Becoming Pigs and How to Avoid It

So, I finished reading "Lord of the Flies" a week or two ago. 

I have never read said book before (I wasn't forced to read it in high school or college), and I can't say that I enjoyed it. Seriously, half the book involves the boys arguing on what to name the island (which based on their obsession with the pigs and even a kid named Piggy, they should have just named it "Bacon Island" and moved on with life), screaming "I've got the conch!", and "kill the pig, slit it's throat, etc. etc.", so on and so forth. Which on contemplating the latter, this was some creepy group of boys. 

Surprisingly or not so surprisingly, The thing that occurred to me most about this book was how much talk there was about pigs. Not just the talk of pigs, but how much pigs are associated with evil. A group of the boys in "Lord of the Flies" are obsessed with hunting the pigs. This group of boys become extremely violent and end up killing two other kids. 

Another book where pigs show up in the theme of evil is "Animal Farm". (seriously, who wants to hang out with this pig? (I don't)



The pigs are downright nasty. For gosh sakes, they kill the horse (seriously, I think I cried).

So anyways, it got me wondering as to why pigs are associated with evil (at least in these books). According to the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, pigs represent "extremes of human joy or fear, celebration, ridicule, and repulsion." They also represent greed and gluttony. Being compared to a pig isn't exactly a compliment--I mean, c'mon, I'm pretty sure this isn't what we have in mind when we compare someone to swine:



Seriously, LOOK HOW CUTE. But I digress. 

Gluttonous. Greedy. Ridicule. Repulsion. You know, to be honest, this sounds like a lot of traits that we, who are supposed to be decent human beings, have today. We over-indulge ourselves on sex, technology, anything that makes us feel good. We're greedy about our time and are more likely to spend 6 hours with our buddy Netflix than a couple hours with our good friends. (and I don't mean physically being in the room with them; I mean put-the-phone-away-and-talk-to-each-other) We're quick to judge and gossip and detract the reputations of other people (especially if they drive us batty and we're more right than they are :p ). We're repulsed by the people we dislike and disagree with (and then enters "ridicule"). 

I think all of this points back to one thing--we are so self-centered as a society. We would rather overindulge ourselves for days than spend a minute thinking of someone else. But isn't that part of the lesson in "Lord of the Flies" and "Animal Farm"? The boys associated with the pig hunting clearly don't value their neighbor (they're actually pretty quick to call a manhunt on another kid), and the pigs themselves only use the other animals to rise to power. When we focus on ourselves and our own gratification, what do we lose sight of? Our fellow man, the suffering in the world, true beauty and goodness. Instead, we have tunnel-vision on ourselves only, and we miss the world around us.

My point for this long blog post is a call to action: take at least one hour of this week and go outside of yourself. Read a book. Go for a walk in nature. Call that friend you haven't talked to in months. Give of your time and your self to someone, and don't expect anything in return. Let's stop being pigs and start being people again.