way to the need to survive.

It's worth remembering that Golding was writing in the post-war period, while the United Nations was in its early youth and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) promised to shield future generations from recent horrors. Lord of the Flies challenged that optimism with a brief parable; perhaps the plane that crashes on the island acts as a crack in universal confidence. Without adults or structures, the proclamation of "liberty, equality, and fellowship" evaporates and gives way to the law of the strongest or, more precisely, the most persuasive. Even the symbols of modernity (for example, the conch-speaker) become trophies of strength rather than tools for debate.

Some analysts dismiss the work as an allegory about childhood, but statistics on community violence remind us that the plot doesn't need school uniforms to reactivate. The World Report on Violence (WHO, 2023) documents that spontaneous lynchings continue to spike in contexts of institutional collapse. The psychological mechanism doesn't differ much from Piggy's downfall; an emotional trigger is enough, and the crowd discovers how easy it is to trade legal security for the security of the group that shouts the loudest. The return to origin, then, ceases to be metaphor and becomes protocol.

Golding doesn't offer an edifying ending either. The rescue arrives too late for the fallen and just in time for the survivors to contemplate the fire they started as an involuntary call for help. That irony (being saved by one's own destruction) underscores the cyclical nature of social life, because, apparently, a structure is raised, eroded, collapses, and, in the best case, another one rises that seems new although it drags the same visceral foundations. Claude Lévi-Strauss (1962) described this repetition as "cultural bricolage," that is, the pieces are old, but the assembly changes from era to era.

Some modern optimists appeal to technology to avoid the return to origin, trusting in algorithms that moderate, sensors that alert, and networks that connect. However, these same digital environments have proven to be echo chambers for tribal impulses; a bellicose hashtag is enough for the logic of "them" against "us" to emerge. As on the island, the dilemma lies not in the tool but in the hand that wields it. The "report" button can protect a user or become a weapon to silence disagreements. The pig-totem would today be painted with augmented reality filters, but the tail of the procession would still be directed by the same inner 'beast' that disturbed Golding's children.

The contemporary relevance of the text is confirmed in each crisis that exhibits the fragility of social contracts. Institutional collapses in various parts of the globe demonstrate groups that, in the absence of arbitration, construct lightning hierarchies based more on fear than reason. It is not a definitive condemnation, but a severe reminder that civil codes are worth as much as the collective will to respect them.