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Which planet are you from: Planet A or Planet B?

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Which planet are you from: Planet A or Planet B?

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'Lord of the Flies' author on why he used only male characters | Daily Mail Online

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'Lord of the Flies' author William Golding explained in his introduction to the novel why he chose to use only boys as characters in his dark vision of society.

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Psychology helps us to understand human behaviour.  Zimbardo's 1973 Stanford prison experiment asks whether cruel behaviour is a product of a person's environment or part of their personality.

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Psychology helps us to understand human behaviour.  Zimbardo's 1973 Stanford prison experiment asks whether cruel behaviour is a product of a person's environment or part of their personality.

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For example, prisoners and guards may have personalities that make conflict inevitable, with prisoners lacking respect for law and order and guards being domineering and aggressive.

Alternatively, prisoners and guards may behave in a hostile manner due to the rigid power structure of the social environment in prisons.

Zimbardo predicted the situation made people act the way they do rather than their disposition (personality).

To study people's roles in prison situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison.

He advertised asking for volunteers to participate in a study of the psychological effects of prison life.

The 75 applicants who answered the ad were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse.

24 men judged to be the most physically & mentally stable, the most mature, & the least involved in antisocial behaviors were chosen to participate.

The participants did not know each other prior to the study and were paid $15 per day to take part in the experiment.

Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison environment. There were two reserves, and one dropped out, finally leaving ten prisoners and 11 guards.

Prisoners were treated like every other criminal, being arrested at their own homes, without warning, and taken to the local police station. They were fingerprinted, photographed and 'booked.'

Then they were blindfolded and driven to the psychology department of Stanford University, where Zimbardo had had the basement set out as a prison, with barred doors and windows, bare walls and small cells. Here the deindividuation process began.

When the prisoners arrived at the prison they were stripped naked, deloused, had all their personal possessions removed and locked away, and were given prison clothes and bedding. They were issued a uniform, and referred to by their number only.

The use of ID numbers was a way to make prisoners feel anonymous. Each prisoner had to be called only by his ID number and could only refer to himself and the other prisoners by number.

Their clothes comprised a smock with their number written on it, but no underclothes. They also had a tight nylon cap to cover their hair, and a locked chain around one ankle.

All guards were dressed in identical uniforms of khaki, and they carried a whistle around their neck and a billy club borrowed from the police. Guards also wore special sunglasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible.

Three guards worked shifts of eight hours each (the other guards remained on call). Guards were instructed to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners. No physical violence was permitted.

Zimbardo observed the behavior of the prisoners and guards (as a researcher), and also acted as a prison warden.

Within a very short time both guards and prisoners were settling into their new roles, with the guards adopting theirs quickly and easily.

Asserting Authority

Within hours of beginning the experiment, some guards began to harass prisoners. At 2:30 A.M. prisoners were awakened from sleep by blasting whistles for the first of many "counts."

The counts served as a way to familiarize the prisoners with their numbers. More importantly, they provided a regular occasion for the guards to exercise control over the prisoners.

The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behavior too. They talked about prison issues a great deal of the time. They 'told tales' on each other to the guards.

They started taking the prison rules very seriously, as though they were there for the prisoners' benefit and infringement would spell disaster for all of them. Some even began siding with the guards against prisoners who did not obey the rules.

Physical Punishment

The prisoners were taunted with insults and petty orders, they were given pointless and boring tasks to accomplish, and they were generally dehumanized.

Push-ups were a common form of physical punishment imposed by the guards. One of the guards stepped on the prisoners" backs while they did push-ups, or made other prisoners sit on the backs of fellow prisoners doing their push-ups.

Asserting Independence

Because the first day passed without incident, the guards were surprised and totally unprepared for the rebellion which broke out on the morning of the second day.

During the second day of the experiment, the prisoners removed their stocking caps, ripped off their numbers, and barricaded themselves inside the cells by putting their beds against the door.

The guards called in reinforcements. The three guards who were waiting on stand-by duty came in and the night shift guards voluntarily remained on duty.

Putting Down the Rebellion

The guards retaliated by using a fire extinguisher which shot a stream of skin-chilling carbon dioxide, and they forced the prisoners away from the doors. Next, the guards broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked and took the beds out.

The ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion were placed into solitary confinement. After this, the guards generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners.

Special Privileges

One of the three cells was designated as a "privilege cell." The three prisoners least involved in the rebellion were given special privileges. The guards gave them back their uniforms and beds and allowed them to wash their hair and brush their
teeth.

Privileged prisoners also got to eat special food in the presence of the other prisoners who had temporarily lost the privilege of eating. The effect was to break the solidarity among prisoners.

Consequences of the Rebellion

Over the next few days, the relationships between the guards and the prisoners changed, with a change in one leading to a change in the other. Remember that the guards were firmly in control and the prisoners were totally dependent on them.

As the prisoners became more dependent, the guards became more derisive towards them. They held the prisoners in contempt and let the prisoners know it. As the guards' contempt for them grew, the prisoners became more submissive.

As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and assertive. They demanded ever greater obedience from the prisoners. The prisoners were dependent on the guards for everything, so tried to find ways to please the guards, such as telling tales on fellow prisoners.

Prisoner #8612

Less than 36 hours into the experiment, Prisoner #8612 began suffering from acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage.

After a meeting with the guards where they told him he was weak, but offered him "informant" status, #8612 returned to the other prisoners and said "You can"t leave. You can't quit."

Soon #8612 "began to act 'crazy,' to scream, to curse, to go into a rage that seemed out of control." It wasn't until this point that the psychologists realized they had to let him out.

A Visit from Parents

The next day, the guards held a visiting hour for parents and friends. They were worried that when the parents saw the state of the jail, they might insist on taking their sons home. Guards washed the prisoners, had them clean and polish their cells, fed them a big dinner and played music on the intercom.

After the visit, rumors spread of a mass escape plan. Afraid that they would lose the prisoners, the guards and experimenters tried to enlist help and facilities of the Palo Alto police department.

The guards again escalated the level of harassment, forcing them to do menial, repetitive work such as cleaning toilets with their bare hands.

Catholic Priest

Zimbardo invited a Catholic priest who had been a prison chaplain to evaluate how realistic our prison situation was. Half of the prisoners introduced themselves by their number rather than name.

The chaplain interviewed each prisoner individually. The priest told them the only way they would get out was with the help of a lawyer.

Prisoner #819

Eventually, while talking to the priest, #819 broke down and began to cry hysterically, just like two previously released prisoners had.

The psychologists removed the chain from his foot, the cap off his head, and told him to go and rest in a room that was adjacent to the prison yard. They told him they would get him some food and then take him to see a doctor.

While this was going on, one of the guards lined up the other prisoners and had them chant aloud:

"Prisoner #819 is a bad prisoner. Because of what Prisoner #819 did, my cell is a mess, Mr. Correctional Officer."

The psychologists realized #819 could hear the chanting and went back into the room where they found him sobbing uncontrollably. The psychologists tried to get him to agree to leave the experiment, but he said he could not leave because the others had labeled him a bad prisoner.

Back to Reality

At that point, Zimbardo said, "Listen, you are not #819. You are [his name], and my name is Dr. Zimbardo. I am a psychologist, not a prison superintendent, and this is not a real prison. This is just an experiment, and those are students, not prisoners, just like you. Let's go."

He stopped crying suddenly, looked up and replied, "Okay, let's go," as if nothing had been wrong.

An End to the Experiment

Zimbardo (1973) had intended that the experiment should run for two weeks, but on the sixth day, it was terminated, due to the emotional breakdowns of prisoners, and excessive aggression of the guards.

Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners, strongly objected when she saw the prisoners being abused by the guards.

Filled with outrage, she said, "It's terrible what you are doing to these boys!" Out of 50 or more outsiders who had seen our prison, she was the only one who ever questioned its morality.

Zimbardo (2008) later noted, "It wasn't until much later that I realized how far into my prison role I was at that point - that I was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist."

This led him to prioritize maintaining the experiment's structure over the well-being and ethics involved, thereby highlighting the blurring of roles and the profound impact of the situation on human behavior.

Here's a quote that illustrates how Philip Zimbardo, initially the principal investigator, became deeply immersed in his role as the "Stanford Prison Superintendent (April 19, 2011):

"By the third day, when the second prisoner broke down, I had already slipped into or been transformed into the role of "Stanford Prison Superintendent." And in that role, I was no longer the principal investigator, worried about ethics.

When a prisoner broke down, what was my job? It was to replace him with somebody on our standby list. And that's what I did. There was a weakness in the study in not separating those two roles. I should only have been the principal investigator, in charge of two graduate students and one undergraduate."

Conclusion

According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment revealed how people will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards.

Because the guards were placed in a position of authority, they began to act in ways they would not usually behave in their normal lives.

The "prison" environment was an important factor in creating the guards' brutal behavior (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies before the study).

Therefore, the findings support the situational explanation of behavior rather than the dispositional one.

Zimbardo proposed that two processes can explain the prisoner's "final submission."

Deindividuation may explain the behavior of the participants; especially the guards. This is a state when you become so immersed in the norms of the group that you lose your sense of identity and personal responsibility.

The guards may have been so sadistic because they did not feel what happened was down to them personally - it was a group norm. They also may have lost their sense of personal identity because of the uniform they wore.

Also, learned helplessness could explain the prisoner's submission to the guards. The prisoners learned that whatever they did had little effect on what happened to them. In the mock prison the unpredictable decisions of the guards led the prisoners to give up responding.

After the prison experiment was terminated, Zimbardo interviewed the participants. Here's an excerpt:

'Most of the participants said they had felt involved and committed. The research had felt "real" to them. One guard said, "I was surprised at myself.

I made them call each other names and clean the toilets out with their bare hands. I practically considered the prisoners cattle and I kept thinking I had to watch out for them in case they tried something."

Another guard said "Acting authoritatively can be fun. Power can be a great pleasure." And another: "... during the inspection I went to Cell Two to mess up a bed which a prisoner had just made and he grabbed me, screaming that he had just made it and that he was not going to let me mess it up.

He grabbed me by the throat and although he was laughing I was pretty scared. I lashed out with my stick and hit him on the chin although not very hard, and when I freed myself I became angry."'

Most of the guards found it difficult to believe that they had behaved in the brutal ways that they had. Many said they hadn't known this side of them existed or that they were capable of such things.

The prisoners, too, couldn't believe that they had responded in the submissive, cowering, dependent way they had. Several claimed to be assertive types normally.

When asked about the guards, they described the usual three stereotypes that can be found in any prison: some guards were good, some were tough but fair, and some were cruel.

A further explanation for the behavior of the participants can be described in terms of reinforcement. The escalation of aggression and abuse by the guards could be seen as being due to the positive reinforcement they received both from fellow guards and intrinsically in terms of how good it made them feel to have so much power.

Similarly, the prisoners could have learned through negative reinforcement that if they kept their heads down and did as they were told they could avoid further unpleasant experiences.

Critical Evaluation

The Stanford Prison Experiment is criticized for lacking ecological validity in its attempt to simulate a real prison environment. Specifically, the "prison" was merely a setup in the basement of Stanford University's psychology department.

The student "guards" lacked professional training, and the experiment's duration was much shorter than real prison sentences. Furthermore, the participants, who were college students, didn't reflect the diverse backgrounds typically found in actual prisons in terms of ethnicity, education, and socioeconomic status.

None had prior prison experience, and they were chosen due to their mental stability and low antisocial tendencies. Additionally, the mock prison lacked spaces for exercise or rehabilitative activities.

Demand characteristics could explain the findings of the study. Most of the guards later claimed they were simply acting.

Because the guards and prisoners were playing a role, their behavior may not be influenced by the same factors which affect behavior in real life.

This means the study's findings cannot be reasonably generalized to real life, such as prison settings. I.e, the study has low ecological validity.

However, there is considerable evidence that the participants did react to the situation as though it was real. For example, 90% of the prisoners' private conversations, which were monitored by the researchers, were on the prison conditions, and only 10% of the time were their conversations about life outside of the prison.

The guards, too, rarely exchanged personal information during their relaxation breaks - they either talked about 'problem prisoners,' other prison topics, or did not talk at all. The guards were always on time and even worked overtime for no extra pay.

When the prisoners were introduced to a priest, they referred to themselves by their prison number, rather than their first name. Some even asked him to get a lawyer to help get them out.

Fourteen years after his experience as prisoner 8612 in the Stanford Prison Experiment, Douglas Korpi, now a prison psychologist, reflected on his time and stated (Musen and Zimbardo 1992):

"The Stanford Prison Experiment was a very benign prison situation and it promotes everything a normal prison promotes - the guard role promotes sadism, the prisoner role promotes confusion and shame".

The study may also lack population validity as the sample comprised US male students. The study's findings cannot be applied to female prisons or those from other countries. For example, America is an individualist culture (where people are generally less conforming) and the results may be different in collectivist cultures (such as Asian countries).

A strength of the study is that it has altered the way US prisons are run. For example, juveniles accused of federal crimes are no longer housed before trial with adult prisoners (due to the risk of violence against them).

Another strength of the study is that the harmful treatment of participants led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines by the American Psychological Association. Studies must now undergo an extensive review by an institutional review board (US) or ethics committee (UK) before they are implemented.

A review of research plans by a panel is required by most institutions such as universities, hospitals, and government agencies. These boards review whether the potential benefits of the research are justifiable in the light of the possible risk of physical or psychological harm.

These boards may request researchers make changes to the study's design or procedure, or in extreme cases deny approval of the study altogether.

Ethical Issues

The study has received many ethical criticisms, including lack of fully informed consent by participants as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment (it was unpredictable).

Also, the prisoners did not consent to being "arrested" at home. The prisoners were not told partly because final approval from the police wasn't given until minutes before the participants decided to participate, and partly because the researchers wanted the arrests to come as a surprise.

However, this was a breach of the ethics of Zimbardo's own contract that all of the participants had signed.

Protection of Participants

Participants playing the role of prisoners were not protected from psychological harm, experiencing incidents of humiliation and distress. For example, one prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying, and anger.

Here's a quote from Philip G. Zimbardo, taken from an interview on the Stanford Prison Experiment's 40th anniversary (April 19, 2011):

"In the Stanford prison study, people were stressed, day and night, for 5 days, 24 hours a day. There's no question that it was a high level of stress because five of the boys had emotional breakdowns, the first within 36 hours. Other boys that didn't have emotional breakdowns were blindly obedient to corrupt authority by
the guards and did terrible things to each other. And so it is no question that that was unethical. You can't do research where you allow people to suffer at that level."

"After the first one broke down, we didn't believe it. We thought he was faking. There was actually a rumor he was faking to get out. He was going to bring his friends in to liberate the prison. And/or we believed our screening procedure was inadequate, [we believed] that he had some mental defect that we did not pick up. At that point, by the third day, when the second prisoner broke down, I had already slipped into or been transformed into the role of "Stanford Prison Superintendent." And in that role, I was no longer the principal investigator, worried about ethics."

However, in Zimbardo's defense, the emotional distress experienced by the prisoners could not have been predicted from the outset. Approval for the study was given by the Office of Naval Research, the Psychology Department, and the University Committee of Human Experimentation.

This Committee also did not anticipate the prisoners' extreme reactions that were to follow. Alternative methodologies were looked at that would cause less distress to the participants but at the same time give the desired information, but nothing suitable could be found.

Withdrawal

Although guards were explicitly instructed not to physically harm prisoners at the beginning of the Stanford Prison Experiment, they were allowed to induce feelings of boredom, frustration, arbitrariness, and powerlessness among the inmates.

This created a pervasive atmosphere where prisoners genuinely believed and even reinforced among each other, that they couldn't leave the experiment until their "sentence" was completed, mirroring the inescapability of a real prison.

Even though two participants (8612 and 819) were released early, the impact of the environment was so profound that prisoner 416, reflecting on the experience two months later, described it as a "prison run by psychologists rather than by the state."

Debrief

Extensive group and individual debriefing sessions were held, and all participants returned post-experimental questionnaires several weeks, then several months later, and then at yearly intervals. Zimbardo concluded there were no lasting negative effects.

Zimbardo also strongly argues that the benefits gained from our understanding of human behavior and how we can improve society should outbalance the distress caused by the study.

However, it has been suggested that the US Navy was not so much interested in making prisons more human and were, in fact, more interested in using the study to train people in the armed services to cope with the stresses of captivity.

Discussion Questions

1. What are the effects of living in an environment with no clocks, no view of the outside world, and minimal sensory stimulation?

2. Consider the psychological consequences of stripping, delousing, and shaving the heads of prisoners or members of the military. Whattransformations take place when people go through an experience like this?

3. The prisoners could have left at any time, and yet, they didn't. Why?

4. After the study, how do you think the prisoners and guards felt?

5. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study?

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Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo's Famous Study

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In Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups, guards or prisoners. after a few days, the prisoners staged a failed revolt and were consequently punished and humiliated by the guards.

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A scene from the 1963 film "Lord of the Flies." Credit Credit Photofest

A planned film adaptation of "Lord of the Flies," the 1954 novel that examined the inherent evil of humanity through an island of boys without adult supervision, will have a provocative twist: This time, the island will be full of girls.

The concept alone invited immediate scrutiny on social media. But skepticism was inflamed by a fairly commonHollywood story: The film about girls will be written and directed by two men, Scott McGehee and David Siegel.

The two men have reportedly made a deal with Warner Bros. to create the movie. Mr. Siegel told Deadline, which reported the news, that they intended to do "a very faithful but contemporized adaptation of the book."

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Scott McGehee, left, and David Siegel plan an all-girls "Lord of the Flies." Credit Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

Using girls "might help people see the story anew," Mr. McGehee said.

"It breaks away from some of the conventions, the ways we think of boys and aggression," he said. "People still talk about the movie and the book from the standpoint of pure storytelling. It is a great adventure story, real entertainment, but it has a lot of meaning embedded in it as well."

Together, the two directed the films " The Deep End" in 2001 and " What Maisie Knew" in 2013. Theirs would be at least the third adaptation of "Lord of the Flies," after a 1963 version and another one in 1990. Warner Bros. did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

In the book - spoiler alert - things go badly for the preteen boys, classmates from an English boarding school who become stranded on an island without adults. They first try to work together to survive, but their new society quickly unravels as distrust and violence set in. A favorite of high school English classes, the story has for decades been seen as a cautionary look at how members of mankind can treat one another poorly.

But is it about mankind or about men? Flipping the gender dynamics would lead to an entirely different story, several people argued.

In an undated interview, the author of the book, William Golding, who died in 1993, said he was often asked why he wrote about boys instead of girls. He said that it was partly because he grew up as one, but that gender was also crucial to the larger point of the novel.

"If you land with a group of little boys, they are more like scaled-down society than a group of little girls would be. Don't ask me why, and this is a terrible thing to say, because I'm going to be chased from hell to breakfast by all the women who talk about equality. This has nothing to do with equality at all. I mean, I think women are foolish to pretend they're equal to men - they're far superior and always have been. But one thing you cannot do with them is take a bunch of them and boil them down, so to speak, into a set of little girls who would then become a kind of image of civilization, of society."

Gender reversals in reboots are not new for Hollywood: A " Ghostbusters" with a cast of women was a critical and box office success last year, and women will be the outlaws in the upcoming " Ocean's 8." And teenage girls have long been awful to one another on screen, as seen in " Mean Girls" and " Heathers."

What remains to be seen is whether the new "Lord of the Flies" will offer largely a mirror image of the novel, subbing in girls without changing the central plot points and behavior of the characters, or if it will wrestle with how girls would approach their fate differently.

"It could be problematic if all they're doing is switching out girls for boys and saying, 'Well, girls would do this too,'" said Pamela Davis-Kean, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies children and families.

Though many differences between boys and girls tend to be overstated, boys do tend to be more physically aggressive, she said. Some of the novel's scenes of physical violence probably wouldn't align with how girls would settle their issues, especially in the era of the book, she said.

The depth of collaboration could be another departure, she said. While the boys in the book did try to set up effective communication methods, like only speaking when holding a conch shell, they largely ended up deferring to leaders. Girls would be more likely to hear more ideas and deliberate, Ms. Davis-Kean said.

"My guess would be a lot more time in the shell circle trying to figure out what to do," she said.

Correction:

Because of an editing error, an article on Friday about a film adaptation of the book "Lord of the Flies" misstated the year that an earlier adaptation was released. It was 1990, not 2000. It also overstated what is known about the success of "Ghostbusters." While the movie was considered a box office hit, earning more than $220 million, it was not necessarily a "commercial success." (Some industry observers say that high marketing and studio costs caused it to be a commercial failure.)

A version of this article appears in print on , Section C, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: A 'Lord of the Flies' Remake, With Girls. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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In 'Lord of the Flies' Remake, Girls Survive Instead

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A planned film adaptation of "Lord of the Flies," the 1954 novel that examined the inherent evil of humanity through an island of boys without adult supervision, will have a provocative twist: This time, the island will be full of girls. The concept alone invited immediate scrutiny on social media.

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For centuries western culture has been permeated by the idea that humans are selfish creatures. That cynical image of humanity has been proclaimed in films and novels, history books and scientific research. But in the last 20 years, something extraordinary has happened. Scientists from all over the world have switched to a more hopeful view of mankind. This development is still so young that researchers in different fields often don't even know about each other.

When I started writing a book about this more hopeful view, I knew there was one story I would have to address. It takes place on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific. A plane has just gone down. The only survivors are some British schoolboys, who can't believe their good fortune. Nothing but beach, shells and water for miles. And better yet: no grownups.

On the very first day, the boys institute a democracy of sorts. One boy, Ralph, is elected to be the group's leader. Athletic, charismatic and handsome, his game plan is simple: 1) Have fun. 2) Survive. 3) Make smoke signals for passing ships. Number one is a success. The others? Not so much. The boys are more interested in feasting and frolicking than in tending the fire. Before long, they have begun painting their faces. Casting off their clothes. And they develop overpowering urges - to pinch, to kick, to bite.

By the time a British naval officer comes ashore, the island is a smouldering wasteland. Three of the children are dead. "I should have thought," the officer says, "that a pack of British boys would have been able to put up a better show than that." At this, Ralph bursts into tears. "Ralph wept for the end of innocence," we read, and for "the darkness of man's heart".

Golding had a masterful ability to portray the darkest depths of mankind

This story never happened. An English schoolmaster, William Golding, made up this story in 1951 - his novel Lord of the Flies would sell tens of millions of copies, be translated into more than 30 languages and hailed as one of the classics of the 20th century. In hindsight, the secret to the book's success is clear. Golding had a masterful ability to portray the darkest depths of mankind. Of course, he had the zeitgeist of the 1960s on his side, when a new generation was questioning its parents about the atrocities of the second world war. Had Auschwitz been an anomaly, they wanted to know, or is there a Nazi hiding in each of us?

I first read Lord of the Flies as a teenager. I remember feeling disillusioned afterwards, but not for a second did I think to doubt Golding's view of human nature. That didn't happen until years later when I began delving into the author's life. I learned what an unhappy individual he had been: an alcoholic, prone to depression. "I have always understood the Nazis," Golding confessed, "because I am of that sort by nature." And it was "partly out of that sad self-knowledge" that he wrote Lord of the Flies.

I began to wonder: had anyone ever studied what real children would do if they found themselves alone on a deserted island? I wrote an article on the subject, in which I compared Lord of the Flies to modern scientific insights and concluded that, in all probability, kids would act very differently. Readers responded sceptically. All my examples concerned kids at home, at school, or at summer camp. Thus began my quest for a real-life Lord of the Flies. After trawling the web for a while, I came across an obscure blog that told an arresting story: "One day, in 1977, six boys set out from Tonga on a fishing trip ... Caught in a huge storm, the boys were shipwrecked on a deserted island. What do they do, this little tribe? They made a pact never to quarrel."

The article did not provide any sources. But sometimes all it takes is a stroke of luck. Sifting through a newspaper archive one day, I typed a year incorrectly and there it was. The reference to 1977 turned out to have been a typo. In the 6 October 1966 edition of Australian newspaper The Age, a headline jumped out at me: "Sunday showing for Tongan castaways". The story concerned six boys who had been found three weeks earlier on a rocky islet south of Tonga, an island group in the Pacific Ocean. The boys had been rescued by an Australian sea captain after being marooned on the island of 'Ata for more than a year. According to the article, the captain had even got a television station to film a re-enactment of the boys' adventure.

I was bursting with questions. Were the boys still alive? And could I find the television footage? Most importantly, though, I had a lead: the captain's name was Peter Warner. When I searched for him, I had another stroke of luck. In a recent issue of a tiny local paper from Mackay, Australia, I came across the headline: "Mates share 50-year bond". Printed alongside was a small photograph of two men, smiling, one with his arm slung around the other. The article began: "Deep in a banana plantation at Tullera, near Lismore, sit an unlikely pair of mates ... The elder is 83 years old, the son of a wealthy industrialist. The younger, 67, was, literally, a child of nature." Their names? Peter Warner and Mano Totau. And where had they met? On a deserted island.

My wife Maartje and I rented a car in Brisbane and some three hours later arrived at our destination, a spot in the middle of nowhere that stumped Google Maps. Yet there he was, sitting out in front of a low-slung house off the dirt road: the man who rescued six lost boys 50 years ago, Captain Peter Warner.

Savagery in the 1963 film adaptation of Lord of the Flies. Photograph: Ronald Grant

Peter was the youngest son of Arthur Warner, once one of the richest and most powerful men in Australia. Back in the 1930s, Arthur ruled over a vast empire called Electronic Industries, which dominated the country's radio market at the time. Peter was groomed to follow in his father's footsteps. Instead, at the age of 17, he ran away to sea in search of adventure and spent the next few years sailing from Hong Kong to Stockholm, Shanghai to St Petersburg. When he finally returned five years later, the prodigal son proudly presented his father with a Swedish captain's certificate. Unimpressed, Warner Sr demanded his son learn a useful profession. "What's easiest?" Peter asked. "Accountancy," Arthur lied.

Peter went to work for his father's company, yet the sea still beckoned, and whenever he could he went to Tasmania, where he kept his own fishing fleet. It was this that brought him to Tonga in the winter of 1966. On the way home he took a little detour and that's when he saw it: a minuscule island in the azure sea, 'Ata. The island had been inhabited once, until one dark day in 1863, when a slave ship appeared on the horizon and sailed off with the natives. Since then, 'Ata had been deserted - cursed and forgotten.

It didn't take long for the first boy to reach the boat. 'My name is Stephen,' he cried. 'We've been here 15 months.'

But Peter noticed something odd. Peering through his binoculars, he saw burned patches on the green cliffs. "In the tropics it's unusual for fires to start spontaneously," he told us, a half century later. Then he saw a boy. Naked. Hair down to his shoulders. This wild creature leaped from the cliffside and plunged into the water. Suddenly more boys followed, screaming at the top of their lungs. It didn't take long for the first boy to reach the boat. "My name is Stephen," he cried in perfect English. "There are six of us and we reckon we've been here 15 months."

The boys, once aboard, claimed they were students at a boarding school in Nuku'alofa, the Tongan capital. Sick of school meals, they had decided to take a fishing boat out one day, only to get caught in a storm. Likely story, Peter thought. Using his two-way radio, he called in to Nuku'alofa. "I've got six kids here," he told the operator. "Stand by," came the response. Twenty minutes ticked by. (As Peter tells this part of the story, he gets a little misty-eyed.) Finally, a very tearful operator came on the radio, and said: "You found them! These boys have been given up for dead. Funerals have been held. If it's them, this is a miracle!"

In the months that followed I tried to reconstruct as precisely as possible what had happened on 'Ata. Peter's memory turned out to be excellent. Even at the age of 90, everything he recounted was consistent with my foremost other source, Mano, 15 years old at the time and now pushing 70, who lived just a few hours' drive from him. The real Lord of the Flies, Mano told us, began in June 1965. The protagonists were six boys - Sione, Stephen, Kolo, David, Luke and Mano - all pupils at a strict Catholic boarding school in Nuku'alofa. The oldest was 16, the youngest 13, and they had one main thing in common: they were bored witless. So they came up with a plan to escape: to Fiji, some 500 miles away, or even all the way to New Zealand.

There was only one obstacle. None of them owned a boat, so they decided to "borrow" one from Mr Taniela Uhila, a fisherman they all disliked. The boys took little time to prepare for the voyage. Two sacks of bananas, a few coconuts and a small gas burner were all the supplies they packed. It didn't occur to any of them to bring a map, let alone a compass.

The boys had set up a commune with food garden, gym, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire

No one noticed the small craft leaving the harbour that evening. Skies were fair; only a mild breeze ruffled the calm sea. But that night the boys made a grave error. They fell asleep. A few hours later they awoke to water crashing down over their heads. It was dark. They hoisted the sail, which the wind promptly tore to shreds. Next to break was the rudder. "We drifted for eight days," Mano told me. "Without food. Without water." The boys tried catching fish. They managed to collect some rainwater in hollowed-out coconut shells and shared it equally between them, each taking a sip in the morning and another in the evening.

Then, on the eighth day, they spied a miracle on the horizon. A small island, to be precise. Not a tropical paradise with waving palm trees and sandy beaches, but a hulking mass of rock, jutting up more than a thousand feet out of the ocean. These days, 'Ata is considered uninhabitable. But "by the time we arrived," Captain Warner wrote in his memoirs, "the boys had set up a small commune with food garden, hollowed-out tree trunks to store rainwater, a gymnasium with curious weights, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire, all from handiwork, an old knife blade and much determination." While the boys in Lord of the Flies come to blows over the fire, those in this real-life version tended their flame so it never went out, for more than a year.

Mr Peter Warner, third from left, with his crew in 1968, including the survivors from 'Ata. Photograph: Fairfax Media Archives/via Getty Images

The kids agreed to work in teams of two, drawing up a strict roster for garden, kitchen and guard duty. Sometimes they quarrelled, but whenever that happened they solved it by imposing a time-out. Their days began and ended with song and prayer. Kolo fashioned a makeshift guitar from a piece of driftwood, half a coconut shell and six steel wires salvaged from their wrecked boat - an instrument Peter has kept all these years - and played it to help lift their spirits. And their spirits needed lifting. All summer long it hardly rained, driving the boys frantic with thirst. They tried constructing a raft in order to leave the island, but it fell apart in the crashing surf.

Worst of all, Stephen slipped one day, fell off a cliff and broke his leg. The other boys picked their way down after him and then helped him back up to the top. They set his leg using sticks and leaves. "Don't worry," Sione joked. "We'll do your work, while you lie there like King Taufa'ahau Tupou himself!"

They survived initially on fish, coconuts, tame birds (they drank the blood as well as eating the meat); seabird eggs were sucked dry. Later, when they got to the top of the island, they found an ancient volcanic crater, where people had lived a century before. There the boys discovered wild taro, bananas and chickens (which had been reproducing for the 100 years since the last Tongans had left).

When they arrived home, they found the police waiting to meet them. They were arrested and thrown in jail

They were finally rescued on Sunday 11 September 1966. The local physician later expressed astonishment at their muscled physiques and Stephen's perfectly healed leg. But this wasn't the end of the boys' little adventure, because, when they arrived back in Nuku'alofa police boarded Peter's boat, arrested the boys and threw them in jail. Mr Taniela Uhila, whose sailing boat the boys had "borrowed" 15 months earlier, was still furious, and he'd decided to press charges.

Fortunately for the boys, Peter came up with a plan. It occurred to him that the story of their shipwreck was perfect Hollywood material. And being his father's corporate accountant, Peter managed the company's film rights and knew people in TV. So from Tonga, he called up the manager of Channel 7 in Sydney. "You can have the Australian rights," he told them. "Give me the world rights." Next, Peter paid Mr Uhila £150 for his old boat, and got the boys released on condition that they would cooperate with the movie. A few days later, a team from Channel 7 arrived.

The mood when the boys returned to their families in Tonga was jubilant. Almost the entire island of Haʻafeva - population 900 - had turned out to welcome them home. Peter was proclaimed a national hero. Soon he received a message from King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV himself, inviting the captain for an audience. "Thank you for rescuing six of my subjects," His Royal Highness said. "Now, is there anything I can do for you?" The captain didn't have to think long. "Yes! I would like to trap lobster in these waters and start a business here." The king consented. Peter returned to Sydney, resigned from his father's company and commissioned a new ship. Then he had the six boys brought over and granted them the thing that had started it all: an opportunity to see the world beyond Tonga. He hired them as the crew of his new fishing boat.

While the boys of 'Ata have been consigned to obscurity, Golding's book is still widely read. Media historians even credit him as being the unwitting originator of one of the most popular entertainment genres on television today: reality TV. "I read and reread Lord of the Flies ," divulged the creator of hit series Survivor in an interview.It's time we told a different kind of story. The real Lord of the Flies is a tale of friendship and loyalty; one that illustrates how much stronger we are if we can lean on each other. After my wife took Peter's picture, he turned to a cabinet and rummaged around for a bit, then drew out a heavy stack of papers that he laid in my hands. His memoirs, he explained, written for his children and grandchildren. I looked down at the first page. "Life has taught me a great deal," it began, "including the lesson that you should always look for what is good and positive in people."

This is an adapted excerpt from Rutger Bregman's Humankind, translated by Elizabeth Manton and Erica Moore. A live streamed Q&A with Bregman and Owen Jones takes place at 7pm on 19 May 2020.

This article was amended on 12 May 2020 to remove a reference to William Golding beating his children. The line was based on Golding's own account of a pillow fight with his four-year-old son in which he described how he had enjoyed hitting the boy and "stopped when [my son] was on the verge of tears". Golding's daughter has said ( see letter) that their father never beat or smacked them.

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The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

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When a group of schoolboys were marooned on an island in 1965, it turned out very differently to William Golding's bestseller, writes Rutger Bregman

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Why an all-girls LOTF would be a good idea

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Why an all-girls LOTF would be a good idea

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If you enjoy reading Electric Literature, join our mailing list! We'll send you the best of EL each week, and you'll be the first to know about upcoming submissions periods and virtual events.

Social media did not take kindly to the announcement that two men will write and direct a film adaptation of "Lord of the Flies" with a contemporary setting and an all-female cast. Twitter users pointed out that the purpose of William Golding's novel was to show how prepubescent boys, left to their own devices on an adult-free desert island, would begin to replicate the patriarchal society they knew - one infected by paranoia and ruled by scheming, warmongering brutes. To swap the boys for girls was to miss the point, many argued, about systemic toxic masculinity.

David Siegel, one half of the team behind the movie, didn't reassure people that he got the point when he told Deadline that the filmmakers intend to create a "faithful but contemporized adaptation of the book, but our idea was to do it with all girls rather than boys." A simple swapping of one gender for the other might sound more like a novelty than a dive into the realm of preadolescent girls, as deep as the one Golding plumbed with boys - an analogue to the Ghostbusters remake, only this time with classic literature. That the adaptation might traffic in tokenism, might be crass and dishonest, seem reasonable concerns.

But some detractors didn't stop there: They went on to argue that a female version of Lord of the Flies wouldn't work because women are not brutal. Writer Jessica Valenti tweeted, for instance, that "The all-female Lord of the Flies will just be a group of young women apologizing to each other over and over till everyone is dead."

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Although Valenti's comment is tongue-in-cheek, it seems to stem from the same perception of women as nurturers, as passive, that has served as a foundation for their subjugation. In Why I Am Not a Feminist, Jessa Crispin writes that the idea of this set of supposedly innately female attributes in fact originates with men, but that women "have adopted this belief because it suits us to believe this about ourselves. It makes us special."

Crispin goes on to surmise that many women identify with these allegedly "feminine" characteristics - compassion, emotional intelligence, receptivity - and not "masculine" ones - foolishness, predation, brutality - in order to locate a sense of collective value in their womanhood after centuries of oppression, to bolster their community's power by insisting they stand on a solid moral high ground.

There's a sinister side to this, a building of political clout by identifying a noble us and a savage them  - though I don't think that's the intention of most feminists who advance the notion that women, by dint of being women, are somehow morally superior. Any woman, after all, who has been to junior high knows very well that girls are more than capable of viciousness; anyone who has followed even vaguely the careers of female leaders like Margaret Thatcher knows how absurd it is to say that if women were in charge, the world would cease to be riven by conflict.

Maybe it's more about the human tendency to turn one's face away from the darkness within, from the shadow described by Carl Jung: the one we construct over our lifetimes out of all the components of ourselves that condemn us, that reveal we are less "good" than we'd prefer to believe. (The boys, upon their rescue at the conclusion of Lord of the Flies, revert to vulnerable, weeping naifs in the presence of adults; they've shoved their shadows out of sight of authority.)

Any woman who has been to junior high knows very well that girls are more than capable of viciousness.

But we do want narratives that present women in all their complexity, even if that mirror is a shadowed one - or at least we say we do. So why is it impossible that a gender-swapped Lord of the Flies could offer this? The adaptation's critics seem to object mainly on two grounds: that the filmmakers misunderstand Golding's intentions with the novel, and that the filmmakers are men.

As to the first concern, authorial intention typically seems to matter very little when a book is adapted - and maybe it shouldn't. (Find me someone who prefers the Stephen King-approved miniseries version of The Shining to Kubrick's, other than Stephen King.) A good adaptation can reinvigorate a work and draw new attention to it. Hulu's recent take on The Handmaid's Tale, published in 1985 when the evangelical Christian movement's influence in U.S. politics was still relatively novel (and alarming), hit uncomfortably close to home even for its author  - and put it back on the bestseller list, in the wake of Trump's election.

Besides, Golding's intentions for his own book seem a bit muddy. In a recording, Golding explains that the idea for the book came to him while he was sitting by the fire; he remarked to his wife that he'd like to write about boys on an island and show "how they'd really behave, being boys and not saints like they usually are in children's books." To the question of why he chose to write about boys rather than girls, Golding says, "I was once a little boy..." and then adds, "If you, as it were, scaled down human beings, scaled down society, if you land with a group of little boys they are more like scaled-down society than a group of little girls would be. Don't ask me why."

He hastens to explain that this is not intended as a knock against equality; in fact, he says, he believes women are "foolish to pretend they're equal to men. They're far superior." This seems to me as good an indication as any that he did not understand women to be complex and flawed, but rather more like those saintly children's books characters he wanted to expose for the lies they are. And perhaps he sensed this, and perhaps his first answer - that he wrote about little boys because he experienced being a little boy, and he sensed he could not in good faith represent girls on the page - is the best reason why Lord of the Flies is what it is.

But even if we take as written in stone his second answer - that he chose boys because he wanted to present a scaled-down society, and society being patriarchal, its microcosm must, too, be male - this doesn't seem to me a persuasive reason not to gender-swap an adaptation of his book. Of course, there could not be a female mirror image of Lord of the Flies. You can't have a microcosm when there is no macrocosm, no matriarchal culture to pillory.

There is no example of conduct for girls to emulate that isn't responsive to and shaped by men's.

But you could have something else - say, an exploration of the way that girls, once removed from the world of men, might continue to uphold its rules, having never encountered any alternative to draw upon for their own desert island culture. One Twitter user joked that there already is a female Lord of the Flies, called Mean Girls, and there's something to that: I've always found the strongest moment of that movie to be when Tina Fey's teacher Ms. Norbury tells her female students that they "all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores," a sly reference to the infinite regress of men establishing a social order and women, absent any other model for living, maintain it, thus reinforcing men's continuation of it. Maggie Nelson describes in The Argonauts how a girl's sexual education forms around the fact of the ever-present potential for violation; she writes, "There is no control group. I don't even want to talk about 'female sexuality' until there is a control group. And there never will be." There is no example of conduct for girls to emulate that isn't responsive to and shaped by men's.

But no control group doesn't mean nothing to uncover, and the reason Golding gives for why he didn't have his stranded children be boys and girls suggests a pretty astounding outlook on gender relations: With a co-ed cast of characters, the matter of sex would inevitably arise, and "sex is too trivial a thing," he says, to put in a story like this, which is about the problem of evil. If Golding understood the impulse toward violence and control over others, and the drive for sexual satisfaction, to be totally distinct matters, he may have missed something important about the potential toxicity of any human being. In that case, we no longer have to hold up Lord of the Flies as an authority on brutality; we're free to reinterpret it for today.

The second objection, that the adaptation's writers and directors are men and therefore unable to capture the world of young girls, seems to be in line with Golding's assertion that you're only allowed to write about little girls if you were once a little girl. Never mind that David Siegel and Scott McGehee also directed What Maisie Knew (another adaptation!), and extracted (or simply recorded) from their six-year-old female star a performance that felt poignant and true - or that one of the most wrenching and funny depictions of girl-on-girl savagery, at least in my view, can be found in the male-written and directed Welcome to the Dollhouse.

And what does it mean to capture girlhood or boyhood with accuracy? To Golding it means to show how quickly, once removed from "polite society," the barbarism supposedly undergirding it comes bubbling forth. Golding is hardly alone in believing that human nature is inherently base in this way. In her essay "A Common Faith," Marilynne Robinson investigates this belief, and the purpose it serves. She writes of the ungenerous assumptions we make about our own human nature, our apparent commitment to reducing ourselves to creatures driven solely by self-interest. "I'm sure all of us can think of a thousand examples that argue against" the hypothesis that concern for others is unnatural, Robinson writes, and then points to one fascinating one: evidence that our hominid ancestors, as much as 700,000 years ago, possessed technology and culture, formed communities and passed down knowledge through the generations. In other words, there's reason to believe our "natural tendencies" run just as much toward collaboration and cooperation as they do toward destruction, if not more so:

Modern theories of human nature, which are essentially Darwinist and neo-Darwinist, pare us down to our instincts for asserting relative advantage in order to survive and propagate. This dictum hangs on our essential primitivity as they understand it - assuming that our remote ancestors would have been describable in these terms, and that we, therefore, are described in them also. But it seems worthwhile to remember that this is a modern theory projected onto the deep past. Then the past, seen through the lens of this theory, becomes the basis for interpreting the present. And the observed persistence of these archaic traits in modern humanity affirms the correctness of this characterization of our remote ancestors, which goes to prove that these archaic traits do in fact persist in us. The endless mutual reinforcement distracts attention from the fact that it is all hypothetical. We know precious little about those dwellers on the savannas of the Pleistocene, and, as Brooks points out, we clearly know precious little about ourselves.

We don't really know what we are, Robinson is saying; being human also means being mysteries to ourselves, containing questions that are unanswerable but nonetheless worthy of posing and probing in art. In The Art of Cruelty, Maggie Nelson writes that "attempts to nail down 'who we really are' most often serve as rhetorical pawns in unwinnable arguments fueled by competing agendas."

If so, then Golding's agenda appears to be to persuade us that men - and not women - are killers, not nurturers. Many of us, clearly, are persuaded. A female Lord of the Flies might only make it explicit that this refers to women too - which at the very least gives us something to continue thinking and writing and arguing about. But at best, it - and female-centered works like it - could rise to the level of art. As Robinson suggests at the beginning of her essay, it can "test the limits imposed" by our long-held cultural patterns around gender, rather than continuing to operate within their very narrow and ungenerous boundaries.

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Actually, an All-Girls 'Lord of the Flies' Could Be a Good Idea - Electric Literature

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Social media did not take kindly to the announcement that two men will write and direct a film adaptation of "Lord of the Flies" with a contemporary setting and an all-female cast. Twitter users pointed out that the purpose of William Golding's novel was to show how prepubescent boys, left to their own devices on [...]

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Ten years ago I was one of 36 men, women and children recruited to live on the remote Hebridean island of Taransay as part of the Castaway 2000 project for the BBC.

It was ambitiously billed as a "bold new experiment for the new millennium" and we were the guinea pigs who'd build a sustainable, self-sufficient community from scratch and fend for ourselves in the Scottish wilderness. We'd grow our own food, kill our own meat and govern ourselves for the year-long project. It was to be a year that changed my life in ways I could never imagine.

In contrast to today's reality TV, there were no cash prizes, rewards, winners or losers - we were told this was a show with "integrity and credibility". At the time of being selected in 1999 I was a 44-year-old gay man living in Twickenham; I was in pretty good shape - happy and content. I'd just retired from an acting career and begun a degree in counselling, supporting myself as a freelance writer. I had a clear focus and direction, but curiosity got the better of me.

A friend alerted me to the advert for Castaway, saying I'd be the only person they knew mad enough to give it a go. The concept intrigued me. What a fantastic opportunity to experiment with a different way of life; to learn about human nature and group dynamics.

Nobody was more surprised than me when I was selected. I was one of the first Castaways to be offered a place, and the last to sign the contract. I felt like a groom walking up the aisle on his wedding day, not really convinced that he's doing the right thing.

It didn't take long to discover my gut instinct was right. On 27 December 1999, we left our homes and families, and on our arrival in Scotland were told the island was not ready for habitation. We were thrown into a youth hostel and then informed that some of our personal possessions had been dropped during an airlift. I was one of the four unlucky ones - everything we'd packed for the year had been destroyed.

One catastrophe followed another - there was a serious outbreak of flu and bronchitis, and many of us were terribly ill. The younger, fitter Castaways were shipped off to the island and built makeshift accommodation in the schoolhouse; those of us who were sick were transferred to a hotel, along with the families who refused to put their children at risk on Taransay, which still resembled a building site.

The TV crew looked stressed and agitated. We were later to discover that the division created between those on the mainland and those on the island would provide their first major source of televised conflict - with those on Taransay hailed as heroes and the rest of us portrayed as objectionable wimps. These stories found their way into the tabloid press.

Being pitted against each other wasn't pleasant, and it felt as if there was more to come. Many of us thought of returning home. But we kept each other going, saying that once we got to the island things would be different.

Sometime in late January we eventually got to the island. Taransay is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, and we all fell in love with it. The winter weather could be ferocious but in spring and summer it was heaven on earth. The landscape is rugged and wild, and you feel at its mercy.

Most of the early days were spent getting to know each other and having endless meetings about how we were to live on Taransay. Many rows ensued regarding the work rota and how to spend the community budget - even some punch ups between some of the men. It all seemed so surreal because of the ever-present cameras.

We had a resident camerawoman who was installed as a fellow Castaway, and we were taught how to use cameras and encouraged to film each other. In addition the main crew visited every fortnight - this would make most of us scatter to all four corners of Taransay to evade them.

By now, most of us had a fundamental mistrust of the TV company - feeling they were manipulative, divisive and disruptive. They had their favourite Castaways, those who were compliant in the face of their demands, and these people were treated well and given gifts. Others - like me - who refused to be controlled were treated harshly.

Ben Fogle was chosen very early on as the star of the show, and this caused resentment within the camp. It wasn't Fogle's fault - he was a good-looking young man with a posh accent, while the rest of us looked like we'd been pulled through a hedge backwards. He was obviously going to be the show's eye candy.

Ben and I started out as good mates but, like everyone on the island, we had our ups and downs. As the programmes began to be aired, we received letters from home warning us that we'd been cast like actors in a soap opera - with all the focus on the rows and discord. Many of us decided to play the production team at their own game, and began to break the rules of the project. We were supposed to have no contact with the outside world but gave our credit cards to locals on the mainland, who would bring us "contraband" - luxury foods, alcohol and tobacco.

We felt like we'd been set up to fail. For example, having selected me as the only gay in the village, the programme makers had also recruited a family of Seventh-day Adventists, who would be likely to object to my sexuality. The fuse was lit by members of the production team who publicly branded me a "drama queen" whenever I refused to co-operate with them. And they eventually got their pound of flesh, when the situation flared up and I had the Bible quoted at me. I was left feeling isolated and vulnerable.

We eventually patched up our differences, but little support was offered by the programme makers, who only seemed interested in squeezing every last frame out of the situation. And the same went for many other Castaways who needed emotional support for a variety of reasons that year - bereavements, severe depression, broken hearts, homesickness, the list was endless. We were left to our own devices - it was sink or swim. There were no counsellors attached to the project - only a clinical psychologist who had helped with the selection process and who, by her own admission, had little or no counselling experience.

Six months rolled by and I became increasing disillusioned. My dog, Charlie, who had been my constant companion for 13 years, suddenly became very ill and needed to see a vet on the mainland. Advanced cancer was diagnosed, and Charlie was put to sleep. Grief-stricken, I fell into a deep depression. I'd bought Charlie as an eight-week-old puppy from Battersea dogs' home in 1987 and she became my world - we went everywhere together. To me, it was like losing a child.

At my lowest point, a member of the production team presented me with the vet's bill and insisted I obtain the Castaways' approval to pay this from the community budget - another potential source of conflict. Their insensitivity made me see red, and sparked a chain of events that led to me leaving the island.

I wanted to be with my family and friends, so I planned my escape on a boat that came to collect livestock. The TV producers insisted I stay. Before we left, the author of the official Castaway book, who had been visiting the island was told: "Take the bastard into the middle of the sea and drown him."

Back at home my depression deepened as I watched the programmes. I left the show in June 2000, but footage of me rowing with other Castaways continued to be screened right up until October. I was portrayed as a loose cannon with few redeeming qualities. I was constantly recognised by people who'd seen the show, and I felt they were thinking badly of me. Losing one's anonymity in this way can be scary. I became a virtual prisoner in my own home. By then I was drinking far too much alcohol and my life was in chaos. Every time another episode of Castaway was aired, it got worse. One of the hardest things was discovering that my nephews had been bullied at school because of the way I'd been demonised.

Eventually, after around 18 months in hiding, with the help of a therapist, I managed to pull through and went back to training as a counsellor. Continuing to gather strength, I decided sue the BBC and the production company Lion TV for libel following the screening of a sequence of events that I can only describe as distorted and untruthful.

Viewers were led to believe that, following Charlie's death and being told about the vet's bill, I'd had a violent outburst and thrown a chair at a female Castaway. The row had actually been with a member of the production team, when I had thrown a chair - against a wall - and left the room. The programme-makers then cobbled this together with old footage of another Castaway crying, and saying that she was intimidated by me.

I won my case and was awarded £16,000 in damages, plus costs, and I got my apology in the high court. Libel is notoriously difficult and costly to prove, and I remain the first and only reality TV participant to have successfully sued in this way. Since then, I've watched the damage caused by reality TV get progressively worse: the cruel exploitation of young people on shows such as The X Factor; extreme violence erupting on Big Brother; suicides, mental breakdowns and even a murder arising from one American show. Many people who feel their lives have been destroyed by reality TV have contacted me for help and support - some of them suicidal. Their suffering is real - and a high price to pay for entertainment.

In defending their programmes, TV producers claim their victims know what they're letting themselves in for, that contestants "know the score". I certainly didn't - and the power imbalance was huge. From our experience on the island, it was telling that no significant dramas involving the community's camerawoman were shown on TV.

An incident on Taransay sticks in my mind. One of the kids stole some sweets from my room and the camera-woman demanded I be interviewed on camera. I refused, explaining that if the programme branded the child a thief, it could have devastating consequences for them. She told me that on becoming a Castaway we'd agreed that everything could be filmed: "It's contractual," I was informed. Her lack of concern for the child's welfare astounded me.

Sadly, it's far too late to stop the reality TV beast, but I'd like to see much better accountability and responsibility. Producers could start by only recruiting those robust enough for the challenge and by offering appropriate support and aftercare. Why does there always need to have been a fatal train crash before the dodgy rails are fixed?

Of course, Castaway wasn't all bad. I made some great friends and the bond between us is like those forged between survivors of any terrible disaster. We've been far more forgiving towards each other because we accept that we lived in a pressure cooker. We all said and did things we regret and are guilty of taking ourselves far too seriously.

A decade on, some of us are planning an informal reunion on Taransay this weekend, and this time we will be captains of our own ship - this is a holiday for the Castaways by the Castaways, void of intrusive camera crews. This will be the first time I've been back to the island, and it's been good to reflect on the experience.

Many of my most treasured memories involve the children. I'll never forget my drama classes, and making music in the kitchen with pots and pans and anything else we could find. My biggest contribution to island life was in the education and development of the children, but sadly only a few seconds of this was shown over the entire series.

It's a shame the children were not featured more - they're a very special bunch. After Charlie died they made beautiful sympathy cards and created a seat made from rocks at the foot of her grave so I could "sit and talk to her". One of them gave me a stone decorated with 13 tiny yellow seashells - one from each of Charlie's life. Looking back I can that perhaps we had the most to learn from the children, who bonded quickly, rarely argued, had terrific fun and were an inspiration in how to seize the day. It will be interesting to meet them again as young adults.

Although Castaway had its successes, it also had glaring failures. We were given a wonderful opportunity to live differently, and all we did was replicate how we lived at home: people wanted rules, cliques, some kind of permanent, secure structure. It was disappointing that the Taransay community appeared to reflect society, but, for whatever reason, the minority groups felt marginalised and quit the island early - the oldest man, the gay man, the black family.

The experience has changed me in many ways. I left London and moved to the country, and I'm happier with a quieter, more relaxed existence. I guess the project helped me grow up: the person I am today would never do Castaway. But perhaps the biggest legacy is my healthy contempt for reality TV, and my desire to assist those who have also been damaged. Since gaining my degree and working as a therapist, I've decided to specialise in TV aftercare. I certainly feel qualified.

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Ten years ago I was one of 36 men, women and children recruited to live on the remote Hebridean island of Taransay as part of the Castaway 2000 project for the BBC. It was ambitiously billed as a "bold new experiment for the new millennium" and we were the guinea pigs who'd build a sustainable, self-sufficient community from scratch and fend for ourselves in the Scottish wilderness.

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Tonight, we have a story of solidarity, hope and ultimately survival in the face of adversity. It took place more than fifty years ago, but when it was rediscovered last year it caused a sensation. As we first told you earlier this year, it's a tale of a group of schoolboys stranded on a remote and deserted island for more than 15 months. It might remind you of the famous novel -- Lord of the Flies, by William Golding -- but as you'll see, the outcome of this real-life story could not have been more different.

The story begins in 1965. Mano Totau and five of his friends were studying at a boarding school in Tonga, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean. Bored, rebellious, and yearning for adventure-they stole a traditional whaling boat-and with reckless abandon they set off for Fiji.

Holly Williams: Did it have an engine?

Mano Totau: No, no engine.

Holly Williams: But Mano, isn't Fiji about 500 miles from Tonga?

Mano Totau: A little bit less.

Holly Williams: Did you have a map or a compass?

Mano Totau: No. (LAUGH)

The teenagers might have been brought up on the sea, but they soon figured out they'd made a terrible mistake. On the first night a violent storm ripped the sails from the mast and tore off the boat's rudder.

For over a week their crippled boat drifted aimlessly. 17-year-old Sione Fataua, the oldest of the group, told us they were convinced they'd die.

Sione Fataua: No food, no water. We was just drifting around by the wind. And after eight days we saw the island.

It was a volcanic island, jutting out from the sea. As the boat neared, a wave sent it crashing into the rocky shoreline, leaving it in pieces. The exhausted teenagers struggled ashore.

Mano Totau: The only thing we do, grabbing each other together and say a prayer, "thank you, God."

The schoolboys later discovered they'd drifted a hundred miles from where they'd set off and had landed on the island of 'Ata-on maps, nothing more than an uninhabited speck.

It was a story so remarkable that later an Australian television crew brought the teenagers back to 'Ata to re-enact their experience. In the film, Sione, Mano and their friends show how they survived.
"The Castaways" film: They were able to salvage an oar and a piece of wire, and with this they set out to catch what they hoped would be their first meal in 8 days.
They demonstrate how they ate the fish they caught raw and quenched their thirst by raiding the nests of seabirds-drinking their blood and their raw eggs.

Holly Williams: Any food, anything to drink.

Mano Totau: Any food. No matter how awful it is and how dirty it is, it's a very beautiful things to have it in that time.

When they regained enough strength, Mano and Sione told us, they climbed up to the island's forested plateau where they found a clay pot, a machete and chickens, all left behind by a small Tongan community that lived on 'Ata before being ripped from their home by slave traders a century earlier.

But they told us everything changed when they finally made fire-and began cooking hot meals.

Holly Williams: How did you stop it from going out?

Sione Fataua: I tell the guys, everybody have a duty for the fire. You have to take care of the fire and you have to say prayer for that night, and get up in the morning, it's still going.

The teenage runaways showed remarkable resourcefulness-building a hut out of palm fronds, establishing a garden with bananas and beans, and setting up a roster to keep a lookout for passing ships. They even built a badminton court and a makeshift gym. They lived in harmony-they told us-most of the time.

Holly Williams: But, come on, Mano. You were teenage boys. You must have had arguments.

Mano Totau: We did, and we disagreed.

They cooled off by walking to opposite sides of the island, Mano says, though sometimes things got out of hand.

Holly Williams: So if there was a fight, how did you stop it?

Mano Totau: You smack him or something like that, and tell him, "shut up and cool down, sit down, listen."

Holly Williams: There must have been times when you were depressed, when you thought that you would never see your families again.

Sione Fataua: It was hard. And I was-- pray God and-- and I promise him, "if you could get me back, I'll serve you, rest of my life."

For more than 50 years the real-life story of Sione, Mano and their friends was little known outside of Tonga... untilDutch historian and best-selling author Rutger Bregman stumbled across it on the internet. He flew across the world to meet Mano and made the story the cornerstone of his new book, Humankind: A Hopeful History.

Rutger Bregman: And I just couldn't understand how this had not become, you know, one of the most famous stories of the 20th Century. I just couldn't understand it, because it's just extraordinary, six kids on an island for 15 months. And they survived, how?

Like millions of others, Bregman had read the fictional tale of marooned schoolboys, Lord of the Flies, which for generations has been taught in high schools around the world.

The novel-later made into a film-is a nightmarish account of a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island. They divide into two competing tribes and descend into violence-culminating in mayhem and murder.

Rutger Bregman: This is really old theory in Western culture, that our civilization is just a thin veneer, just a thin layer. And that when something bad happens-say there is a natural disaster or you shipwreck on an island and you have the freedom to establish your own society-that people reveal who they really are. You know, people deep down are just selfish.

Holly Williams: And you're saying that basic idea, underlying the novel, Lord of the Flies, is wrong? You're saying that would never happen?

Rutger Bregman: Well, if tens of millions of children around the globe still have to read Lord of the Flies in school today, I think they also deserve to know about this one time in all of world history when real kids shipwrecked on a real island, because that's a very different story.

A story of cooperation, hope and eventually salvation. In September 1966 after 15 long months, Australian lobster fisherman Peter Warner was sailing near 'Ata when he spotted a burned-out patch. When he went closer, he was shocked to see a human figure.

Peter Warner: And this first figure was swimming towards us doing the Australian crawl, as I call it. And then another five bodies leapt off the cliff and into the water and followed him.

They clambered aboard and told the crew how they'd run away from boarding school and ended up shipwrecked. Peter radioed to Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga, to check out their story.

Peter Warner: And the operator very tearfully said, "it's true. These boys were students at this college. They've been given up for dead. Funerals have been held. And now you've found them." So, that was a very emotional moment for all of us.

Holly Williams: So you knew you were going home.

Mano Totau: Yes

Holly Williams: How did that feel?

Mano Totau: Like walking through the door to heaven.

But heaven would have to wait-when they arrived back in port they were immediately arrested.

Holly Williams: So Peter Warner rescued you and took you back to Nukuʻalofa where everyone thought that you were dead. And then you were arrested?

Sione Fataua: Yeah. We are arrested because we stole the boat. (LAUGH)

Peter Warner told us he paid off the owner of the stolen boat-and finally sailed the runaway schoolboys back to their home island, accompanied by the Australian television crew that had flown in to film their story. They captured the teenagers' reunion with their families.
"The Castaways" film: Our boys have come back...
Sione Fataua: My mom, she was swimming out before I get out the boat. I'm the first one going to the beach, and give me a hug.
"The Castaways" film: Never had there been such joy...
Peter Warner: The whole population of this little island were on the beach, hugging the boys. Parents were crying. Then the party started. Six days of feasting.

The story has never been forgotten in these islands but when a British newspaper published a chapter of Rutger Bregman's book last May, the tale of the Tongan teenagers went viral-7 million people read it within days. Hollywood studios got into a bidding war for the film rights.

Holly Williams: Why were so many people all around the world surprised and captivated by your telling of the story?

Rutger Bregman: Maybe we needed to hear it? Maybe especially right now, in the midst of a pandemic? Is that people were looking for a story that gave them hope about a different way of living together, that a different society is possible. That it's not just violence and selfishness and greed within human nature, but that we can build on something different. Maybe that's why.

It's been 55 years since the shipwrecked schoolboys were rescued. They've never had any doubt how or why they survived.

Sione Fataua: I think the culture where we come from. We are close. Really close family. We share everything. We poor, but we love each other.

The teenagers had no interest in going back to the classroom, at first they worked for Peter Warner, who set up a fishing business in Tonga. Sione, as promised, later became a minister-he's now the head of the Church of Tonga in America. Mano trained as a chef and moved to Australia. For half a century, he and Peter Warner have been best friends-whenever they can they go out for a sail-forever pulled back to the Pacific Ocean where their friendship began.

Holly Williams: Why do you guys get along so well, you know, all these years after the rescue?

Mano Totau: I think that we feel strongly in us that we have something to helping one another.

Peter Warner: Yeah, and also--

Mano Totau: Teaching one another on it.

Peter Warner: And also, we have a common beliefs that got you through that trial on the island, you know, love, compassion and...

Mano Totau: Yeah.

Peter Warner: Justice, unity.

Mano Totau: We both believe in the same thing.

The teenagers composed a song when they were on the island of 'Ata-Siosionoa-seeing nothing every day. It takes Mano back to a time when they were longing for home, and before they could ever imagine that theirstory might have lessons for us all.
Produced by Michael H. Gavshon. Associate producer, Nadim Roberts. Broadcast associate, Annabelle Hanflig. Edited by Daniel J. Glucksman.

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A real life Lord of the Flies: The 50-year-old story of a group of teens stranded on an island

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Tonight, we have a story of solidarity, hope and ultimately survival in the face of adversity. It took place more than fifty years ago, but when it was rediscovered last year it caused a sensation. As we first told you earlier this year, it's a tale of a group of schoolboys stranded on a remote and deserted island for more than 15 months.

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For Nietzsche, cruelty allowed a teacher to burn a critique into another, for the other person's own good. People could also be cruel to themselves to help become the person they wanted to be. Nietzsche felt suffering cruelty could help develop courage, endurance and creativity. Should we be more willing to make both others and ourselves suffer to develop virtue?

And the idea that we must suffer to grow is questionable. Positive life events, such as falling in love, having children and achieving cherished goals can lead to growth.

Teaching through cruelty invites abuses of power and selfish sadism. It isn't the only way - Buddhism, for example, offers an alternative: wrathful compassion. Here, we act from love to confront others to protect them from their greed, hatred and fear. Life can be cruel, truth can be cruel, but we can choose not to be.
* Simon McCarthy-Jones is an associate professor in clinical psychology and neuropsychology at Trinity College Dublin.
--
This article If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "The Essential List". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. is part of Life's Big Questions, a new series by The Conversation that is being co-published with BBC Future. It seeks to answer our readers' nagging questions about life, love, death and the Universe. We work with professional researchers who have dedicated their lives to uncovering new perspectives on the questions that shape our lives. If you have a question you would like to be answered, please email either send us a message on Facebook or Twitter or email bigquestions@theconversation.com

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For Nietzsche, cruelty allowed a teacher to burn a critique into another, for the other person's own good. People could also be cruel to themselves to help become the person they wanted to be. Nietzsche felt suffering cruelty could help develop courage, endurance and creativity.

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Gender-flipped remakes aren't a new concept in Hollywood, but they have been popping up with surprising regularity. Last year brought us the Ghostbusters redux that made trolls cry crocodile tears. Next year will bring us the glamorous Ocean's Eleven remake, starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, and more. One hopeful day, Jillian Bell's gender-swapped version of Splash, co-starring Channing Tatum, will hit our screens. All of these films make perfect sense, re-fitting modern classics to a female perspective and, frankly, giving actresses juicy roles that typically go to their male colleagues. But not every story makes sense to gender-flip. Particularly if that story is William Golding's classic Lord of the Flies, a vicious tale about a barbaric boy-made society.

Alas, is reporting that duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel (two men, for the record), will write and direct an all-girl version of Lord of the Flies for Warner Bros. Siegel said they wanted to do "a very faithful but contemporized adaptation," while McGehee said they're "taking the opportunity to tell it in a way it hasn't been told before."

"It breaks away from some of the conventions, the ways we think of boys and aggression," he continues. "People still talk about the movie and the book from the standpoint of pure storytelling. It is a great adventure story, real entertainment, but it has a lot of meaning embedded in it as well."

The concept alone (it just . . . disregards the point of the book!) was enough to raise Twitter's hackles, let alone the fact that it will also be written and directed by men.

Because no one understands the psyche of a teen girl like two men. To be fair, McGehee and Siegel's past works include female-centric films like Bee Season and What Maisie Knew. However, both films were based on screenplays penned by female writers. This time around, McGehee and Siegel will be working on the script themselves, which raises a few alarms. If this concept goes through, shouldn't a few women be involved in the behind-the-scenes process? Or at least one? Just one? Please?

For those loath to acknowledge this impending remake, take comfort in the fact that there's already a film out there with a Lord of the Flies-esque ethos.

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No One Understands This All-Female Lord of the Flies Remake

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Gender-flipped remakes aren't a new concept in Hollywood, but they have been popping up with surprising regularity. Last year brought us the Ghostbusters redux that made trolls cry crocodile tears. Next year will bring us the glamorous Ocean's Eleven remake, starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, and more.

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Yesterday while I was wondering what film shall I watch, I stumbled upon a documentary in my collection for a while - yet I have not seen it. The name of that documentary is " Cutting edge - Boys Alone " - and it is based on a social experiment which consisted of letting nine boys aged 10 and 11 spend 5 days alone in a house - with no rules or adult supervision. It is not hard to see where the producers got the idea - William Golding`s novel: " Lord of the flies," and the so popular reality show nowadays are the two things that come to mind.

The documentary's production quality is average as the crew was visible at times, and the editing could have been done a bit better. However, I envision that the movie would be of interest to people interested in the social sphere of psychology - even if it only confirms the well-known saying, " Boys will be boys." It is rather interesting observing the youngster's different personalities and how they influence their behaviour and attitude towards the other participants in the experiment. I myself immediately started wondering with whom I could associate best - and in my case, I think that George will be most similar to me as he was rather introverted - but not completely.

In the end - as one could probably expect, the boys split into groups, and almost all equipment and toys in the house were broken. To summarize, " Cutting edge - Boys alone " is a good documentary - but I doubt that anyone could learn a new and surprising thing from it about human nature. Watching the film based on Golding`s novel would probably be a more enjoyable and useful experience for you.

If you manage to see the documentary - don`t hesitate to leave me a comment with your own impressions of it.

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Yesterday while I was wondering what film shall I watch, I stumbled upon a documentary in my collection for a while - yet I have not seen it.

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The state of nature is a concept used in political philosophy by most Enlightenment philosophers, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The state of nature is a representation of human existence prior to the existence of society understood in a more contemporary sense. Locke and Hobbes have tried, each influenced by their socio-political background, to expose man as he was before the advent of social existence. In this sense, these authors also attempted to trace how this transition occurred or, in other words, how man has been socialized while leaving behind him the animal state.

The state of nature in Hobbes and Locke's philosophy

Thomas Hobbes holds a negative conception of the state of nature. In his view, it represents a state of permanent war, a permanent threat to the continued existence of the individual. First, Hobbes stipulates that all human beings are equal. That is that any man can dominate others, regardless of the means used - be it strength or cunning. Strength and cunning are two essential qualities in the state of nature. In essence, "there is no better sign of an even distribution [...] the fact that everyone is satisfied with his hand." Finally, all human beings want the same things. Given this state of desire is prescribed by greed of what others have and by the need to fill a craving, men are in competition to satisfy their needs. Each being tries to dominate the other, hence the maxim "man is a wolf to man." Competition for profit, fear for security, and pride in regard to reputation all fuel this state of permanent conflict.

Three consequences are connected to the state of nature: the absence of any concept of law, justice, and property. Without laws, so in absolute freedom, the law of the jungle governs human relations. All have a natural right, which is to protect their own existence, at the risk of their death. Where there is no law that determines the individual, there is no injustice, because each is in its natural right to devise the means to ensure his own safety, and no common power or authority is in place to administer the justice. Finally, the property is absent as the state of nature does not allow ownership. In short, this state of nature is war, which can be stopped only by the natural law derived from reason, the premise that Hobbes makes to explain the transition to the "civilized" state.

According to John Locke, the state of nature does not necessarily mean a state of war as it does for Hobbes. Although for Locke there remains a certain skepticism about the natural state because it is full of impartial justice. The state of nature as described by Locke is therefore one of equality because everyone has the same powers as his/her neighbor, which implies a state of non-subjection. It is also a state of perfect freedom because the individual cannot depend on anyone. But this freedom is not absolute since it is bounded by two precepts of the law of nature, which arises from the nature and human reason, and which stipulates that there can be no wrong inflicted to oneself or to others. But, "Whoever sheds the blood of a man, his blood will also be spread by a man." Man can kill, but only for one purpose: to punish an offender who violated the principle of "peace and preservation of mankind." There are two rights, the right to punish the crime by a person authorized to do so and the right to require repairs to ensure its preservation. It requires power to judge of the judge and punish: the exemption of passion and the sentence must be proportionate to the crime, while deterring others from committing a similar crime. Each is both judge and defendant, wherein lies the problem because - for Locke - man's ego makes him inherently biased and unfair. In contrast to Hobbes, the natural laws exposed by Locke exist in the state of nature. And, because they go against the freedom of individuals, they are considered fundamental traits of human nature.

The state of nature is not the equivalent of a state of war. The violation of freedom of man by man which depicts the state of war is not the same as the state of nature where independence is shared by all parties. Not being two similar states, they aren't two absolute opposites either.

"The denial of a common judge, invested with authority, puts all men in the state of nature: injustice and violence [...] produces a state of war."

Visions of Hobbes and Locke are conflicted when it comes to the meaning of state of nature. Ultimately, the transition to the state is characterized by the pursuit of impartial justice and the disappearance of the state of war.

The transition to state according to Locke and Hobbes

For Thomas Hobbes, the first step to the state derives from reason. It turns into two laws of nature that prevent men from being destroyed by agreeing to divest themselves from their natural right and strive for peace. The laws of nature restrict the freedom of the individual as they impose not to follow their natural passions such as pride, revenge, etc.. These laws prevent men from claiming their right to do what they please, and thereby threaten to return to a state of war. The transition to the State seeks to uproot the state of war arising from the state of nature. So there is an unavoidable necessity of the State, which grounds the protection of men. This is a partial transfer of man's inherent right to the state with absolute power, which it provides protection to men in their lives in return. The power wielded by the state quells conflict and institutes peace among men. Power must be in the hands of one man or assembly "which can reduce all wills, by majority rule in a single will." This majority, however, implies the subjection of individuals channeled into a common will. In short, for Hobbes, the transition to the state is a necessity to get out of a state of destruction and anarchy. In order to ensure a peaceful life within the State, man must, therefore, forego his natural right.

The transition to the state for John Locke, occurs when justice is impartial. Before establishing consent between people, there is transmission in a state of their natural rights in return for justice. It relies, as in Hobbes, on the rule of the majority. This rule implies that the consent of everyone is necessary to make sure they submit to the will of the people. If they act against this, they are in a state of nature. The man, relegating his rights on the basis of a shared agreement, gives rise to a legitimate civil government, which imposes its rule to the individuals under it. The man relegates his rights because in the state of nature, "the enjoyment of property [...] is uncertain, and can hardly be alone." For the gaps in the state of nature are: the absence of established laws, impartial judges and power to carry out the sentences given. These three gaps lead men to leave the state of nature to protect and maintain their property. The establishment of power is necessary, as with Hobbes. But unlike the latter, it is not to end a state of war, but of a state of injustice. From this perspective, the new government is impartial justice that was missing from the natural state. Therefore, the state is not ultimately absolute, since it was established to address the three shortcomings of the state of nature, and doesn't extend beyond the public sphere.

Rousseau tells us that it is private property that ends the state of nature. But the transition to a state is not an immediate benefit. It is when man has learned to overcome the obstacles of nature, becoming a high animal, that he first became human, assuming a first sign of pride. It is the spirit that lit up the drive to improve. For example, men have settled, losing "something of their ferocity and vigor, becoming less able to individually fight the beasts, but making it easier to assemble together to resist them." From this irreversible assembly of men, the community was born. They strove to use new developments and "deprivation became much more cruel than the possession was sweet." Inequalities begin on the possession of property: comparisons are born and jealousy ensues, creating discord.

For Rousseau, two major developments are the source of the loss of the fundamental traits of man: agriculture and metallurgy. This is the culture of the land and sharing, of which was born property and the notion of justice. The right to property has forced individuals to move from a state of autarky to a state of mutual dependence. Thus, the natural inequalities, and minor change into institutional inequalities, are fatal to mankind. Understood as such, property "inspires in all men a penchant to undermine each other, a secret jealousy [... which] often takes the mask of benevolence in a word, competition and rivalry on the one hand, the other opposition of interest, and always the hidden desire to profit at the expense of others, all these evils are the first effect of property and are indistinguishable from rising inequality. " Of this inequality are born domination and servitude, the immediate consequence of property arising from the emerging society. The transition to the state is the idea of ​​the wealthy. Faced with the disorder as a result of their dominance, the rich offer to themselves and to the poor, the institutions that govern them by wise laws. And, by the same token, successfully manage to "turn his opponents into his supporters." In short, property law simultaneously creates inequalities and crushes opposition to these inequalities.

Conclusion : The political philosophy of Locke and Hobbes

Ultimately, each author has his own conception of the state of nature and the transition to the state. None of them agrees at any point on a common definition. Although several concepts resurface in both of their philosophies over and over, there is no shared definition of these concepts. Recalling the essential facts of this comparative analysis, the state of nature is criticized by Hobbes and Locke as firstly, it is synonymous with war, and secondly, this state of nature is characterized by impartial justice. Thus, the transition to the state is perceived favorably by these two authors, because it is the lesser of two evils for man who suffers from disorder or bias in the state of nature. Rousseau takes a singular stance that stands out from every point of view, it is therefore in opposition to the works of Hobbes and Locke, because according to Rousseau, they transpose civil rights in the state of nature. In short, it enhances the state of nature rather than civil society. Man is free and good in the state of nature and servile and poor in civil society. The transition to the state, born of the advent of property and its corollary, inequality, it is strongly criticized.

Related articles on the philosophy of Hobbes and Locke:

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The state of nature is a concept used in political philosophy by most Enlightenment philosophers, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The state of nature is a representation of human existence prior to the existence of society understood in a more contemporary sense.

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"Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a condition which is called war..." Thomas Hobbes' concept of bellum omnium contra omnes , or "war of all against all", states that people will inherently result to war and warlike traits. There is nearly no better model of his ideologies than William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a story about a group of deserted English boys who resort to savagery and brutality. The lack of a strong authority among the boys of Lord of the Flies leads them to make many savage and uncivilized decisions, which model the concepts of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan .

Thomas Hobbes and his writing strongly advocated for a system of government that involves a strong central figure. His most famous work, Leviathan , speaks in-depth about this. His beliefs involving the state of a group without a leader are informative: "...continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." In Hobbes' mind, a warlike state comes about easily without authority, and society falls apart. However, a strong power would hypothetically balance this issue, and create a system where people act differently. Hobbes' belief in this warlike state is exemplified in an isolated system where there is no government, such as that of the island.

The final scene of Lord of the Flies is a hunt of main character Ralph. This hunt is brutal and real, until Ralph finds his way onto the shore, where he and the other boys run into the first adult in the book, who is their ticket off the island. The mood suddenly switches: "The ululation faltered and died away... A semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with colored clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all (200)." The juxtaposition between this scene and the previous is strong. Where the previous scene featured an intense chase with the savages and Ralph facing almost near-death scenarios, this scene features all the boys frozen and awkward. The presence of an adult, the only real change in the scene, establishes an aura of authority and peace, while simultaneously forcing each boy to question their actions. This strong power changes the state of each of these boys drastically from that of war to that of peace.

Another important belief of Thomas Hobbes, as seen in Leviathan , is his defense of why people who are not in the presence of a greater power fight amongst themselves: "And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies..." This belief not only shows a valid reason for why man will result to a warlike state, but also shows the competitiveness of a group of people. People in contention for the same thing, be it material or otherwise, will immediately spark conflict. This conflict will, in most cases, be single handedly responsible for the warlike state of everyone involved. The connections to Lord of the Flies here run deep.

The largest divide among the boys comes from direct competition between Jack and Ralph over who will become the leader. While Ralph was democratically elected and had his mind set on being rescued, Jack had his mind on hunting and savagery. His envy of Ralph's leadership is obvious, especially when he finally breaks off from the main group: "'Hands up,' said Jack strongly, 'whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?' The silence continued, breathless and heavy and full of shame... 'I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you (127).'" Jack's constant vying for power creates tension between him and Ralph, the official leader. This fight for leadership is what establishes the main conflicts, and subsequently some of the least humane parts of the book: Simon's death, Piggy's death, and so on. Jack and Ralph's conflict results in the most warlike parts of the entire novel, and affects so many others besides just the two of them.

Much of both Hobbes' ideals and those of the boys on the island come down to moral code. Hobbes believes, in general, that a moral code is strengthened by an authority figure. The reverse of this is explicitly seen in Lord of the Flies : the morals of each boy fade away as their memories of civilized life do as well. This is, inevitably, what separates Lord of the Flies ' boys from any other group of people: their distance from civilization. This disparity not only causes them to act the way they do, but also brings out the Hobbesian state of nature. This can prove to humanity that having some tangible sense of civilization is the only way we can avoid Hobbes' "war of all against all."

Works Cited

Golding, William. Lord Of The Flies . New York: Penguin, May 2006. Print.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan . London: Pelican Classics, 1968. Website.
< https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm >.

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Jack, Ralph, and Thomas Hobbes -- How Lord of the Flies and Leviathan Connect by Jack Sugrue

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"Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a condition which is called war..." Thomas Hobbes' concept of bellum omnium contra omnes , or "war of all against all", states that people will inherently result to war and warlike traits.

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Cutting Edge: Girls Alone 2003 - read up to '...your dinner's on the floor!'

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Cutting Edge: Girls Alone 2003 - read up to '...your dinner's on the floor!'

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge

In Coleridge's epic 1798 poem, a guest is waylaid on his way to a wedding by an old sea dog who "holds him with his glittering eye". This "grey-beard loon" tells him a long story about a voyage he once took that became cursed after he shot the albatross, the crew's good luck totem. There is some wonderful imagery as the mariner describes the ship entering a pitiless, parched landscape ("The very deep did rot: O Christ!") and his mates perishing one by one. Eventually, after a decidedly dark voyage of the soul, the mariner makes it back to land.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Golding's first novel describes the ghastly fate that befalls a group of British schoolboys when they are stranded on a desert island (Golding was a prep-school teacher when he wrote it). At first, the boys set about creating an ordered society, with the good-natured Ralph as chief. But a dissident faction emerges and seizes power. Ralph, together with his myopic sidekick Piggy, wants the group to concentrate on getting rescued; the other lot just want to hunt. The boys' descent into savagery symbolises mankind's innate capacity for evil.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This 2002 Booker-winner is set mainly on a lifeboat that the novel's 16-year-old narrator, Pi, shares for 227 days with a 450lb Royal Bengal tiger. This comes about because the ship on which Pi and his zookeeping family are travelling sinks, leaving him the sole human survivor. A zebra, hyena, orangutan and tiger clamber on board the lifeboat and proceed to devour one another, leaving just the tiger. Pi manages to keep the tiger at bay and he eventually makes it to Mexico, where two rescue officers don't believe a word of the story he tells them.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

This fictional autobiography, published in 1719 and claimed by some to be the first novel in English, is the original island adventure story (unless you count The Odyssey). Probably inspired by the true-life tale of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who spent four years on a Pacific island, it chronicles Crusoe's life from his childhood to his 28-year involuntary stint on the "Island of Despair", off the coast of Venezuela. Crusoe's adventures with his sidekick, Friday, whom he rescues from a group of cannibals, have inspired countless films.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

The twice Booker-shortlisted writer's new novel (out next month) is set in 1799 on the tiny island of Dejima, a Dutch trading concession off Nagasaki. The book follows Jacob de Zoet, a young clerk who becomes stranded when war between the English and the Dutch breaks out. It's a detailed, richly imagined tale thoughtfully examining clashing cultures. Dejima was the notoriously repressive Sho dynasty's one point of contact with the outside world and Mitchell shows how it became a portal for western ideas to be smuggled into Japan.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Eggers applies his novelist's skills to telling the true story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Muslim who, post-hurricane Katrina, elects to stay behind in New Orleans to protect his properties and help those stranded by the catastrophe. When Zeitoun is arrested on suspicion of looting his own house, it brings into relief the book's underlying purpose, which is to indict the Bush administration not just for its inadequate response to the disaster, but for its xenophobic, anti-Muslim and militaristic view of the world.

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Inspired by the teachings of John-Jacques Rousseau, this 1812 novel is the wholesome saga of a family's 10-year sojourn on a deserted island. When the Robinsons' boat is shipwrecked, things look bleak, but the island is blessed with a cornucopia of natural resources and the brave family survives and builds a successful colony. Incredibly, the worst thing that happens is that their donkey gets eaten by a boa constrictor. When help eventually arrives, some of the Robinsons decide to stay put in their tropical paradise.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Does being a survivor of global apocalypse qualify as being stranded? Not if the word implies having a normal life to get back, but yes if it means being marooned in a wholly unfamiliar and terrifying situation. McCarthy's acclaimed novel tells the story of a father and son who, following an unspecified global catastrophe, endlessly cross a ruined American landscape, assailed by gangs, "each other's world entire". McCarthy describes their plight in prose that soars, at its best, to remarkable poetic heights.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Originally called Ten Little Niggers, Christie's 1939 novel is the bestselling detective story of all time. Eight guests are invited to stay on an island, where they are entertained not by their expected hosts but by another married couple. They discover that the boat normally delivering supplies to the island has stopped arriving; then, one by one, they start being murdered. All 10 die, leaving a tantalising mystery that Inspector Legge, with his customary ineptitude, fails to clear up.

Concrete Island by JG Ballard

Ballard's 1974 updating of Robinson Crusoe sees rich young architect Robert Maitland, marooned not in some far-off place but on a traffic island under three converging motorways outside London after his Jaguar crashes over a parapet. Unable to climb up the embankment to safety, Maitland finds himself imprisoned and the novel becomes a record of his struggle to survive using only what he finds in his car. Ballard suggests that Maitland's imprisonment is as much psychological as physical; it's weird, gripping stuff.

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge In Coleridge's epic 1798 poem, a guest is waylaid on his way to a wedding by an old sea dog who "holds him with his glittering eye". This "grey-beard loon" tells him a long story about a voyage he once took that became cursed after he shot the albatross, the crew's good luck totem.

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fter a long winter and lockdowns, the idea of being a castaway may seem romantic: a desert island panting beneath a high sun, nothing but endless ocean in sight. Yet peer a little closer and a harsher reality comes into view - one of extreme isolation and the brutality of survival.

When I was writing The Castaways, a thriller in which a plane crash leaves a group of strangers stranded on an island in the South Pacific, I was interested in exploring who we become when no one is watching. When the thin veneer of civilisation peels back, how do we behave? What matters the most?

The following books are ones I adore. While the dictionary definition of a castaway is "a person who has been shipwrecked and stranded in an isolated place", my list also includes books that examine why we may seek out our own isolation - be it on an island, a boat or a lighthouse. Each explores how the removal of the familiar can provide a challenge for survival, yet also a tantalising space for self-discovery.

1. I Am An Island by Tamsin CalidasThis memoir explores Calidas's decision to swap city life for a remote Hebridean island. A series of devastating events leads to the breakdown of her marriage, and Calidas finds herself alone and isolated, cast away from the places and people she knows. Ultimately, it is the power of nature and the rhythm of the tides that offer both a healing and an awakening. It's a book about solitude, resilience and survival.

Tove Jansson, pictured in 1955. Photograph: Lehtikuva OY/Rex

Extreme isolation ... The Lamplighters. Photograph: Ian Cowe/Alamy Stock Photo

9. Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
I do most of my writing by hand in a beach hut, which is perhaps why Gift From the Sea is a book I regularly return to. First published in 1955, the author takes refuge in a beach shack for two weeks each year, granting herself space to think and breathe outside her role as a mother: "I must find a balance somewhere, or an alternating rhythm between these two extremes; a swinging of the pendulum between solitude and communion, between retreat and return." Choosing to be cast away from her family, she gains wisdom and solace from the shells she collects, nature becoming her teacher, and the horizon providing the ideal blank space from which to create.

The Castaways by Lucy Clarke is published 18 March (HarperCollins).

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fter a long winter and lockdowns, the idea of being a castaway may seem romantic: a desert island panting beneath a high sun, nothing but endless ocean in sight. Yet peer a little closer and a harsher reality comes into view - one of extreme isolation and the brutality of survival.

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Hobbes and Locke vs. Lord of the Flies - History Essay
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were two of the great political theorists of their time. John Locke thought people acted just as how people do in the Canadian society, and examples are shown in the movie Lord of

the Flies. Thomas Hobbes believed that people were not guided by reason, but instead were guided by our inherent ancient, animalistic instincts. Hobbes thought that moral concepts such as the ideas of good and evil did not exist in the state of nature, and that man could use any force necessary in order to protect his life and goods around him. Locke is more politically correct, because people do act on their morals and most people do not harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. Hobbes outlook on a society was very bleak and lifeless, which is more of what portrayed when you watch the movie, especially when the two groups of boys separate and go against the other. Even with that thought, John Locke is more accurate about people in many of today's societies, such as when it comes to natural rights, human nature, and government.

When people are young, the society and people around them choose who they become, because they are the person's main influence and they grow up following what they seen those people do. In Locke's view of the state of nature, he states that while there were no civil societies yet formed, people were able to live in peace and all people were equal. He thought that the state of nature involved people living together and using reason to govern their lives, which does happen regularly nowadays. Individuals also know instinctually, that two wrongs do not make a right, but this does not apply to Lord of the Flies. Similar to the movie, Jack got the people to want a better government and many of them gave their independence to him, but nothing stays good long. Near the end of the movie, when Jack and his group go against the others, they are more following Hobbes beliefs, because they are just trying to make sure they stay alive at any cost. Jack is not necessarily doing his best though to try to keep himself alive, because he just cares about catching the pig for food.

Everyone who is born into a humane society is born with natural rights that are life, liberty, and property. In most cases, the people are who chooses the government that is in control of making these rights accessible, but sometimes a leader is not fair. John Locke believed that the best form of government would be one ran by the majority of people with common views. This meant if you became part of the government, you should follow the will of the majority of people and the rules set forth. Jack is not a very good leader, because he takes away the citizen's right if they do not agree to give their independence to him. Jack wants to be in charge of both groups, but if people chose not to be in his group, he will take their right to property and life. Citizens have the natural right to rebel against their government, which is what Piggy's group did. Simon starts imaging that the Pig's head is threatening him, which foreshadows his death in the end. Near the end of the movie, all of the boys start beating at Simon, even Ralph and Piggy; while calling him the beast.

The most important thing to protect your rights is choosing the government you think will best do that. When Ralph says not enough work is being done, Jack decides to take over and many of the boys follow, because Jack says Ralph cannot hunt. Also the government should respect what is right for it's society, which is not exactly what Jack seems to do. He asks the citizens of his tribe, if they think Ralph should not be chief and when no one disagrees, he runs off upset. Later in the movie, Ralph tries to persuade the other boys to follow him and keep the fire alive, but most of the boys are already overcome by Jack's leadership. Locke believes in many types of governments such as Democracy which is the type of government North America has. Unlike John Locke, Hobbes favoured one single person to be the lawmaker, or thought it should be an absolute monarch, which is how it was in Lord of the Flies.

An astonishing fact in this movie is that, Ralph is similar to Locke and Jack is closely comparable to Thomas Hobbes. Jack was greedy in his attempt to become the highest leader and did not benefit the boys' societies, but he is a great example of Hobbes beliefs. Thomas Hobbes believed you should do anything you can to keep yourself safe, even if you have to go against people that could have benefited you. John Locke was much more civilized and believed the best way to progress, was to work as a efficient team. Locke's ideas were better, because it is more beneficial to learn to fish then to get a fish for a day. Natural rights, human nature, and government are all major things that need to be concentrated on in a society, and John Locke has the best understanding of how these areas work.

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Hobbes and Locke vs. Lord of the Flies - History Essay

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Hobbes and Locke vs. Lord of the Flies - History Essay Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were two of the great political theorists of their time. John Locke thought people acted just as how people do in the Canadian society, and examples are shown in the movie Lord of the Flies.

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8 books for children about stories of survival

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Jamie Smith, author of Frostfire, talks about the sort of books that have children on the edge of their seats and rooting for the characters to survive, against all the odds...

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5 best children's books set on islands, chosen by Cat Doyle

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Find out which five books The Storm-Keeper's Island author Cat Doyle recommends and get ready to go on an island adventure, from The Famous Five to CS Lewis.

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Books shelved as castaway: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Wreckage by Emily Bleeker, a...

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William Golding's novel 'Lord of The Flies' tells the story of a group of young boys marooned on a desert island, who, free from the constraints of civilisation, see their dark, primal natures take over.

At the same time in the early 1950s, psychologist Muzafer Sherif conducted real life experiments on a group of 11 year old boys to try to replicate this result in real life.

According to history, he did so... but now author Gina Perry has found details about another experiment which calls the result in to question.

(Photo: Boy from 'Lord of the Flies'. Credit: Getty Images)

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BBC World Service - Newsday, The 'failed' Lord of the Flies Experiment

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William Golding's novel 'Lord of The Flies' tells the story of a group of young boys marooned on a desert island, who, free from the constraints of civilisation, see their dark, primal natures take over.

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uly 1953: late one evening in the woods outside Middle Grove, New York state, three men are having a furious argument. One of them, drunk, draws back his fist, ready to smash it into his opponent's face. Seeing what is about to happen, the third grabs a block of wood from a nearby pile. "Dr Sherif! If you do it, I'm gonna hit you," he shouts.

The man with the raised fist isn't just anybody. He is one of the world's foremost social psychologists, Muzafer Sherif. The two others are his research assistants. Sherif is angry because the experiment he has spent months preparing for has just fallen apart.

Born in the summer of 1905 and raised in İzmir province, Turkey, during the dying days of the Ottoman empire, Sherif won a place at Harvard to study psychology. But he found himself frustrated by the narrowness of the discipline, which mainly involved tedious observation of lab rats. He was drawn instead to the emerging field of social psychology, which looks at the way human behaviour is influenced by others. In particular, he became obsessed by group dynamics: how individuals band together to form cohesive units and how these units can find themselves at each other's throats.

In the aftermath of the second world war, he wasn't the only one interested in this idea. Early in 1953, the Rockefeller Foundation gave Sherif $38,000 - $350,000 (£245,000) in today's money - to carry out what he hoped would be a career-defining piece of research. This time there would be no rats: the subjects were 11-year-olds, and neither they nor their parents had any idea what they were signing up for.

This is the scene Gina Perry sets at the beginning of The Lost Boys, her new book about Sherif. It's her second foray into social psychology: Behind the Shock Machine (2013) looked at the notorious Milgram experiments of the early 60s, which studied the extent to which people are prepared to follow orders. Stanley Milgram made subjects think they were delivering potentially fatal electric shocks to participants in another room, and provided a scream soundtrack to make it sound convincing. Two-thirds went along with it, despite the terrifying noises.

He believed he could make the two groups sworn enemies via a series of well-timed 'frustration exercises'

Sherif's cover story was that he was running a summer camp in Middle Grove. His plan was to bring a group of boys together, allow them to make friends, then separate them into two factions to compete for a prize. At this point, he believed, they would forget their friendships and start demonising one another. The pièce de résistance was to come at the end: Sherif planned to set a forest fire in the vicinity of the camp. Facing a shared threat, they would be forced to work as one team again.

This was a year before the publication of Lord of the Flies. But whereas William Golding sought to show that boys were, by their nature, little devils, Sherif believed that context was everything. Competition over scarce resources could drive people to enmity; place a common obstacle in their way, and they cooperate. During his youth, Perry writes, Sherif witnessed interethnic violence between Turks, Greeks and Armenians that claimed tens of thousands of lives. She believes his desire to understand the causes of that catastrophe - and to show the world a way to prevent another like it - was what drove him.

His work seems particularly relevant in an age of resurgent tribalism. During the 2016 US election, psychologists Yarrow Dunham and David Rand invoked Sherif in a discussion of the apparently unbridgeable divide between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters. They cited his recognition of the "human tendency to forge alliances as the context demands", writing that "for Democrats, the context is now the threat of a President Trump". This, they believed, was grounds for optimism. Unfortunately, even a united Democratic party wasn't enough to see off a tribe that recruited from Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and stormed the White House.

Sherif at the Robbers Cave camp. Photograph: The University of Akron

In 50s Middle Grove, things didn't go according to plan either, though the surprise was of a different nature. Despite his pretence of leaving the 11-year-olds to their own devices, Sherif and his research staff, posing as camp counsellors and caretakers, interfered to engineer the result they wanted. He believed he could make the two groups, called the Pythons and the Panthers, sworn enemies via a series of well-timed "frustration exercises". These included his assistants stealing items of clothing from the boys' tents and cutting the rope that held up the Panthers' homemade flag, in the hope they would blame the Pythons. One of the researchers crushed the Panthers' tent, flung their suitcases into the bushes and broke a boy's beloved ukulele. To Sherif's dismay, however, the children just couldn't be persuaded to hate each other.

After losing a tug-of-war, the Pythons declared that the Panthers were in fact the better team and deserved to win. The boys concluded that the missing clothes were the result of a mix-up at the laundry. And, after each of the Pythons swore on a Bible that they didn't cut down the Panthers' flag, any conflict "fizzled". By the time of the incident with the suitcases and the ukulele, the boys had worked out that they were being manipulated. Instead of turning on each other, they helped put the tent back up and eyed their "camp counsellors" with suspicion. "Maybe you just wanted to see what our reactions would be," one of them said.

The robustness of the boy's "civilised" values came as a blow to Sherif, making him angry enough to want to punch one of his young academic helpers. It turned out that the strong bonds forged at the beginning of the camp weren't easily broken. Thankfully, he never did start the forest fire - he aborted the experiment when he realised it wasn't going to support his hypothesis.

But the Rockefeller Foundation had given Sherif $38,000. In his mind, perhaps, if he came back empty-handed, he would face not just their anger but the ruin of his reputation. So, within a year, he had recruited boys for a second camp, this time in Robbers Cave state park in Oklahoma. He was determined not to repeat the mistakes of Middle Grove. There was no mixing at the beginning - neither of the two groups, the Rattlers and the Eagles, were aware of the other's existence until the second day. But, perhaps more importantly, Sherif relinquished his role as puppet master; a condition laid down by his research associate, OJ Harvey, who knew how volatile Sherif could be and insisted on taking control himself.

At Robbers Cave, things went more to plan. After a tug-of-war in which they were defeated, the Eagles burned the Rattler's flag. Then all hell broke loose, with raids on cabins, vandalism and food fights. Each moment of confrontation, however, was subtly manipulated by the research team. They egged the boys on, providing them with the means to provoke one another - who else, asks Perry in her book, could have supplied the matches for the flag-burning?

Having got them fighting, the next stage was the all-important reconciliation - and the vindication of Sherif's theory. One morning, the boys found that their water supply had been cut off. They would have to locate the water tank high on the mountain and work together to remove the rocks Harvey and Sherif had placed over the valve, so they could open it again. "Slowly," Perry writes, "with the sun beating down and their water canteens emptying, the boundaries between the groups began to blur." First, she says, they "took turns lifting and carrying the rocks away. But, realising there was a better and faster way of getting the job done, they soon formed a chain, passing the rocks down the line and working as a single team."

Sherif was elated. And, with the publication of his findings that same year, his status as world-class scholar was confirmed. The "Robbers Cave experiment" is considered seminal by social psychologists, still one of the best-known examples of "realistic conflict theory". It is often cited in modern research. But was it scientifically rigorous? And why were the results of the Middle Grove experiment - where the researchers couldn't get the boys to fight - suppressed? "Sherif was clearly driven by a kind of a passion," Perry says. "That shaped his view and it also shaped the methods he used. He really did come from that tradition in the 30s of using experiments as demonstrations - as a confirmation, not to try to find something new." In other words, think of the theory first and then find a way to get the results that match it. If the results say something else? Bury them.

All the boys I spoke to had an uneasy feeling about this experience. It has troubled people

Author Gina Perry

Perry has called her book The Lost Boys because she traced several of Sherif's subjects, now men in their 70s, to ask them how they felt about having been guinea pigs. Astonishingly, none of them were aware that the rather unusual camps they had attended were fake.

"I'm not traumatised by the experiment, but I don't like lakes, camps, cabins or tents," Doug Griset tells Perry, wryly undermining his own point. He was sent home from Middle Grove after succumbing to a bout of homesickness that Sherif worried would become contagious. Griset marvels at a letter sent to his parents more than 50 years ago to recruit him for the experiment. Those letters, writes Perry, "are a lesson in the art of skilful deception and subtle persuasion". In them, Sherif explains that "camp directors are interested in finding out what things can be done to give the boys ... a wholesome cooperative living experience which will prepare the youngsters for better citizenship and to be leaders in their communities". How could the parents have known his real aim was to make their sons hate each other - then leave them to deal with a forest fire?

Subterfuge of this kind was to become unacceptable to academic psychologists after Milgram's experiments, which provoked an outcry. Sherif's ethical blunders seem milder, but they still had lasting effects. Having expected to act as inquisitor, Perry found herself treated more like an interviewee. "Really, I felt I had to answer their questions: 'Who was this guy? Why was I involved? How did my parents agree to me going away? What did I do during the experiment?' All the boys I spoke to had an uneasy feeling about this experience. It has troubled people," she says.

Does Sherif really deserve his place in social psychology's hall of fame, given what Perry has uncovered about his methods? Robbers Cave is, after all, a staple of textbooks.

"I think people are aware now that there are real ethical problems with Sherif's research," she tells me, "but probably much less aware of the backstage [manipulation] that I've found. And that's understandable because the way a scientist writes about their research is accepted at face value." The published report of Robbers Cave uses studiedly neutral language. "It's not until you are able to compare the published version with the archival material that you can see how that story is shaped and edited and made more respectable in the process." That polishing up still happens today, she explains. "I wouldn't describe him as a charlatan ... every journal article, every textbook is written to convince, persuade and to provide evidence for a point of view. So I don't think Sherif is unusual in that way."

If Middle Grove and Robbers Cave aren't scientifically rigorous, does that mean they're of no value? Perry doesn't think so. "There was a kind of breadth of vision about Robbers Cave that is very much missing in that tightly controlled laboratory deception of something like Milgram. He was trying to tackle big issues."

And, from today's perspective, perhaps there is some reassurance to be gleaned from boys' behaviour at Middle Grove. Despite attempts to influence them that a Russian troll farm would be proud of, they remained independent-minded and did what they thought was best.

"I do think it is a kind of optimistic view," says Perry. "It makes you smile, doesn't it? The fact that they mutinied against these guys, really, and refused to be drawn into it."
The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment by Gina Perry is published by Scribe in Australia on 16 April and in the UK on 26 April.

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A real-life Lord of the Flies: the troubling legacy of the Robbers Cave experiment

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In the early 1950s, the psychologist Muzafer Sherif brought together a group of boys at a US summer camp - and tried to make them fight each other. Does his work teach us anything about our age of resurgent tribalism?

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Touching the Void: the true story of one man's miraculous survival written by Joe Simpson

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Touching the Void: the true story of one man's miraculous survival written by Joe Simpson

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I never really understood what there was to debate in the "big debate" surrounding Touching the Void.

Joe Simpson and Simon Yates made the first ascent on the west face of Siula Grande in 1985 but ran into some serious trouble coming back down. A storm kicked up, and Simpson fell on the ice, driving his tibia through his knee. His leg was a serious mess, and the pair tried to descend as fast as they could with the bad weather getting worse (more on that later).

They made their descent with Yates h...more

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Lisa (not getting friends updates) Vegan

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I never really understood what there was to debate in the "big debate" surrounding Touching the Void. Joe Simpson and Simon Yates made the first ascent on the west face of Siula Grande in 1985 but ran into some serious trouble coming back down.

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Although there is a great deal of public interest in ensuring more women become leaders, thereby reversing their under-representation in the ranks of power, too many suggested solutions are founded on the misconception that women ought to emulate men. The thinking is: "If men have most of the top roles, they must be doing something right, so why not get women to act like them?"

But this logic fails to account for the relatively dismal performance of most leaders - who are overwhelmingly male. As we have argued before, the real problem is not a lack of competent females; it is too few obstacles for incompetent males, which explains the surplus of overconfident, narcissistic, and unethical people in charge.

As a consequence, gender differences in leadership effectiveness (what it takes to perform well) are out of sync with gender differences in leadership emergence (what it takes to make it to the top). Indeed, research shows that the prevalence of male senior leaders is not a product of superior leadership talent in men. Rather, large quantitative studies, including meta-analyses, indicate that gender differences in leadership talent are either nonexistent, or they actually favor women.

With this in mind, it would be more logical to flip the suggested remedy: instead of encouraging women to act like male leaders (many of whom are incompetent), we should be asking men in power to adopt some of the more effective leadership behaviors more commonly found in women. This would create a pool of better role models who could pave the way for both competent men and women to advance.

Leadership Lessons for Men

Here are some critical leadership lessons that most men can learn from the average woman.

Don't lean in when you've got nothing to lean in about. There is a trend of telling women to " lean in" to qualities like assertiveness, boldness, or confidence. In men, such qualities can manifest as self-promotion, taking credit for others' achievements, and acting in aggressive ways. Since there has never been a strong correlation between leaning in and being good at something - especially for men -a better option would be to stop falling for people who lean in when they lack the talents to back it up. In a logical world, we would promote people into leadership roles when they are competent rather than confident, vetting them for their expertise, track record, and relevant leadership competencies (e.g., intelligence, curiosity, empathy, integrity, and coachability). Note that all these attributes are far better evaluated with science-based assessments than via the typical job interview.

Know your own limitations. We live in a world that celebrates self-belief, but it is far more important to have self-awareness. And often there is a conflict between the two. For instance, awareness of your limitations (flaws and weaknesses) is incompatible with skyrocketing levels of self-belief, and the only reason to be utterly devoid of self-doubt and insecurities is delusion. Although women are not as insecure as they are portrayed to be in the self-help literature (and much of the popular media), studies do show that they are generally less overconfident than men. This is good news because it enables them to understand how people see them and gives them the capacity to spot gaps between where they want to be and where they actually are. People who see themselves in a more critical way than others do are better able to prepare, even if it means overpreparing, and that's a solid way to increase your competence and performance.

Motivate through transformation. Academic studies show that women are more likely to lead through inspiration, transforming people's attitudes and beliefs, and aligning people with meaning and purpose (rather than through carrots and sticks), than men are. Since transformational leadership is linked to higher levels of team engagement, performance, and productivity, it is a critical path to improving leaders' performance. If men spent more time trying to win people's hearts and souls, leading with both EQ and IQ, as opposed to leaning more on the latter, and nurturing a change in beliefs rather than behaviors, they would be better leaders.

Put your people ahead of yourself. It's very hard to turn a group of people into a high-performing team when your main focus is yourself. People who see leadership as a glorified career destination and individual accomplishment are too self-centered to foster their teams' wellbeing and unlock their subordinates' potential. Imagine a person who is only interested in being a leader because they are chasing a bigger paycheck, the corner office, a more senior title, or any form of status. Clearly, they will be inherently less interested in making others better; their only goal is to be more successful themselves. Because men are generally more self-focused than women, they are more likely to lead in a narcissistic and selfish way. If the average male leader wants to improve their performance, they would do well to adopt a less self-centered style of leadership.

Don't command; empathize. Throughout history, we have told women that they are too kind and caring to be leaders, but the notion that someone who is not kind and caring can lead effectively is at odds with reality. We are not living in medieval times. Twenty-first century leadership demands that leaders establish an emotional connection with their followers, and that is arguably the only reason to expect leaders to avoid automation. Indeed, while AI will hijack the technical and hard-skill elements of leadership, so long as we have humans at work, they will crave the validation, appreciation, and empathy that only humans - not machines - can provide. Men can learn a lot about how to do this effectively by watching and emulating women.

Focus on elevating others. Female leaders have been proven to be more likely to coach, mentor, and develop their direct reports than male leaders. They are true talent agents, using feedback and direction to help people grow. This means being less transactional and more strategic in their relationship with employees, and it also includes the openness to hire people who are better than themselves, because their egos are less likely to stand in the way. This enables them to unlock other people's potential and promote effective cooperation on their teams. While we gravitate towards leaders who are self-focused and self-centered, the likelihood that such individuals can turn a group of people into a high-performing team is low.

Don't say you're "humbled." Be humble. We have been asking for humble leaders for 20 years or so, but we keep gravitating toward ones who are overconfident and narcissistic (generally not female). There are well-established gender differences in humility, and they favor women. Not all women are humble, of course, but selecting leaders on humility would result in more female than male leaders. Humility is fundamentally a feminine trait. It is also one that is essential to being a great leader. Without humility it will be very hard for anyone in charge to acknowledge their mistakes, learn from experience, take into account other people's perspectives, and be willing to change and get better. Perhaps the issue is not that men are unwilling or unable to display it, but that we dismiss them for leadership roles when they do. This must change, for humility is a critical driver of leadership effectiveness in both men and women.

Does reading this upset you?

Ask yourself why. If you're a man, does this make you feel that there's a campaign against white males and toxic masculinity and that angry feminism is on the rise? That reaction is getting in the way of your learning from women what you can do to make yourself more successful. If you're a woman - and/or a feminist - do you reject the idea that women are generally more likely to display feminine traits than men are? That's exactly the reason the average woman has more potential for leadership than the average man.

At the end of the day, the only controversial aspect of our views is the notion that increasing female representation in leadership would augment rather than reduce meritocracy. The best gender equality intervention is to focus on equality of talent and potential - and that only happens when we have gender-equal leadership to enable men to learn different leadership approaches from women as much as women have always been told to learn leadership approaches from men. This article is a short cut. Men, these lessons accelerate your leadership development. Women, these are the reasons why you should have been leaders already and why you should demand what you deserve now.

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7 Leadership Lessons Men Can Learn from Women

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Although the majority of people at the top of organizations are men, studies show that it is actually women who have what it takes to effectively lead. So, rather than advising female executives to act more like men to get ahead, society would be better served by more male leaders trying to emulate women.

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10 Lessons From History About What Makes a Great Leader

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From Churchill to Napoleon, historian Andrew Roberts on 10 great values that leaders need to have to thrive and succeed.

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As traditional authority figures lose their sheen, a new type of leader is emerging. Benjamin Voyer says a new generation is looking to "micro-leaders".

Micro-leaders are seen by their followers "as influential for the very lifestyle that they aspire to" either in the community, or on Instagram, or both. These aren't just celebrities, but people and friends we admire and who reflect our own identities. A micro-leader could be a vegan activist, a yoga fan, or a middle-aged woman who has rejoined the workforce. He says, "these days we see leaders as people we have some sort of a personal connection with and that match as closely as possible" the "ideal identity that we aspire to." Leaders are no longer just about taking us somewhere, but "can also help us overcome the difficulties we have in our everyday life."

The result is that "rather than having the big role models and the big leaders that we had even twenty years ago, now the landscape of leaders and role models is much more fragmented."

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BBC Radio 4 - Radio 4 in Four - What does leadership look like in the modern age?

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As traditional authority figures lose their sheen, a new type of leader is emerging. Benjamin Voyer says a new generation is looking to "micro-leaders". Micro-leaders are seen by their followers "as influential for the very lifestyle that they aspire to" either in the community, or on Instagram, or both.

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Alive: the story of the Andes survivors written by Piers Paul Read

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Alive: the story of the Andes survivors written by Piers Paul Read

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In the Heart of the Sea: the true story of the whaleship ESSEX written by Nathaniel Philbrick

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In the Heart of the Sea: the true story of the whaleship ESSEX written by Nathaniel Philbrick

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Into thin Air: a personal account of the Mt Everest disaster written by Jon Krakauer

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Into thin Air: a personal account of the Mt Everest disaster written by Jon Krakauer

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Adrift: 76 days lost at sea written by Steven Callahan

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Adrift: 76 days lost at sea written by Steven Callahan

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438 days: An incredible true story of survival at sea written by Jonathon Franklin

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438 days: An incredible true story of survival at sea written by Jonathon Franklin

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Talk about survival of the fittest.

The HISTORY Channel series Alone drops contestants into some of the planet's most punishing environments, with a bare minimum of clothing, safety and survival gear. In their battle against the elements, contestants are forced to use their fitness, their grit and their creativity to become true survivalists.

Few people choose to be thrust into such extreme situations, but those who do have usually stumbled into some colossal bad luck. Just check out this list of famous real-life survival stories:

Aron Ralston

If you've seen the movie 127 Hours, you know how Aron Ralston's story goes. But for those who haven't, it's a bit of a shocker.

In 2003, Ralston was hiking alone in Bluejohn Canyon in Canyonlands National Park in southeast Utah. While he was descending into one of the remote and exceedingly narrow canyons, a boulder fell and trapped his right arm. For five days he survived off of packed water and snacks, hoping someone would find him. Trouble was, not only was the spot remote, but he also hadn't told anyone where he was going.

Realizing he may never be found (and running out of supplies) he was forced to amputate his arm by cutting through the bone using his multi-tool that included a knife. After freeing himself, he began the seven-mile walk back to his truck. During his journey, a family discovered him and alerted authorities.

He lost 40 pounds during his ordeal, and somehow, miraculously, avoided bleeding to death. He now continues to mountaineer and works as a motivational speaker.

Sir Douglas Mawson

Douglas Mawson-cannibal or hero? Mawson was an Australian geologist and explorer who infamously explored the frozen continent with a team of fellow adventurers in 1912. In December of that year, Mawson and two other expedition members left the main base at Commonwealth Bay, embarking on a 300-mile exploration into the interior of the continent to gather scientific data and specimens. Tragedy followed.

One of the men, a young British soldier named Belgrave Ninnis, plummeted down a crevasse on a sledge, along with several of their best dogs and many of the team's supplies. For several weeks, the two others, beset by scurvy and other ills, struggled to return to camp, subsisting first on the remaining dogs, then on starvation rations. Ultimately, Xavier Mertz, a Swiss mountaineer and skiing champion, died from exhaustion, starvation and possible toxicity from eating dogs' livers.

Determined to return with the research data, Mawson battled the elements for 30-some days, finally stumbling into base camp in February of 1913, emaciated, frost-bitten and exhausted-only to discover he had missed the ship retrieving the rest of the crew by hours. While deemed a survivor hero (he was later knighted and his face now adorns the Australian $100 bill), there are questions about what extreme measures he may have taken to stay alive. A 2013 biography of Mawson suggests he may have purposefully set his and Mertz's starvation rations at a level that would have hastened his companion's death, and that he boiled and ate Mertz's corpse in order to survive. Mawson's descendants decry the allegation.

Mauro Prosperi

Mauro Prosperi is an Italian police officer who gained worldwide fame after getting lost in the Sahara Desert in 1994. A keen athlete and long-distance runner, Mauro took part in the 1994 Marathon of the Sands in Morocco, a six-day-long endurance race in one of the driest and barren environments on the planet.

During the race, a sandstorm caused Prosperi, then 39 years old, married and father to three children, to become disoriented and lose his way. One day after going off track, he found himself in an abandoned Muslim shrine in Algeria. In order to survive, he killed and ate bats. For fluid, he was forced to drink his own urine, lick dew off of rocks and suck moisture out of his wet wipes.

Assuming he would never be found, he slit his wrists with a pen knife from his supplies. However, it was such a dry heat that the wounds clotted and he was forced to go back into the desert and attempt to find help.

For nine days he walked through the desert and ate insects and reptiles. Finally, he found a small village. From there he was flown to a hospital, where doctors said his liver had almost completely failed.

Having traveled 180 miles in all, Prosperi lost 35 pounds in body weight during his ordeal in the desert; it took several months before he could eat solid food again. But he has remained an enthusiastic runner and even returned and completed the race in 2012.

José Salvador Alvarenga

José Salvador Alvarenga is a Salvadoran fisherman who spent 13 months adrift at sea. He is the first person in recorded history to have survived in a small boat at sea for more than a year.

On November 17, 2012, Alvarenga set off on a professional fishing trip with a young fisherman named Ezequiel Cordoba, with whom he had never worked. Having embarked from a fishing village on the Pacific coast of Mexico's southern Chiapas state, they planned to be out for about 30 hours hunting shark, tuna and mahi mahi. A few hours into their voyage, a storm struck that lasted five days and blew them off course. Alvarenga called his boss on the ship's radio for help, but it-and much of the rest of the boat's electronics-had been disabled by the storm. The boat's motor was also damaged.

A search party was sent, but after two days with no success, their boss gave up and assumed they had drowned.

Alone and without food or supplies, the two fishermen survived by eating raw fish, turtles and jellyfish. They drank rainwater and turtle blood. As weeks turned to months, Cordoba became severely unwell from eating months of raw food and died.

Alvarenga then endured another nine months alone at sea, until he eventually spotted a small island. Abandoning his boat and swimming to shore, he almost immediately met a local couple who alerted authorities. He had reached the Marshall Islands.

His journey lasted 438 days and his voyage is estimated to have covered between 5,500 to 6,700 miles.

Ricky Megee

On January 23, 2006, Ricky Megee was driving through the Australian Outback on his way to a new job when he picked up a group of hitchhikers. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a shallow grave in the Outback wilderness with dingoes scratching at the plastic wrapped over him.

Unable to locate his car and clueless about his exact whereabouts, Megee was forced to survive for 71 days out in the rugged, perilous terrain.

He constructed a "humpy" (a basic form of shelter) using branches and leaves and says he mainly lived off eating frogs, leeches, snakes and drinking his own urine. At night, he barricaded his shelter with rocks, to prevent dingoes from trying to eat him as he slept.

Eventually, workers on a remote cattle ranch stumbled upon Megee, who had become skeletally thin, having lost more than 100 lbs. He was taken to a local hospital and treated for severe dehydration and malnutrition.

What exactly had happened to him remains a mystery. Authorities originally expressed skepticism about his story. (He claimed the hitchhikers likely drugged him.) His vehicle was never found.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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5 Stunning Real-Life Survival Stories | HISTORY

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These people went off the beaten track. Then things went horribly wrong.

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Lost in the Antarctic: the doomed voyage of the Endurance written by Tod Olson

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Lost in the Antarctic: the doomed voyage of the Endurance written by Tod Olson

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s they motored across the lagoon in the Marshall Islands, deep in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the policemen stared at the specimen laid out on the deck before them. There was no hiding the fact that this man had been at sea for a considerable time. His hair was matted upwards like a shrub. His beard curled out in wild disarray. His ankles were swollen, his wrists tiny; he could barely walk. He refused to make eye contact and often hid his face.

Salvador Alvarenga, a 36-year-old fisherman from El Salvador, had left the coast of Mexico in a small boat with a young crewmate 14 months earlier. Now he was being taken to Ebon Atoll, the southernmost tip of the Marshall Islands, and the closest town to where he had washed ashore. He was 6,700 miles from the place he had set out from. He had drifted for 438 days.

Floating across the Pacific Ocean, watching the moon's light ebb and flow for over a year, Alvarenga had battled loneliness, depression and bouts of suicidal thinking. But surviving in a vibrant world of wild animals, vivid hallucinations and extreme solitude did little to prepare him for the fact that he was about to become an international celebrity and an object of curiosity.

I was so hungry that I was eating my own fingernails, swallowing all the little pieces

Salvador Alvarenga

Days later, Alvarenga faced the world's press. Dressed in a baggy brown sweatshirt that disguised his reedy torso, he disembarked from a police boat slowly but unaided. Expecting a gaunt and bedridden victim, a ripple of disbelief went through the crowd. Alvarenga cracked a quick smile and waved to the cameras. Several observers noted a similarity to the Tom Hanks character in the movie Cast Away. The photo of the bearded fisherman shuffling ashore went viral. Briefly, Alvarenga became a household name.

Who survives 14 months at sea? Only a Hollywood screenwriter could write a tale in which such a journey ends happily. I was sceptical, but as a Guardian reporter in the region, I began to investigate. It turned out there were dozens of witnesses who had seen Alvarenga leave shore, who had heard his SOS. When he washed ashore (in the same boat that he had left Mexico on), thousands of miles away, he was steadfast in his rejection of interviews - even posting a note on his hospital door begging the press to disappear.

Later, I would sit with Alvarenga for many hours, back at his home in El Salvador, as he described in detail the brutal realities of living at sea for more than a year. Over the course of more than 40 interviews, he described his extraordinary survival at sea. This is his story.

n 18 November 2012, a day after being ambushed at sea by a massive storm, Alvarenga was trying to ignore the growing pond of seawater sloshing at his feet. An inexperienced navigator might have panicked, started baling and been distracted from his primary task: aligning the boat with the waves. He was a veteran captain and knew that he needed to regain the initiative. Together with his inexperienced crewmate, Ezequiel Córdoba, he was 50 miles out at sea, slowly negotiating a route back to shore.

The spray and crashing waves dumped hundreds of gallons of seawater into the boat, threatening to sink or flip them. While Alvarenga steered, Córdoba was frantically tossing water back into the ocean, pausing only momentarily to allow his shoulder muscles to recover.

Alvarenga's boat, at 25 feet, was as long as two pick-up trucks and as wide as one. With no raised structure, no glass and no running lights, it was virtually invisible at sea. On the deck, a fibreglass crate the size of a refrigerator was full of fresh fish: tuna, mahimahi and sharks, their catch after a two-day trip. If they could bring it ashore, they would have enough money to survive for a week.

The boat was loaded with equipment, including 70 gallons of gasoline, 16 gallons of water, 23kg (50lb) of sardines for bait, 700 hooks, miles of line, a harpoon, three knives, three buckets for baling, a mobile phone (in a plastic bag to keep it dry), a GPS tracking device (not waterproof), a two-way radio (battery half-charged), several wrenches for the motor and 91kg (200lb) of ice.

The icebox in which Alvarenga hid from the sun. Photograph: Matt Riding

Alvarenga had prepared the boat with Ray Perez, his usual mate and a loyal companion. But at the last minute, Perez couldn't join him. Alvarenga, keen to get out to sea, arranged to go with Córdoba instead, a 22-year-old with the nickname Piñata who lived at the far end of the lagoon, where he was best known as a defensive star on the village soccer team. Alvarenga and Córdoba had never spoken before, much less worked together.

Alvarenga tensely negotiated their slow advance toward the coast, manoeuvring among the waves like a surfer trying to glide and slice his way through. As the weather worsened, Córdoba's resolve disintegrated. At times he refused to bale and instead held the rail with both hands, vomiting and crying. He had signed up to make $50. He was capable of working 12 hours straight without complaining and was athletic and strong. But this crashing, soaking journey back to shore? He was sure their tiny craft would shatter and sharks would devour them. He began to scream.

Alvarenga remained sitting, gripping the tiller tightly, determined to navigate a storm now so strong that harbourmasters along the coast had barred fishing boats from heading out to sea. Finally he noticed a change in the visibility, the cloud cover was lifting: he could see miles across the water. Around 9am, Alvarenga spotted the rise of a mountain on the horizon. They were approximately two hours from land when the motor started coughing and spluttering. He pulled out his radio and called his boss. "Willy! Willy! Willy! The motor is ruined!"

"Calm down, man, give me your coordinates," Willy responded, from the beachside docks in Costa Azul.

"We have no GPS, it's not functioning."

"Lay an anchor," Willy ordered.

"We have no anchor," Alvarenga said. He had noticed it was missing before setting off, but didn't think he needed it on a deep-sea mission.

"OK, we are coming to get you," Willy responded.

"Come now, I am really getting fucked out here," Alvarenga shouted. These were his final words to shore.

As the waves thumped the boat, Alvarenga and Córdoba began working as a team. With the morning sun, they could see the waves approaching, rising high above them and then splitting open. Each man would brace and lean against a side of the open-hulled boat to counteract the roll.

But the waves were unpredictable, slapping each other in midair, joining forces to create swells that raised the men to a brief peak where they could get a third-storey view, then, with the sensation of a falling elevator, instantly drop them. Their beach sandals provided no traction on the deck.

Alvarenga realised their catch - nearly 500kg (1,100lb) of fresh fish - was making the boat top heavy and unstable. With no time to consult his boss, Alvarenga went with his gut: they would dump all the fish. One by one they hauled them out of the cooler, swinging the carcasses into the ocean. Falling overboard was now more dangerous than ever: the bloody fish were sure to attract sharks.

Furious, he picked up a heavy club normally used to kill fish and began to bash the broken engine

Next they tossed the ice and extra gasoline. Alvarenga strung 50 buoys from the boat as a makeshift "sea anchor" that floated on the surface, providing drag and stability. But at around 10am the radio died. It was before noon on day one of a storm that Alvarenga knew was likely to last five days. Losing the GPS had been an inconvenience. The failed motor was a disaster. Now, without radio contact, they were on their own.

The storm roiled the men all afternoon as they fought to bale water out of the boat. The same muscles, the same repetitive motion, hour after hour, had allowed them to dump perhaps half the water. They were both ready to faint with exhaustion, but Alvarenga was also furious. He picked up a heavy club normally used to kill fish and began to bash the broken engine. Then he grabbed the radio and GPS unit and angrily threw the machines into the water.

The sun sank and the storm churned as Córdoba and Alvarenga succumbed to the cold. They turned the refrigerator-sized icebox upside down and huddled inside. Soaking wet and barely able to clench their cold hands into fists, they hugged and wrapped their legs around each other. But as the incoming water sank the boat ever lower, the men took turns leaving the icebox to bale for frantic 10- or 15-minute stints. Progress was slow but the pond at their feet gradually grew smaller.

Darkness shrank their world, as a gale-force wind ripped offshore and drove the men farther out to sea. Were they now back to where they had been fishing a day earlier? Were they heading north towards Acapulco, or south towards Panama? With only the stars as guides, they had lost their usual means of calculating distance.

Without bait or fish hooks, Alvarenga invented a daring strategy to catch fish. He kneeled alongside the edge of the boat, his eyes scanning for sharks, and shoved his arms into the water up to his shoulders. With his chest tightly pressed to the side of the boat, he kept his hands steady, a few inches apart. When a fish swam between his hands, he smashed them shut, digging his fingernails into the rough scales. Many escaped but soon Alvarenga mastered the tactic and he began to grab the fish and toss them into the boat while trying to avoid their teeth. With the fishing knife, Córdoba expertly cleaned and sliced the flesh into finger-sized strips that were left to dry in the sun. They ate fish after fish. Alvarenga stuffed raw meat and dried meat into his mouth, hardly noticing or caring about the difference. When they got lucky, they were able to catch turtles and the occasional flying fish that landed inside their boat.

Within days, Alvarenga began to drink his urine and encouraged Córdoba to follow suit. It was salty but not revolting as he drank, urinated, drank again, peed again, in a cycle that felt as if it was providing at least minimal hydration; in fact, it was exacerbating their dehydration. Alvarenga had long ago learned the dangers of drinking seawater. Despite their longing for liquid, they resisted swallowing even a cupful of the endless saltwater that surrounded them.

"I was so hungry that I was eating my own fingernails, swallowing all the little pieces," Alvarenga later told me. He began to grab jellyfish from the water, scooping them up in his hands and swallowing them whole. "It burned the top part of my throat, but wasn't so bad."

After roughly 14 days at sea, Alvarenga was resting inside the icebox when he heard a sound: splat, splat, splat. The rhythm of raindrops on the roof was unmistakable. "Piñata! Piñata! Piñata," Alvarenga screamed as he slipped out. His crewmate awoke and joined him. Rushing across the deck, the two men deployed a rainwater collection system that Alvarenga had been designing and imagining for a week. Córdoba scrubbed a grey five-gallon bucket clean and positioned its mouth skyward.

Dark clouds stalked overhead, and after days of drinking urine and turtle blood, and nearly dying of thirst, a storm finally bore down on the men. They opened their mouths to the falling rain, stripped off their clothes and showered in a glorious deluge of fresh water. Within an hour, the bucket had an inch, then two inches of water. The men laughed and drank every couple of minutes. After their initial attack on the water supplies, however, they vowed to maintain strict rations.

Alvarenga's journey from Mexico to the Marshall Islands. Illustration: Guardian Graphics

After weeks at sea, Alvarenga and Córdoba became astute scavengers and learned to distinguish the varieties of plastic that bob across the ocean. They grabbed and stored every empty water bottle they found. When a stuffed green rubbish bag drifted within reach, the men snared it, hauled it aboard and ripped open the plastic. Inside one bag, they found a wad of chewed gum and divided the almond-sized lump, each man feasting on the wealth of sensorial pleasures. Underneath a layer of sodden kitchen oil, they found riches: half a head of cabbage, some carrots and a quart of milk - half-rancid, but still they drank it. It was the first fresh food the two men had seen for a long time. They treated the soggy carrots with reverence.

When they had several days' worth of backup food, and especially after they had caught and eaten a turtle, Córdoba and Alvarenga briefly found solace in the magnificent seascape. "We would talk about our mothers," Alvarenga recalled. "And how badly we had behaved. We asked God to forgive us for being such bad sons. We imagined if we could hug them, give them a kiss. We promised to work harder so they would not have to work any more. But it was too late."

After two months at sea, Alvarenga had become accustomed to capturing and eating birds and turtles, while Córdoba had begun a physical and mental decline. They were on the same boat but headed on different paths. Córdoba had been sick after eating raw seabirds and made a drastic decision: he began to refuse all food. He gripped a plastic water bottle in both hands but was losing the energy, and motivation, to put it up to his mouth. Alvarenga offered tiny chunks of bird meat, occasionally a bite of turtle. Córdoba clenched his mouth. Depression was shutting his body down.

The two men made a pact. If Córdoba survived, he would travel to El Salvador and visit Alvarenga's mother and father. If Alvarenga made it out alive, he'd go back to Chiapas, Mexico, and find Córdoba's devout mother who had remarried an evangelical preacher. "He asked me to tell his mother that he was sad he could not say goodbye and that she shouldn't make any more tamales for him - they should let him go, that he had gone with God," Alvarenga told me.

"I am dying, I am dying, I am almost gone," Córdoba said one morning.

"Don't think about that. Let's take a nap," Alvarenga replied as he lay alongside Córdoba.

"I am tired, I want water," Córdoba moaned. His breath was rough. Alvarenga retrieved the water bottle and put it to Córdoba's mouth, but he did not swallow. Instead he stretched out. His body shook in short convulsions. He groaned and his body tensed up. Alvarenga suddenly panicked. He screamed into Córdoba's face, "Don't leave me alone! You have to fight for life! What am I going to do here alone?"

To deal with losing his companion, Alvarenga simply pretended he hadn't died. 'How do you feel?' he asked the corpse

Córdoba didn't reply. Moments later he died with his eyes open.

"I propped him up to keep him out of the water. I was afraid a wave might wash him out of the boat," Alvarenga told me. "I cried for hours."

The next morning he stared at Córdoba in the bow of the boat. He asked the corpse, "How do you feel? How was your sleep?"

"I slept good, and you? Have you had breakfast?" Alvarenga answered his own questions aloud, as if he were Córdoba speaking from the afterlife. The easiest way to deal with losing his only companion was simply to pretend he hadn't died.

Six days after Córdoba's death, Alvarenga sat with the corpse on a moonless night, in full conversation, when, as if waking from a dream, he was suddenly shocked to find he was conversing with the dead. "First I washed his feet. His clothes were useful, so I stripped off a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt. I put that on - it was red, with little skull-and-crossbones - and then I dumped him in. And as I slid him into the water, I fainted."

hen he awoke just minutes later, Alvarenga was terrified. "What could I do alone? Without anyone to speak with?" he told me. "Why had he died and not me? I had invited him to fish. I blamed myself for his death."

But his will to live and fear of suicide (his mother had assured him that those who kill themselves will never go to heaven) kept him searching for solutions and scouring the ocean's surface for ships. Sunrise and sunset were best, as blurry shapes on the horizon were transformed into neat silhouettes and the sun was bearable. With his eyesight fine-tuned, Alvarenga could now identify a tiny speck on the horizon as a ship. As it approached, he would identify the type of vessel - usually a transpacific container ship - as it growled by. These sea barges ploughed the sea effortlessly, and with no visible crew or activity on deck, they were like drones at sea. Every sighting pumped Alvarenga with an energy boost that jolted him to wave, jump and flail for hours. About 20 separate container boats paraded across the horizon, yet the maddening ship-tease still excited him. Storms battered his small boat, but as he got farther out to sea, the storms seemed to become shorter, more manageable.

Alvarenga let his imagination run wild in order to keep sane. He imagined an alternative reality so believable that he could later say with total honesty that alone at sea he tasted the greatest meals of his life and experienced the most delicious sex. He was mastering the art of turning his solitude into a Fantasia-like world. He started his mornings with a long walk. "I would stroll back and forth on the boat and imagine that I was wandering the world. By doing this I could make myself believe that I was actually doing something. Not just sitting there, thinking about dying." With this lively entourage of family, friends and lovers, Alvarenga insulated himself from bleak reality.

When he was a small boy, his grandfather had taught him how to keep track of time using the cycles of the moon. Now, alone in the open ocean, he was always clear as to how many months he had been adrift; he knew he had seen 15 lunar cycles while drifting through unknown territory. He was convinced his next destination was heaven.

He was whizzing along on a smooth current, when suddenly the sky filled with shore birds. Alvarenga stared. The muscles in his neck tightened. A tropical island emerged from the mist. A green Pacific atoll, a small hill surrounded by a kaleidoscope of turquoise waters.

Hallucinations didn't last this long. Had his prayers finally been answered? Alvarenga's racing mind imagined multiple disaster scenarios. He could blow off course. He could drift backward - it had happened before. He stared at the land as he tried to pick out details from the shore. It was a tiny island, no bigger than a football field, he calculated. It looked wild, without roads, cars or homes.

With his knife, he cut away the ragged line of buoys. It was a drastic move. In the open ocean, with no sea anchor, he could readily flip during even a moderate tropical storm. But Alvarenga could see the shoreline clearly and he gambled that speed was of greater importance than stability.

In an hour he had drifted near the island's beach. Ten yards from shore, Alvarenga dove into the water, then paddled "like a turtle" until a large wave picked him up and tossed him high on the beach, like driftwood. As the wave pulled away, Alvarenga was left face down in the sand. "I held a handful of sand like it was a treasure," he later told me.

Making radio contact after landing on Ebon Atoll. Photograph: Ola Fjeldstad

The famished fisherman crawled naked through a carpet of sodden palm fronds, sharp coconut shells and tasty flowers. He was unable to stand for more than a few seconds. "I was totally destroyed and as skinny as a board," he said. "The only thing left was my intestines and gut, plus skin and bones. My arms had no meat. My thighs were skinny and ugly."

Although he didn't know it, Alvarenga had washed ashore on Tile Islet, a small island that is part of the Ebon Atoll, on the southern tip of the 1,156 islands that make up the Republic of the Marshall Islands, one of the most remote spots on Earth. A boat leaving Ebon searching for land would either have to churn 4,000 miles north-east to hit Alaska or 2,500 miles south-west to Brisbane, Australia. Had Alvarenga missed Ebon, he would have drifted north of Australia, possibly running aground in Papua New Guinea, but more likely continuing another 3,000 miles towards the eastern coast of the Philippines.

As he stumbled through the undergrowth, he suddenly found himself standing across a small canal from the beach house of Emi Libokmeto and her husband Russel Laikidrik. "As I'm looking across, I see this white man there," said Emi, who works husking and drying coconuts on the island. "He is yelling. He looks weak and hungry. My first thought was, this person swam here, he must have fallen off a ship."

After tentatively approaching each other, Emi and Russel welcomed him into their home. Alvarenga drew a boat, a man and the shore. Then he gave up. How could he explain a 7,000-mile drift at sea with stick figures? His impatience simmered. He asked for medicine. He asked for a doctor. The native couple smiled and kindly shook their heads. "Even though we did not understand each other, I began to talk and talk," Alvarenga told me. "The more I talked, the more we all roared with laughter. I am not sure why they were laughing. I was laughing at being saved."

After a morning of caring for and feeding the castaway, Russel sailed across a lagoon to the main town and port on the island of Ebon to ask the mayor for help. Within hours a group, including police and a nurse, had come to rescue Alvarenga. They had to persuade him to get on a boat with them back to Ebon. While they nursed this wild-looking man back to health and tried to coax out details of his journey, a visiting anthropologist from Norway alerted the Marshall Islands Journal.

Written by Giff Johnson, the first story went out under the Agence France-Presse (AFP) banner on 31 January and outlined the remarkable contours of Alvarenga's story. Reporters in Hawaii, Los Angeles and Australia scrambled to reach the island to interview this alleged castaway. The single phone line on Ebon became a battleground, as reporters tried to discover tantalising details. Alvarenga's story had enough hard facts to make it plausible: the initial missing person report, the search-and-rescue operation, the correlation of his drift with known ocean currents, and the fact that he was extremely weak.

But a debate erupted online and in newsrooms around the world: was this the most remarkable survivor since Ernest Shackleton, or the biggest fraud since the Hitler diaries? Officials tracked down Alvarenga's supervisor, who confirmed that the registration number of the boat he had washed up in was the same as the one that had left port on 17 November 2012, and vanished. Guardian reporter Jo Tuckman interviewed Mexican search-and-rescue official Jaime Marroquín, who detailed the desperate hunt for Alvarenga and Córdoba that followed. "The winds were high," Marroquín said. "We had to stop the search flights after two days because of poor visibility."

I began to investigate, talking to people up and down the coast of Mexico. I looked at medical records, studied maps, and spoke to survival experts, ranging from the US Coast Guard to the Navy Seals, as well as Ivan MacFadyen and Jason Lewis, two adventurers who have crossed that stretch of the Pacific. I spoke with oceanographers and commercial fishermen familiar with the area. Everyone confirmed that Alvarenga's version of life at sea was in line with what they would expect. When he arrived at hospital in the Marshall Islands, he was debriefed by US embassy officials who described multiple scars on Alvarenga's very damaged body. "He was out there for a long time," the US ambassador said.

Back home in El Salvador. For months he was in shock, afraid of the water. Photograph: Oscar Machon

Meanwhile back in the Marshall Islands, Alvarenga's medical condition steadily worsened. His feet and legs were swollen. The doctors suspected the tissues had been deprived of water for so long that they now soaked up everything. But after 11 days, doctors determined that Alvarenga's health had stabilised enough for him to travel home to El Salvador, where he would be reunited with his family.

He was diagnosed with anaemia and doctors suspected his diet of raw turtles and raw birds had infected his liver with parasites. Alvarenga believed the parasites might rise up to his head and attack his brain. Deep sleep was impossible and he thought often of Córdoba's death. It was not the same to be celebrating survival alone. As soon as he was strong enough, he travelled to Mexico to fulfil his promise and deliver a message to Córdoba's mother, Ana Rosa. He sat with her for two hours, answering all her questions.

Life on land has not been straightforward: for months, Alvarenga was still in shock. He had developed a deep fear of not only the ocean, but even the sight of water. He slept with the lights on and needed constant company. Soon after coming ashore, he appointed a lawyer to handle the media requests that came in from all over the world. He later changed representation, and his former lawyer filed a lawsuit demanding a million-dollar payout for an alleged breach of contract.

It wasn't until a year later, when the fog of confusion subsided and he scanned the maps of his drift across the Pacific Ocean, that Alvarenga began to fathom his extraordinary journey. For 438 days, he lived on the edge of sanity. "I suffered hunger, thirst and an extreme loneliness, and didn't take my life," Alvarenga says. "You only get one chance to live - so appreciate it."

This is an edited extract from 438 Days by Jonathan Franklin, published by Macmillan at £16.99. To order a copy for £12.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846

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Lost at sea: the man who vanished for 14 months

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In November 2012, Salvador Alvarenga went fishing off the coast of Mexico. Two days later, a storm hit and he made a desperate SOS. It was the last anyone heard from him - for 438 days. This is his story

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1. Alexander Selkirk

Scottish mariner Alexander Selkirk's solitary odyssey began in 1704, when he arrived at an island off the coast of Chile along with a group of British privateers. The men had spent the previous year harassing Spanish shipping around South America, but when they dropped anchor in the Juan Fernandez archipelago, Selkirk got into a dispute with his captain over the seaworthiness of their ship. Fearing the worm-eaten vessel would not survive another voyage, the hotheaded Selkirk elected to stay behind on the island with only a small supply of weapons, food, tobacco and rum to keep him company.

Selkirk may have believed that a passing ship would pick him up in a matter of weeks, but he would eventually spend more than four years and four months alone on the island. He passed the time by notching the days and months on a tree, reading his Bible and chasing goats-first for food, and then merely to have something to do. All the while, he kept his eyes peeled for signs of rescue, but the few ships he saw flew the Spanish flag. On one occasion, he was even forced to hide in a tree when Spanish mariners landed on the island to resupply. Selkirk was finally rescued in February 1709, when a band of privateers led by Captain Woodes Rogers stopped at his island. The wild-haired and bearded castaway initially had trouble remembering how to speak, but he went on to become a minor celebrity in 18th century England, and was likely the inspiration for the title character in Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel "Robinson Crusoe."

2. Marguerite de la Rocque

Little is known about the life of Marguerite de la Rocque, a 16th century French noblewoman who spent two years marooned on an island off the coast of Quebec. According to most accounts, her ordeal began in 1542, when she accompanied a relative on an expedition to establish a colony in Canada. During the long crossing of the Atlantic, the young and unmarried Marguerite sparked a scandal when she took a fellow passenger as her lover. The tryst outraged the ship's devout captain, and De La Rocque, her lover and her servant were subsequently banished to the remote Isle of Demons near the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

The trio built a small hut to protect against the blistering cold, and used muskets and rocks to scare off bears and wolves. They soon faced more serious problems when De La Rocque discovered she was pregnant. Amazingly, the young castaway managed to survive the birth of the baby, but after some sixteen months on the island, both her lover and servant had perished. Her young child would follow soon after, yet De La Rocque continued to survive alone until late 1544, when she was rescued by a group of fisherman and ferried back to Europe.

3. Fernão Lopes

St. Helena is perhaps best known as the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was banished after his famous defeat at 1815's Battle of Waterloo. But some 300 years before the French emperor arrived, this remote island in the southern Atlantic was home to one of history's most unusual castaways. Fernão Lopes was a Portuguese soldier who had turned against his homeland and sided with Muslim natives during a conflict in India. When his former brothers in arms captured him, they punished him by lopping off his right hand, ears and nose. Deformed and disgraced, Lopes stowed away aboard a ship bound for Portugal in 1516. When it stopped at the uninhabited isle of St. Helena, he slipped away and hid in the forest.

Lopes would live on the island in self-imposed exile for the next several years, totally alone save for a rooster he turned into a pet. Though he refused to come out of hiding to meet visitors, he eventually became something of a legend among Portuguese mariners, who would leave offerings of food and clothing for the "Hermit of St. Helena" whenever they dropped anchor at his island. As his celebrity grew, Lopes was persuaded to travel to Europe, where he received a pardon from the King of Portugal and absolution from the Pope. The disfigured castaway was offered a place in a monastery, but chose to return to St. Helena, where he continued to live alone until his death around 1545. By that time, Lopes had spent some 30 years on the island, nearly all of it in complete solitude.

4. Philip Ashton

In June 1722, Massachusetts-based fisherman Philip Ashton was trawling the seas near Nova Scotia when his schooner was set upon by a band of pirates led by the notorious Edward Low. When Ashton refused to join the buccaneers' ranks, he was kept as a slave for nine months while the rogues plundered their way across the Atlantic and back again along the coasts of Brazil and Central America. The beleaguered fisherman finally made an escape in March 1723, when he sprinted into the jungle after the pirates stopped for fresh water at a small island off the coast of Honduras.

Though stranded with no food or tools, Ashton managed to construct a crude shelter and ate fruit and raw turtle eggs to ward off starvation. He wasted away on his island alone until November 1723, when he encountered a British man who had escaped the Spanish. The fellow castaway disappeared after only a few days, but left behind a knife and other supplies that Ashton used to continue surviving. He would eventually spend another seven months enduring extreme heat, insects, snakes, hunger, a near-deadly fever and even an attack by the Spanish before he was rescued by a British ship in June 1724. Ashton later wrote a popular book detailing his terrifying days in the company of Low's pirates and his 16-month stint as a castaway.

5. Juana Maria

Juana Maria was the name given to the famous "Lone Woman of San Nicholas," a Native American who spent nearly two decades stranded on an island off the coast of California. Juana Maria had grown up on San Nicholas, but most of her tribe was slaughtered in the early 1800s by hostile hunters. Missionaries evacuated the few remaining survivors in 1835, but Juana Maria was left behind when she ran back to the island to locate her missing infant. She never found the child, but when attempts to rescue her stalled, she was forgotten and left to survive on San Nicholas in complete isolation.

Juana Maria spent the next 18 years taking shelter in a cave and fishing with hooks made from seashells. She captured sea birds and seals and fashioned their feathers and skins into dresses, and passed the time weaving baskets and bowls from grasses. Her solitude finally came to an end in 1853, when Captain George Nidever discovered her on San Nicholas. Nidever took Juana Maria to Santa Barbara a few weeks later, and though no one could speak her language, she used hand gestures to relate the astonishing story of her survival. Sadly, she was unable to adjust to the diet of the mainland, and died of dysentery only two months after leaving her island. Her story was later fictionalized in the popular children's novel "Island of the Blue Dolphins."

6. The Ross Sea Party

Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated attempt to cross Antarctica on foot is a classic story of survival, but perhaps even more extraordinary is the tale of his "Ross Sea party," a supply crew who spent two years as castaways on the other side of the continent. Shackleton's ambitious expedition had originally called for two separate teams. The first, led by Shackleton himself, planned to land on Antarctica below South America before making a perilous transcontinental crossing. At the same time, the Ross Sea party was to land on the opposite side of the continent and deposit caches of food and fuel for the last leg of Shackleton's long march across the Ross Ice Shelf.

The crew of the Ross Sea party docked near McMurdo Sound in January 1915 and began the slow, excruciating task of placing supply depots every 60 miles. Disaster struck that May, when the team's ship was torn from its moorings and blown out to sea by ferocious winds. Despite being stranded at the edge of the world with dwindling resources, the ten castaways continued their mission and successfully laid the necessary supply caches, losing three men in the process. The survivors then spent almost a year confined to a small hut before they were rescued in January 1917. Only then did they learn their deadly ordeal had been in vain-Shackleton's team had also lost their ship and never started the transcontinental crossing. Speaking of the Ross Sea party's commitment to his doomed mission, Shackleton would later write, "No more remarkable story of human endeavor has been revealed than the tale of that long march."

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Scottish mariner Alexander Selkirk's solitary odyssey began in 1704, when he arrived at an island off the coast of Chile along with a group of British privateers. The men had spent the previous year harassing Spanish shipping around South America, but when they dropped anchor in the Juan Fernandez archipelago, Selkirk got into a dispute with his captain over the seaworthiness of their ship.

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You should always tell someone about the things you're worried about. You can tell a friend, parent, guardian, teacher, or another trusted adult. If you're struggling with your mental health, going to your GP can be a good place to start to find help. Your GP can let you know what support is available to you, suggest different types of treatment and offer regular check-ups to see how you're doing.

If you're in need of in-the-moment support you can contact , where you can speak to a counsellor. Their lines are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There are more links to helpful organisations on BBC Action Line .

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You should always tell someone about the things you're worried about. You can tell a friend, parent, guardian, teacher, or another trusted adult. If you're struggling with your mental health, going to your GP can be a good place to start to find help.

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hat makes a hero? According to a popular meme going around at the moment, intentions matter more than actions. "Your grandparents were called to war," it says. "You're being called to sit on the couch." In a way, sitting around and doing nothing is a new type of heroism, because going out and living life as normal makes you a passive bystander to a global threat. But in ordinary times, the difference between a hero and a bystander is far more clear-cut. What makes some of us the former, and some of us the latter?

As she was boarding the tube in London on an otherwise ordinary Friday morning last November, Asma Shuweikh felt a man rush past her. He made a beeline for an orthodox Jewish family sitting by the doors- a father and two sons in kippah. Brandishing a bible, the man began to hurl antisemitic abuse at the family; as Shuweikh stood in shocked silence, she noticed he had highlighted passages in his book. When the man turned his attention to the children, she decided she could not remain silent any longer: it was time to speak up. In a video that subsequently went viral on social media, the 36-year-old can be seen calmly telling the aggressor: "Come on, man, there's children here... You're on public transport."

What made Shuweikh speak out and put herself in the firing line? The abuser later began berating her for being a Muslim woman wearing trousers. She says that faith and motherhood helped inform her actions. "When I see something wrong," she says, "I have to say it."

According to Catherine A Sanderson, a psychology professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts and the author of The Bystander Effect, myriad complex factors make some of us bystanders and some of us heroes. These range from our self-identity to the pressure of social norms.

Sanderson says she was inspired to write the book by both "personal and global" events: Harvey Weinstein's sex offences, the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal, and the fact that a student at her son's college died just two weeks into his very first semester. The student had been drinking heavily and had fallen and hit his head. Although fellow students watched over him, they didn't call emergency services for nearly 20 hours. By which time it was too late to save him. Her book answers the question at the heart of this incident: why?

You may already know about the "bystander effect". For more than 50 years, newspaper articles and textbooks have recounted the story of Kitty Genovese - a young woman who was murdered outside her apartment in New York in 1964. It was claimed almost 40 people heard or saw Genovese's murder, yet none of them spoke out. The term bystander effect was coined to explain the fact that individuals are less likely to help people in need when other people are present.

The Genovese story is largely apocryphal - later research revealed that no witnesses actually saw the attack in its entirety and two people did in fact call the police. Yet this doesn't mean the bystander effect isn't without some truth. In her book, Sanderson shares a number of scientific and real-life case studies that prove the presence of others makes it more difficult for us to speak out.

In one New York University study carried out shortly after the Genovese case, 85% of participants sought help for a man who was slurring his words when they believed only they could hear him. When they thought others could hear him, too, only 31% went to get help.

Sanderson isn't interested in easy explanations about fearless heroes and callous bystanders. "The question of why some people act badly and others don't is not really about good and bad," she says. She notes that many of the participants in the New York study were physically distressed and argues they didn't choose not to act but were rather paralysed by a "state of indecision".

'Bystanders aren't just people who fail to run at terrorists. They're people who let sexist or racist jokes pass, too.' Illustration: Franck Allais/The Observer

Throughout her book, Sanderson references a number of neurological studies that explain our inaction. She shows that working with others reduces our feeling of control and that as the number of observers to an incident increases, the parts of our brains that prepare us to take action actually become less active. "Many of the processes that drive inaction occur not through a careful deliberative process, but at an automatic level in the brain."

Sanderson is a psychologist not a neuroscientist, so I ask why she chose to focus so much on brain activity in the book. "I think it's important for people to understand that what they're doing is natural and probably even adaptive from an evolutionary point," she says. "But neuroscience lets us be aware of our pre-existing unconscious biases. It gives us the power to say: 'This is normal and it's natural, but I still have some agency and I can act.'"

The third section of Sanderson's book is more of a guide to how we can all change our behaviour to ensure we speak out, whether that be about discrimination on public transport, workplace fraud, sexual harassment or school bullies. Sanderson's research shows many of us often believe we would act in certain scenarios. Who among us hasn't had a casual fantasy about heroically saving the day by whistleblowing at work, saving an infant and/or granny from traffic, or karate chopping a pervert in the park? But in that fantasy, we're thinking about ourselves alone. In the real world, Sanderson says, we are often bystanders as part of a group and because of that we experience "deindividuation".

Can we be "re-individualised" to ensure that we act as we hope we might? A study Sanderson references seems to suggest we can. In 2012, academics from Harvard asked people to take a maths test and offered them $1 for every correct answer. The twist? Participants scored themselves. The study's participants were divided into groups that included those who signed an honesty declaration at the end of the test after they'd written down their score; and those who signed a declaration at the top of the sheet before scoring themselves.

In the end, 79% of people who signed their name at the bottom of the page cheated by inflating their score, compared to only 37% of those who signed their name before scoring themselves. "When we are reminded of who we are - which signing our name surely does - we are also reminded of our intentions to be a good person who does the right thing," Sanderson writes.

By remarkable coincidence, Darryn Frost was reminded of who he was shortly before he ran at a terrorist with a narwhal tusk during the London Bridge attack of November 2019. "I was at a conference directly before the attack and an American woman was talking about where we learn our behaviours," he explains. "She started our session asking us for three positive and negative traits about ourselves." After this, Frost says, she prompted the audience to think about their earliest memory where they learned these traits. "It was literally just after that that everything kicked off, so my emotions at the time were really raw and on the surface."

In general, Frost's experiences tally with Sanderson's optimism that we can overcome our inaction. Frost says he taught himself to speak out and conquer fear - he assists those in need and confronts people who are disrespectful to others when he is out in public. "It mostly comes from my schooling... My school motto was: 'For the brave, nothing is too difficult'. They teach you to be a good citizen and to look out for your fellow man." Of his response to the attack, he says: "It did feel instinctive to an extent, but that instinct has been taught and nurtured and built over years."

In some cases you can diffuse a situation by making a simple joke

One thing Sanderson says we all must nurture, and build in ourselves is the ability to overcome social awkwardness. Time and time again, she notes how social pressures facilitate inaction. Put simply: if we are around others, we base how we act on how they're acting. Many of us might avoid speaking out for fear that we've misjudged a situation - after all, if it really was that bad, wouldn't others be speaking up, too? Psychologists call these worries "evaluation apprehension". We're concerned we'll look stupid or sensitive or strange if we speak out. Sanderson notes that people find it easier to intervene if they are less concerned about fitting in, yet also notes those who are worried about fitting in feel social ostracisation more strongly. The neuroscience shows that for these people, rejection feels like physical pain - "as if you've twisted your ankle or burned yourself with coffee".

Sanderson also argues it's more difficult to act when situations are ambiguous and less dramatic, noting that empirical evidence shows that in obvious emergencies such as terror attacks, people are just as likely to help whether alone or in a crowd. While Shuweikh had little doubt what was happening when she saw that man brandishing a highlighted bible, I spoke to someone who failed to act when they saw harassment on another train. Carla, 30, says she was travelling in west London when she heard some Muslim teenagers chatting. Suddenly, a trans woman stood up and shouted at the teens. Carla realised later that they had insulted the woman in a language they both spoke, but which Carla couldn't understand.

"It took a long time to even realise that something bad had happened, so I only started weighing up whether to say something when the trans woman began telling the carriage what had happened," Carla explains. She says she felt stressed, ashamed and conflicted as she weighed up what to do - she felt as though her face went red. "I felt awful for this woman, because I know how much discrimination trans people face... but I was afraid, I didn't want to be seen shouting at a group of young, visibly Muslim people in case it appeared racist." Carla also says it was late and she was in a part of town she didn't know, which fed her inhibitions. In the end, she didn't speak out except to shout "good for you!" to the woman as she stood up for herself. Describing the story now, Carla apologises for being "cowardly".

Sanderson emphasises that Carla isn't cowardly - the difference between a hero and a bystander is heavily situational. In another incident, Carla was the only person to call an ambulance when someone was run over by a bus, while Frost says he was uncomfortable at being labelled a "hero" after the London Bridge attack. He says he is "haunted" by the times in his adult life when he didn't speak out or take action. "People seem to glorify my actions and yes I'm proud of them, but there's a lot of times in life I regret not being a better person."

Despite her insistence that we can't divide the world into neat dichotomies, Sanderson would be remiss not to document what makes it easier for certain people to speak out. She explains the concept of "moral rebels" - people who show courage in speaking out and overcoming social pressure. These people tend to have higher self-esteem and also believe their actions will make a difference (though there are no official figures, Sanderson estimates between five and 10% of the population can be categorised this way). She is at pains, however, to make it clear that anyone can speak out. "It's not one-size-fits all," Sanderson says. She argues that not everyone has to be a knight in shining armour. "You can find a friend if you don't have the ability to do it alone" or "in some cases you might diffuse the situation by creating a joke". As well as social skills, learning more traditional skills also helps - early in the book, Sanderson notes that people trained in first aid are more likely to intervene in dangerous situations. "They weren't different in personality, but they were equipped with different skills."

Yet it isn't just dangerous situations that concern Sanderson - much of her work is dedicated to how you can speak out about sexual harassment or workplace fraud. According to Sanderson, bystanders aren't just people who fail to run at terrorists with narwhal tusks, they're people who let sexist or racist jokes pass, too. She documents how silence perpetuates poor behaviour, citing a report that found men who have committed sexual assault believe other men accept their behaviour. Or as Martin Luther King Jr said: "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

"My hope is that reading this book will help people understand that they have a choice and they can act," Sanderson says. "It doesn't have to be a courageous act, it doesn't have to be confronting the person shouting slurs on public transport, it can be going over and sitting with the victim and pretending that you know them to interrupt the situation."

There is no doubt that Asma Shuweikh chose the courageous path. She recalls being bullied at 12 because she wore a hijab. One girl threw Shuweikh's lunch on the ground while others laughed - later that night, she went home and cried. "My mum and my brother said to me: 'Never, ever, ever be quiet when someone does something wrong to you.'" In the past, she has been targeted by Islamophobic abuse in public and felt hurt when no one spoke up on her behalf. "When you're in that situation, you just don't think about yourself," she says of witnessing the antisemitic abuse on the tube. "If you don't like the discrimination, don't like the injustice, you have to say something."
The Bystander Effect by Catherine A Sanderson (Harper Collins, £20) is published 16 April. Buy a copy for £16.80 at guardianbookshop.com

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Walk on by: why do we ignore bad behaviour?

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hat makes a hero? According to a popular meme going around at the moment, intentions matter more than actions. "Your grandparents were called to war," it says. "You're being called to sit on the couch."

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Blood on their hands?

So who did have blood on their hands? Perhaps the first place to look for the murderers is among the local commanders, perhaps one like Franz Stangl, commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, who oversaw the gassing of about a million Jews. Unlike Eichmann or Himmler, who became physically sick when they observed the results of their labours, Stangl stuck it out.

Like Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, Stangl tried to live a decent life with family, children, flowerbeds and pets, in the vicinity of his death factory. And he, like Höss, was exposed daily to the killing - indeed, he made heroic efforts to improve his camp's efficiency. However, again like Höss, he hardly ever killed anyone himself, and it took him years to have even the faintest notion of his responsibility for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. After all, he did everything to keep his camp in good order and to make the terrible job with which he had been charged as easy as possible for everyone concerned.

Extermination camps relied on a small staff of German SS men, a much larger contingent of collaborationist auxiliary guards, and teams of Jewish inmates temporarily kept alive so as to do the 'dirty work' of pushing the victims into the gas chambers, cleaning up after they had died, and disposing of the bodies. These unfortunate prisoners were the infamous Sonderkommandos, who were in many ways the epitome of the Nazi genocide.

Just as the Germans established Judenräte, or Jewish councils, to help them register the Jews and organise them for deportation to the camps throughout Europe, so they also used the Jews to facilitate their own mass murder down to the smallest details of cutting the victims' hair. That these wretched young men should not be confused with the actual perpetrators, can be seen from the fact that it was also they who staged the only recorded uprisings - hopeless though they were - in Birkenau, Sobibor and Treblinka. But it was also their existence that helped Stangl keep his hands clean and Höss at a safe distance from the crematoria.

Final irony

The final irony of this genocide was the manner in which West German courts tried to deal with it after it was over, especially in the late 1950s and the 1960s. German law mandated that only individuals who could be shown to have personally murdered someone for what was described by the courts as 'base motives' such as sexual lust or sadism, could be charged with murder.

The result was that local commanders of remote SS and SD posts in eastern Europe, men who were known to have arranged the murder of tens of thousands of people, were acquitted if they could not be shown to have personally killed anyone. Only their subordinates - who were sometimes indeed sadistic types, but of no importance whatsoever in the organisation of genocide - were sent to jail.

That the judges and lawyers who debated such cases had mostly been active themselves in the Third Reich was obviously part of the irony. And the fact that the Jewish witnesses who testified at these trials were seen as rather suspect because their suffering must have undermined their objectivity, was perhaps the clearest indication of the main conclusion we can draw about modern genocide.

The conclusion is that those who organise genocide all too often get away with it, while those subjected to it can rarely expect to see justice done. This is a lesson that we need to take to heart as we contemplate contemporary cases of genocide, 'ethnic cleansing', and other crimes against humanity.

Genocide is a collective undertaking - those who order and organise it do not carry it out, those who do the killing claim ignorance of its scope, and emphasise their inability to disobey orders. In other words, unlike homicide, genocide is deeply rooted in the expectation of impunity. Everyone knows it is happening, but no one seems to be responsible, and no one is willing to intervene. This, to cite the most current example out of scores of others that have occurred since 1945, is what we can now see going on in Darfur.

Thus, when we ask, 'Who is guilty?' there is only one answer we can come up with, in view of our own willingness to allow such mass murder to go on. The answer is: 'We are.'

Find out more

Books

Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals by Gary Jonathan Bass (Princeton University Press, 2000)

Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory by Donald Bloxham (Oxford University Press, 2001)

The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 by Christopher R Browning with contributions by Jürgen Matthäus (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press; Jerusalem, Yad Vashem; 2004)

The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust by Lawrence Douglas (Yale University Press, 2001)

The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg (Yale University Press, 2003)

Rudolph Höss, Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz edited by Steven Paskuly (Da Capo Press, 1996)

The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1945-46: A Documentary History edited by Michael R Marrus (Boston, Bedford Books, 1997)

Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich by Ingo Müller (Harvard University Press, 1991)

The Investigation of Nazi Crimes, 1945-1978: A Documentation by Adalbert Rückerl (Archon Books, 1980)

Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience by Gitta Sereny, (New York: Vintage Books, 1983, 1974)

The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann by Hanna Yablonka, (New York: Schocken Books, 2004)

Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' by Laurence Rees (BBC Books, 2005)

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So who did have blood on their hands? Perhaps the first place to look for the murderers is among the local commanders, perhaps one like Franz Stangl, commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, who oversaw the gassing of about a million Jews.

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There's a rich history of female adventurers with incredible survival skills - a history that proves women are heroic, brave and adept survivors of near-impossible odds. Here, three inspiring female survival experts and adventurers talk us through some of their most incredible stories, and explain why it is that they relish living on the edge.

Christina Dodwell

There are many different types of fear, says lifelong explorer Christina Dodwell, who has encountered more than her fair share of danger over a lifetime of travel. She's capsized in rapids, crash-landed microlight aircraft, been bitten by venomous spiders and thwarted dangerous assailants.

"There's fast fear, slow fear, fear of being caught in a wildfire, and fear of being attacked. But the fear of being responsible for someone else is different," she says.

At just 25 she found herself heading down the Congo River on a dugout canoe with a friend - an adventure that began after their Land Rover was stolen. But torrential rain caused a cliff to collapse, her friend fell overboard and the canoe started to sink. "If you've bitten off more than you can chew, you just get on with it. I eventually hauled my friend back in. That night felt like a horror film, you felt the fear would never end."

Credit: Christina Dodwell

She's light in weight and without a particularly strong build. "But when you need resources, you find them." Closer to home, she's even leapt over hedges to evade marauding cattle. "You don't realise how much strength you have until you come through something. I've emerged from situations shouting with elation."

When tick-bite fever left her weak during a journey on horseback across Africa, she hauled her saddlebags up with levers, and climbed trees and rocks in order to mount her horse. "You can always find a way around needing physical force."

Megan Hine

Survival expert, writer and adventurer Megan Hine got her first adrenalin hit when she ventured off-road on her pushbike on her way home from school. "I was totally out of control charging down a steep hilly track, saddlebags trailing. From that moment my life became all about pushing boundaries," she says.

Since then she's worked as a consultant for several of Bear Grylls' survival TV series and helps organise far-flung expeditions. She's also escaped gun-toting guards in a Thai jungle, been sized up by hungry lions in Namibia, and survived on lizards and snakes for weeks. "Fear is a natural emotion," she tells me. "We wouldn't survive for very long without it."

Early on in her adventures, she learned to control these overwhelming emotions. "I managed to separate my fear and put it in a mental box. A huge part of survival is about resilience," she explains.

Writing her book, Mind of a Survivor, she struggled to remember some extreme experiences. "I realise I haven't mentally logged the stressful stuff," she says. "It's my way of coping. Otherwise I'd just burn out."

She grew up loving the outdoors, and feels most at home in the wilds, which for her represent normal life. She knows a thing or two about staying alive, though - and when to panic at a snake bite. Sleepless nights, or wet and freezing temperatures don't overly upset her. "You almost get a kick out of your ability to deal with it," she continues. "When you come through, you have such a sense of achievement. You've just discovered a whole level of strength you didn't know existed."

Phoebe Smith

After her first taste of wilderness - albeit with sunburn - adventurer Phoebe Smith was hooked. She overnighted in Snowdonia, and has since camped wild around the world, mostly in the cold. "I realised after my first solo wild camp, I was utterly addicted. I caught my reflection in the rear view. I looked dreadful but so happy."

Credit: phoebe-smith.com

Since then she's slept wild on mountaintops, glaciers, under boulders and in Scotland's bothies (mountain shelters). Her recipe is not to think "survival" but to go for tiny comforts that make the experience enjoyable. In her overnight bag - which she keeps permanently packed - she stashes an inflatable pillow - "it makes the difference between a good night's sleep or not much at all" - and an aluminium bottle which doubles up as a hot water bottle at night. "I say go for those little things - whether it's wine or chocolate - that make the difference." And that means you'll never find her without an emergency pack of jelly babies.

That's not to say she hasn't encountered danger and extreme conditions. When researching a book on mountain shelters, she slipped into a fast-flowing stream, first up to her waist, and then up to her neck. "I was already so cold," she recalls. "Then I became angry at my mistake and had a sudden burst of energy and adrenaline." She heaved herself, shivering uncontrollably, onto a rock and made it to the bothy, where she imagined lighting a fire. "When I got there, I saw beer outside. A stag party was in full swing. It just shows in these wild places, you never know what will happen. But that river crossing taught me to be more mindful of danger. It shows you can do most things if you put your mind to it. Normally we just hold ourselves back."

Adrift

This Telegraph feature is brought to you by the new film Adrift.

Released in cinemas nationwide on Friday 29 June and directed by Baltasar Kormákur, Adrift is based on the incredible true story of two young adventurers, who after setting off on the journey of a lifetime across the Pacific Ocean are pushed to their limits as they sail directly into one of the most catastrophic storms in recorded history.

To watch the trailer and to buy tickets, go to adrift.film

Motion Picture Artwork © 2018 STX FINANCING, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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What motivates these women to survive in the wild?

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There's a rich history of female adventurers with incredible survival skills - a history that proves women are heroic, brave and adept survivors of near-impossible odds. Here, three inspiring female survival experts and adventurers talk us through some of their most incredible stories, and explain why it is that they relish living on the edge.

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It started with Heroes. We watched season one, then I said, "We're just going to pretend there are no more seasons because they are not very good."

"How does that happen?" the 13-year-old asked "Oh, all sorts of reasons," I said. "For example, once they made the best television pilot of all time and everybody loved it. And then the show ended up just terrible."

Immediate there was a clamour to watch "just the pilot". And at the end of that startling, brilliant, plane-crashing, character-establishing, super-expensive 90 minutes, as they sat wide-eyed, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. Indeed, we were in for the entire six seasons, including that one where they all sit in cages eating fish biscuits while the scriptwriters try to figure out what the hell to do.

As a family (minus the big teen, who thinks anything made before 2016 is ancient history) we watched all 121 episodes of Lost, dished up one a night on weeknights, right through lockdowns two and three.

"Just think," said the 11-year-old about halfway through season two, "You said this wasn't going to be very good and it's the best television show ever made!!" At this point, she was still convinced they were all in Walt's comic book, not necessarily a worse idea than the way showrunners explained everything.

"Uh oh," I said.

But, bit by bit, Lost sucked us back in.

Take away the hype, which the children had never seen; take away the nonsensical cliffhangers required by network advertisement breaks (sample dialogue from every single episode - Character: But why? Island Character: I can't tell you that yet.

Actually, if you can break free from your bourgeois expectations of "getting any of your questions answered" there is so much more fun in this show than I remembered.

Lost is a terrific character piece with some wonderfully developed love stories, some great timey-wimey stuff and, in Ben Linus, a glorious villain. (And in Charles Widmore a completely pointless villain. Still, always nice to see Jim from Neighbours).

A plane crash on a desert island beach sets the scene for six seasons. Photograph: AF archive/Alamy

Here is what we learned on our great Lost rewatch:

1) John Locke is annoying from the moment he first appears and, had he survived, would have totally gone full Q-Anon. Few are the characters more irritating as pass-agg woodsmen than they are as a murdering smoke monster.

2) As we had to point out to the children, it's a glaring omission that there are no gay people in Lost. No, not even Daniel. All the men are given a blonde at the end, except for Jack who gets a super-hot brunette, because he's, like, complex. That's even before we get to poor old "Special Walt", binned because the actor dared to grow up.

3) Speaking of growing, while it is salutary that the women stay Hollywood stick-insect thin throughout, by about season three the men are over the vests and get adorable non-desert-islandy paunches.

4) The children cottoned on immediately to one truth I had missed first time round: Hurley is the full-on star of this show, and all his episodes are the best ones, #theresnosuchthingsasthekoreanwar

5) Sun and Jin speaking Korean for six years and breaking out the English only as they are dying is disappointing. Also Sawyer shouldn't have called Jin Chewbacca, even if it was a bit funny at the time.

6) Never, ever let Juliette anywhere near you if there's anything wrong with you, she's a sucky doctor.

7) I had no patience for Desmond "helllooorgh brrrrrutthheerrr" Hume the first time round - but adored him the second, simply because the children did, spotting very early on his angelic nature shining out from every frame. I hope that lovely actor isn't still just waiting for the day David Tennant actually turns down a part.

8) Fanfic was only really getting started in the 00s and quite a lot of it came out of this show. But, it turns out, if hurt/comfort is your fanfic genre of choice, boy, is this the show for you. Someone gets stabbed and stitched up tenderly while making attractive wincing faces roughly every 15 minutes.

9) There has never been a character forgiven for killing and torturing so many people simply because he is totally dreamy as Sayid. He also gets a blonde at the end, as opposed to Nadia, the Iraqi woman he crossed the world and for whom he risked everything. Hey ho.

Totally Lost ... Jenny Colgan's children with the Dharma mugs they got for Christmas.

10) CJ Cregg is in it! I know, you'd forgotten.

11) Nobody is remotely impressed enough that in every single iteration of past, present, future and sideways time, Miles can hear the dead! He can hear the dead! Nobody else gets superpowers but Miles can hear the dead!!!!!!!!! Everyone takes this completely for granted. What a waste of a spin-off series opportunity.

12) The children were delighted that after divorcing that plank of wood Jack, the same actor, Julie Bowen, went on to marry Phil Dunphy in Modern Family, whom they adore and considered a much better prospect.

13) Re: the finale that ruined everything. Yeah, of course they should have gone Garden of Eden, but if you're not expecting answers (or Michael) this time around, it's actually rather lovely: the idea that when you die, you walk among those who touched you in life. Even if the drunken horrible father ("Christian Shepherd", hidden symbolism fans) gets something of a free pass. And it would be a more cynical family than ours that didn't let out a great cheer when Vincent makes his final appearance.

At the end I asked the children what they liked best about the show.

F, 13: "The character development. Like, to begin with, Jack was really caring and helped everyone, then he just got really annoying for no reason."

Me: OK, fair point.

D, 11: "I liked that they are all so lucky they get to go to a magical island! And then they get really confused, and most of them are dead! But! Kate and Sawyer aren't!"

Somewhere around the end of season five (the 70s one), my husband and I realised we had lost track of what was happening and I checked the transmission date.

Sure enough, it was May 2009. And the girl who had cuddled up next to me every night of lockdown - who had developed an unswerving devotion to Charlie that withstood even repeated exposure to his awful song You All Everybody, that showed us you shouldn't write off an entire TV show made with love and passion and commitment just because it didn't specifically please your precise needs at the time - well, that was the month she was born, so we'd definitely missed a bit. Turns out, she was our constant all along.

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'It's the best show ever': how showing Lost to my kids made me love it anew

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It started with Heroes. We watched season one, then I said, "We're just going to pretend there are no more seasons because they are not very good." "How does that happen?" the 13-year-old asked "Oh, all sorts of reasons," I said. "For example, once they made the best television pilot of all time and everybody loved it.

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About The Show

In this documentary, experienced extreme cameraman Ed Wardle is dropped into the Yukon wilderness with just basic provisions and cameras to film his attempts to survive.

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Find out everything you need to know about Alone in the Wild on Discovery including when you can watch the latest episodes, new seasons and more.

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fresh batch of maroonees is dropped off on a tropical paradise/purgatory. Sort-of famous ones this time - the usual former boyband members, comedians, stars of scripted reality etc, straight from central castaways. Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls (Channel 4, Sunday) it's called. They're given a bit of water, some basic tools, a few motivational words from Bear. "Worthwhile things in life don't come easy," he tells them. "Embrace our hardships every day. Positivity, positivity, positivity." Thanks Bear, I'll be taking that one to work with me every day. Positivity, positivity, positivity.

"Is there an alpha male waiting, screaming to come out of me?" asks Ollie Locke from Made in Chelsea. "Well, there actually has been at some point, yes," he adds, bashfully. Chelsea Olly is good value. "We have no food, we have no Deliveroo, we have nothing," he says, looking a hermit crab, potentially supper, in the eye. They - hermit crabs - will crawl into any opening, apparently. "Like arseholes?" asks Towie's Lydia Bright, classily. (Essex Lydia is good value, too.)

The star of this opening (careful, watch out for hermit crabs) episode is a man famous for shouting into a big phone. Dom Joly reluctantly agrees to be leader for a day. He names the island (Pissflapia), commissions a rousing national anthem from Aston Merrygold (ex-JLS), appoints a health minister (Embarrassing Bodies' Dr Dawn Harper) and a fashion minister (Ollie).

By the following morning, the reluctance and "for a day" parts of Joly's leadership seem to have been entirelyforgotten, along with democracy. Megalomania has taken its hold. "I was expelled from school, and look at this. Fuck you, Haileybury, running my own country now," he shouts, menacingly. He now demands deference at all times, plus sexual favours from his subjects. He's calling himself president, but it looks like dictatorship to me. Papa Dom. And it's very amusing - put that man on all shows like this.

You can't live entirely off power though. He sends out a party - including Olly and Lydia - to look for water. They fail miserably, get lost and thirsty, and end up pressing the emergency SOS button; Bear's safety team comes to rescue them less than 24 hours into the adventure. It's all too much for Olly, who really wanted to prove "that I'm not a complete idiot and I'm actually quite good at stuff and not this stupid kind of pink-wearing guy that I think a lot of people think I am". Not much change then, in the thinking. Never mind, though, there's always tomorrow.

So the following day, Olly and Lydia are sent out to find water again. "If someone gave me a bag of, like, brand new makeup right now, I'd say: 'No thank you, I'd rather have a bottle of water,'" says Lydia. That's how serious it's got. Again they fail miserably, get lost, and thirsty, end up pressing the emergency SOS button, and the safety team comes to rescue them, less than 48 hours into the adventure. And then point them to the spring, and the nice beach with en-suite pooing beach. Well, otherwise they would have perished, and that would be a shame.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this. But I'm looking for more input from the others next week - such as Labour selfie queen Karen Danczuk and rugby hunk Thom Evans, for example. Someone needs to start a revolution, topple you-know-who before he gets out of control. I'm sure the CIA would help. There are bays all over the place: they could turn one into Guantánamo, cage him in the sun. There's got to be a root somewhere round here that works as a natural orange dye.

Everyone should see it ... The White Helmets. Photograph: Amelia Franklin/Netflix

All of which seems trivial next to the documentary The White Helmets (on Netflix now). This is real suffering, in Syria, right now. It's directed by London-based Orlando von Einsiedel, but filmed mostly by its subjects, the Syrian Civil Defense, who risk (and frequently lose) their lives by rushing to bomb sites to try to rescue people. So the viewer is taken right into a place that was a name on the news and a distant barrel-bomb plume, but is suddenly a visceral hellhole of deafening detonation, destruction, dust and death.

With just a few tiny pockets of hope, lest you give up completely on humanity. Like the White Helmets' work itself, selfless and brave. And Mahmoud the miracle baby, pulled from the rubble, alive. Netflix, with its global reach, is a good place for this one. Everyone should see it. You, Putin, America and its allies. Oh, and Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson. This, sir, is Aleppo.

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Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls review - megalomania in paradise

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fresh batch of maroonees is dropped off on a tropical paradise/purgatory. Sort-of famous ones this time - the usual former boyband members, comedians, stars of scripted reality etc, straight from central castaways. Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls (Channel 4, Sunday) it's called. They're given a bit of water, some basic tools, a few motivational words from Bear.

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he way a person enters a room says a lot about them. Tianno walks in calmly and confidently, then sits down. Daisy is less sure - she shuffles in, a bit frozen up, sits down as far from Tianno as possible, but then feels the need to say something. "Horrible weather out there," she says. (These people are English ones.)

Brooke, too, is a little bit shy. She plays with her hair. Miylah is very confident. "I do not like girls," she announces and sits next to Tianno, who isn't one. And Jack struts in like a rockstar, swinging his arms and checking out the people in there already, before flopping nonchalantly into a chair.

Not I'm A Celeb (it's a room with chairs, remember, not a fake clearing with papier mache rocks in the jungle), but The Secret Life of 5 Year Olds (Channel 4). It's an interesting age, says Dr Laverne Antrobus, one of the psychologist-commentator-spies: "They are going through a phase of experimentation, trying on different identities, to see which one fits." I think Jack is trying on the identity of the Fonz, and has decided it's a perfect fit.

Jack does want to be seen as the lad, but he's more complex than that, his dad explains. We see this later, with a temptation experiment (the kids are left with dispensers of ice-cream and hundreds and thousands, to see who can't resist the immediate reward and who sees greater value in restraint). Jack's group dives in immediately, it's a big fat ice-cream free-for-all, hundreds and thousands are flying all over the place. But Jack's not joining in. He's worried about getting into trouble.

Later, though, he remembers things differently. "I just helped myself without asking," he brags. That itself is a sign of some sophistication, explains the other psychologist-commentator-spy, Dr Sam Wass. "Lying to protect a rebellious self-image is something we don't see much at this age," he explains. God, it looks complicated, trying to figure out who you are. I think I'm still doing it; I know I still lie to protect a rebellious self-image.

Oh, and shy Brooke and shy Daisy? Not shy at all, it transpires. Brooke is soon trying to get a kiss off Tianno (unsuccessfully, but he has to pretty much run away to avoid it). And shy Daisy? Not just pretty much Miss Assertive 2017, but also an engineering genius and a great manager of people. I take it all back. The way a person enters a room says nothing at all about them - it might even say the opposite, if you see what I mean (though I suppose that says something too).

It's endlessly fascinating though. And as it happens, I've got a five-year-old Jack at home, so I'm watching this with extra interest - looking for recognition and reference points, similarities and differences, as well as maybe hoping to glean some idea of his world between 8.45am and 3.15pm, about which he's not forthcoming. TV Jack's detailed knowledge of south London bus routes is very familiar - we had the same with the underground, though now we've moved on to the cultivation of vegetables, oddly.

And actually I'm watching with my Jack - an extra pair of eyes, as well as extra interest. We're about average in the general knowledge quiz; we know who lives at 10 Downing Street and how many minutes there are in an hour; but we're similarly wrong about the population of the UK (we say 1,000) and on the function of the belly button (we say it's for tickling, TV Jack says it's to make you sit on the toilet). The best contribution comes from Yash, who accuses the other team of being "sore winners".

My Jack's principal interest is in the facilities at The Secret Life of 5 Year Olds school, especially the treehouse. And, by the way, when am I going to make him a treehouse? Hmmm. Hey, maybe we could enroll him in the TSLOFYO - it looks brilliant. Not just the treehouse, but everything - class size, teacher-to-student ratio, lovely teachers Sharon and Simon, fun activities, a bit of science. It must take place in the holidays, right, so as not to interfere with school? I'm thinking (presumably free) school holiday childcare, with the added bonus that you find out something about who your child is ...

Yeah, but do you want millions of others finding out too? I'll discuss it with his mother, but I suspect we're not quite ready to put ours on TV. We're very grateful to all these other people who were, though. Your children are amazing - hilarious, terrifying, generous, kind, mean, manipulative, adorable, dishonest, and wise. For which they make great television. Oh, mine doesn't agree: can we watch Octonauts instead now?

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The Secret Life of 5 Year Olds review: these kids are kind, mean, adorable - and make great telly

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he way a person enters a room says a lot about them. Tianno walks in calmly and confidently, then sits down. Daisy is less sure - she shuffles in, a bit frozen up, sits down as far from Tianno as possible, but then feels the need to say something.

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IT is the most controversial TV show of the year - 20 children left alone with cameras filming round the clock to capture every moment of mayhem.

Social services have tried to get Boys and Girls Alone pulled off the air and scenes of sobbing kids, bullying, fistfights and a knife incident have seen it condemned as child abuse and cruelty.

Channel 4 claims the show, which sees youngsters from eight to 11 living unsupervised in cottages in Cornwall, is a brave social experiment.

And bosses are pressing on with tonight's third episode, despite calls from doctors and child mental health professionals for it to be cancelled.

Cornwall social services complained to TV regulator Ofcom that the children face "emotional and psychological abuse" and are even considering legal action to force the series off our screens.

One group of people knows exactly what the kids are going through - and the potential long term effects.

Seven years before the current outcry, Channel 4 produced an almost identical fly-on-the-wall show, Cutting Edge's Boys Alone, which saw 10 lads living alone in a house for five days.

Just like the new show, dubbed Lord of the Flies 2009, it resulted in fighting, anarchy, tears and bullying.

And disturbingly, when the Mirror tracked down the participants and their parents, we found its long term effects were still being felt.

Ruth Lewis, 51, from Bushey, Herts, allowed her son Sam to take part in the 2002 show - a decision she regrets to this day.

She says she can hardly bring herself to think about that week.

"That show was awful," she says. "If I had my time again I would say no to allowing him on the show. It was just chaos and mayhem.

"Watching this new show, I did think I can't believe I did that to my son. It was horrible watching it again. It's an awful lot for a child to go through at that age." Sam, now 19, wishes he'd never taken part. "If someone asked me if I want to do it again I'd definitely say no," he says.

"Any boy would say yes to an opportunity like that, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. I'd never missed my mum more in my life.

"It was mayhem and became depressing as the house divided into the two gangs and war broke out.

"The place was trashed and I'm ashamed to say that I even turned into a bit of a hooligan." Sam intervened when the bullies went too far with one boy, called Sim.

He says: "He was in tears by the end of the week and I tried arguing they should leave him alone, but you had to be careful because the bullies could turn on you instead." The bullies eventually turned on their ringleader - a boy called Michael - and tied him to a chair in the garden.

"Michael was seen as the noisiest wild child, so they turned their attention from Sim to him," says Sam. "When the tables were turned on Michael it hit him hard. So even he suffered.

"Children shouldn't be dealing with those sorts of emotions for the entertainment of TV viewers.

"We were too vulnerable. It's plain wrong to have kids of such a young age on a reality show." Alex Lipman, now 19, from Stanmore, Middlesex, also knows what it's like to be exposed to the harsh world of reality television at such a young age.

"It sounded like a really exciting prospect - 10 boys alone in the house with no rules," he says.

"I was psyched up for a fun time when I walked in.

"There was a massive banner above the stairs saying there were no rules and inflatable chairs full of sweets.

"The cupboards were full of pot noodles and water pistols. But soon I realised it was going to be horrible.

We'd descended into hell." Within hours the boys broke into two groups - the louder boys in one room and the quieter boys in another.

"By the end of day one there was paint on the walls, water everywhere from our water fights, popcorn and food strewn everywhere," says Alex, now a student at the University of Westminster.

"I got really down the morning after I arrived. It was horrible to look at what we'd done to the place. I was desperate to get home by the end and I really missed my mum.

"I knew she came to watch what was being filmed, but I couldn't see her so that was very hard for a lonely boy.

Looking back now it was really scary." It never occurred to him as a child, but as an adult Alex knows a lot of what went on was bullying.

"I made friends with an Asian boy called Sim and he soon became a target and was often in floods of tears," he says. "They forced Sim to do all the washing up, but I felt sorry for him and helped him. My friend Rob was targeted too.

"He ended up in tears after a big fight because his clothes and belongings were trashed. He ended up packing up a bag and carrying his stuff with him all the time." Alex's mum Francine Kaye, a relationship coach on TV shows including The Wright Stuff, says she doesn't regret allowing her son to take part.

"He came home and asked if he could go for it," she says. "They were rowdy and wrecked the place, but there was a bit of encouragement from the producers. It was emphasised that they could do whatever they wanted.

"He stank by the time I got him home. He didn't wash, he wore the same pair of pyjamas the whole time.

"It was the longest week of my life.

It was such an intense experience for Alex and it had a powerful effect on him, but I don't think he changed." It remains to be seen whether the participants in the new show will emerge emotionally unscathed from the experience.

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Boys and Girls alone: How emotional scars still linger for original 'Lord of the Flies' show participants - Exclusive

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IT is the most controversial TV show of the year - 20 children left alone with cameras filming round the clock to capture every moment of mayhem. Social services have tried to get Boys and Girls Alone pulled off the air and scenes of sobbing kids, bullying, fistfights and a knife incident have seen it condemned as child abuse and cruelty.

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Ray Mears

WITH his olive green shirts, matching trousers and Tilley hats, the sight of Ray Mears trekking through some of the most remote, albeit stunning, places on earth has become a familiar one to TV viewers.

Bear Grylls might have the dramatic name and macho image, but if you want to know how to craft a canoe out of birch bark then Mears is your man.

For the past 30 years he's been running courses at Woodlore, his School of Wilderness Bushcraft, in Sussex, and when he's not teaching pupils about the art of surviving in the wilderness he's off globetrotting with a camera crew in tow to some of the world's harshest and most uninhabitable environments, where he rustles up bush tucker from things that most of us would run a mile from.

Through TV programmes like Ray Mears' Extreme Survival and Ray Mears' Adventure Special, in which he took Ewan MacGregor into the Honduran jungle on the trail of the ancient tribes of the Mosquito Coast, Mears has brought the more remote corners of the world into our front rooms.

He'll be talking about his adventures as well as offering practical tips on how to deal with poisonous animals and endangered species in his new theatre show An Evening with Ray Mears - The Outdoor Life! which comes to the Grand Theatre, in Leeds, later this month, and ties in with his autobiography My Outdoor Life.

Although Mears has made his name from his various TV series he thinks some nature programmes create a false sense of danger to make them more entertaining. He draws a line between what he does in showing off the realities of the natural world, and shows that are more sensationalist.

"I'm a great believer in television as a medium for communication. I think what Bear Grylls does is entertaining and I have no issue with that, but there are lots of documentaries coming up which create a false sense of jeopardy within the programmes for entertainment's sake," he says.

"I try to bring people and nature closer together. In the digital age, it's more important now than ever before."

Mears grew up in Southern England on the North Downs where he developed a deep fascination with the countryside, learning to track foxes and use the natural tools at his disposal. This interest was further fuelled by his school judo teacher. Kingsley Hopkins was a Second World War veteran who had fought behind enemy lines in Burma and taught him the mantra "You don't need equipment, you need knowledge to survive in the wild."

This seemingly simple ethos, along with the principle of "Maximum efficiency from minimum effort", has since become the bedrock of his Bushcraft philosophy.

"It's about exploring the differences you find and asking questions like 'what's that tree?' And once you know what it is the next question is 'what is it used for?' And 'does it grow quickly, or slowly?'" he says, explaining his empathy with the natural world.

"There's always a raft of questions that you want to find the answers to and that's how you build up your knowledge."

He gets people of all ages and backgrounds doing his courses. "I had a guy who came on my course and he wrote to me afterwards saying he'd been walking down the street where he lived and looked up at the trees and said he not only knew what they were called but for the first time he appreciated their value," he says.

"I meet young people whose parents send them on my course and they're usually well-heeled and well-motivated youngsters who are curious about the world around them. But I'm aware there are a lot of young people who don't have that kind of advantage, but at the same time you can't reach everyone."

Mears counts a knife and a water bottle as two of the essentials you need when you're going into the wilderness. "It's about preventing things in the first place and making sure you're prepared because you need different equipment in the Arctic than you do in the desert." Too many people, though, go on adventures ill-prepared.

"If you don't prepare properly then you're setting yourself up for a fall. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail."

When things do go wrong he says laughter can be a powerful psychological prop. "Having a sense of humour when things go wrong can be very important because if you can laugh at something and not panic it can help you deal better with a situation."

He says there tends to be two types of people who end up getting into difficulty.

"You have extreme adventurers who live on the edge and get into trouble and at the other end is the people who think it's cool to blast off into wild places and get lost and don't have the tools or ability to deal with the situation. Nature is great but if you don't prepare you can be traumatised by it, or worse."

It's a point he's keen to emphasise. "Going into the wild isn't like going to Glastonbury for the weekend. If you go into the desert and you've not done your homework it will eat you. I've just come back from Arizona where I went to the coroner's office in Tuscon and they told me they find two corpses a day of people trying to cross the border from Mexico. As we're speaking now someone will be dying in the desert."

Mears's own adventures have put him in extreme places but his nearest brush with death didn't come from close encounters with a crocodile or a deadly snake, but a helicopter crash in the United States in 2005. He was filming Ray Mears Bushcraft for the BBC, exploring the dramatic landscape of Wyoming when the aircraft ran into problems. "I got into the brace position and just hoped," he says. Mears managed to escape with just severe bruising while the cameraman broke both legs.

It was a lucky escape but while accidents like this are rare, surely animals are much more unpredictable? "I was talking to someone who had an incident with a grizzly bear and said it was just a bad grizzly. But I'm not sure that's true, 99.9 per cent of the time when something goes wrong we've precipitated an attack.

"We have to respect animals, they can feel threatened or be in pain and people don't realise. Most of the time it's our fault but we have this attitude that nature is threatening and I don't think it is, it's a lack of knowledge."

Which is why, he says reiterating the point, preparation is vital whether you're going to Snowdonia or the Sahara. "You need to be realistic and prepare for the worst and hope for the best." And if you're going deep into the wilderness you need a rifle and "to know how to use it."

Mears has become synonymous with the outdoor life but are there ever times he yearns for a quieter life and a nice, warm office? "I tried it when I left school and I didn't like it. It just didn't suit me, but then what I do wouldn't suit a lot of people either."

Although he thrives in the natural world and enjoys filming, it isn't an easy life. "It's hard work and a lot of the time you're either wet and cold, or getting burned by the sun and bitten by insects. There are some dangerous creatures on the planet and it's often the little things that cause the biggest problems."

There are, of course, some exceptions and having spent time in Australia's Northern Territories and seen crocodiles up close he has a new found respect for them.

"I didn't perhaps realise just how dangerous they are. They've evolved over millions of years and it's one of those designs that's stood the test of time. No-one has ever survived being bitten by a four metre crocodile. If it gets hold of you it's over."

But even with crocodiles there are sometimes miraculous escapes. "I heard a story of an aborigine woman who was bitten by a three-metre crocodile. She broke several ribs and her liver was bitten in half, but her husband fought it off and she survived," he says.

"It just goes to show that you should never give up."

An Evening with Ray Mears - The Outdoor Life!, Leeds Grand Theatre, October 27. For tickets call 0844 576 2210 or go online at www.leedsgrandtheatre.com

My Outdoor Life by Ray Mears, published by Hodder & Stoughton, is out now priced £20.

Ray Mears was born in 1964 and grew up in the South of England on the North Downs.

He founded Woodlore, the School of Wilderness Bushcraft in 1983 and has been teaching ever since, as he puts it, "to enable others to drink at the well of Bushcraft".

His first TV show was Wild Tracks for the BBC in 1994. Since then he's done a string of programmes including Ray Mears's Extreme Survival and Survival with Ray Mears and written several books including The Outdoor Survival Handbook and Northern Wilderness.

He survived a helicopter crash while filming in the United States in 2005.

In 2010 he was asked by Northumbria Police to help them track down fugitive killer Raoul Moat.

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Mears's guide to close encounters of the wild kind and how to survive them

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Ray Mears WITH his olive green shirts, matching trousers and Tilley hats, the sight of Ray Mears trekking through some of the most remote, albeit stunning, places on earth has become a familiar one to TV viewers.

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In 'Ray Mears World of Survival' the British survival expert heads to a variety of remote locations to explore the ways in which indigenous people live. Ray witnesses how they utilise natural resources enabling them to thrive in terrain that is considered by most to be inhospitable and dangerous. In Namibia, he experiences life in the drought-stricken Kalahari bush. Here, he learns the craft of poisoned arrow-making and antelope tracking. Ray also travels to Indonesia, where he meets the rainforest-dwelling Nuaulu people. They teach him how to use bamboo for catching fish and cooking food. In each episode, Ray demonstrates how much we can learn from these ancient skills and techniques and how they are still applicable in modern times.

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Ray Mears World Of Survival : Programs : Discovery Channel : Discovery Press Web

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In 'Ray Mears World of Survival' the British survival expert heads to a variety of remote locations to explore the ways in which indigenous people live. Ray witnesses how they utilise natural resources enabling them to thrive in terrain that is considered by most to be inhospitable and dangerous.

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Channel 4 has been cleared of harming children in its controversial reality show, Boys and Girls Alone, but has been criticised by the media regulator Ofcom for not doing enough to tell viewers of the safeguards it had put in place.

More than 180 viewers and organisations, including the NSPCC, complained about the Channel 4 show broadcast earlier this year, in which 10 boys and 10 girls aged between eight and 12 experienced life without adults for two weeks.

The majority of the complaints were about the safety and welfare of children who were shown being bullied and in temporary distress.

"Some viewers were concerned that the children appeared to have been left largely to their own devices in a potentially unsafe environment without adequate adult supervision. Ofcom's detailed investigation has concluded that this was not the case," the regulator said today.

Ofcom added that there was no evidence that children were caused unnecessary distress or anxiety, and said Channel 4 had "employed an extensive range of measures and procedures" to ensure that the programme complied with broadcasting regulations.

But the regulator also said Channel 4 was guilty of failing to provide viewers with enough information in the opening episode of the four-part series about the safeguards that were in place and had failed to reassure viewers about the children's welfare.

"Ofcom received a number of complaints from viewers about the offence caused by material broadcast in this series. Some of this, for example, showed bullying and children temporarily in distress," said Ofcom.

"Ofcom recognises the core importance of broadcasters' right to maintain editorial independence over the nature and content of their programmes. It would be disproportionate and unnecessary for broadcasters to give full details to viewers of all the safeguards they have in place to protect children.

"However, Ofcom considers that Channel 4 - and all other broadcasters - should be particularly mindful of the sensitivities of viewers with regard to factual programming of this nature involving children. They must balance the editorial narrative of the programme with providing adequate information so as to protect viewers from offensive material.

"Ofcom found no evidence that Channel 4's intention was to deceive viewers regarding the safety and welfare of the children in the programme."

Channel 4 said it "warmly welcomed" Ofcom's ruling about the show, which aired in February this year.

The head of Channel 4, Julian Bellamy, said: "As a broadcaster, Channel 4 takes its responsibilities towards the welfare of children in its programming extremely seriously.

"Careful consideration and preparation was undertaken to ensure that the welfare of the children who participated in Boys and Girls Alone was paramount at all times and we are extremely pleased that this has been confirmed by Ofcom's investigation. Channel 4 notes Ofcom's recommendation to be particularly mindful of the sensitivities of viewers with regard to factual programming of this nature involving children."

Richard McKerrow, creative director of the company that made the show, Love Productions added: "We are very pleased that Ofcom has confirmed that there was no breach of child welfare issues in the making of Boys and Girls Alone. Ofcom has highlighted in its report the enormous care taken by Love Productions of the children and their families before, during and after production of the programmes.

"The feedback from the participating children and parents has been overwhelmingly positive, and the children involved enjoyed and benefited from the experience."
To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.
If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

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Channel 4 cleared of harming children in Boys and Girls Alone reality show

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Channel 4 has been cleared of harming children in its controversial reality show, Boys and Girls Alone, but has been criticised by the media regulator Ofcom for not doing enough to tell viewers of the safeguards it had put in place.

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Bushcraft Survival book. Read 6 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. In BUSHCRAFT SURVIVAL Ray Mears travels to some of the most remot...

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The Human Behaviour Experiments: documentary 2006

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The Human Behaviour Experiments: documentary 2006

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Court TV and the Sundance Channel are both airing a new documentary called The Human Behavior Experiments, which takes a historical look at the psychology of unethical behavior by examining the work of social scientists in the 1960s and 1970s. Television critic Andrew Wallenstein says the documentary is particularly powerful in light of many of today's scandals.

ALEX CHADWICK, host:

He made the Oscar-nominated documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Now Director Alex Gibney looks at why people are susceptible to unethical behavior. His new documentary, The Human Behavior Experiments airs tonight on both Court TV and the Sundance Channel. Here's TV critic Andrew Wallenstein.

Mr. ANDREW WALLENSTEIN (The Hollywood Reporter): I know it sounds preposterous but imagine getting a call at work from someone posing as a police officer. He tells you an employee has stolen some money and he wants you to detain the suspect. He then proceeds to order you to conduct a strip search that amounts to sexual abuse. That's not possible, right? Well, it did happen, at least 70 times in various places around the country.

It's a bizarre scam recounted in the new documentary, Human Behavior Experiments. Gibney goes on to help viewers understand how the average citizen could be compelled by a complete stranger to do terrible things. This fascinating and kind of frightening documentary draws mostly on footage taken from the experiments done in the 1960s and '70s by pioneering social scientists such as Stanley Milgram. In this interview, Milgram cites the atrocities committed during the Holocaust as the inspiration behind his research.

Mr. STANLEY MILGREM (Social Scientist): When I learn of incidents such as the massacre of millions of men, women and children perpetrated by the Nazi's in World War II, how is it possible, I ask myself, that ordinary people who were courteous and decent and everyday life can act callously, inhumanely, without any limitations of conscience? Now, there are some studies in my discipline, social psychology, that seem to provide a clue to this question.

Mr. WALLENSTEIN: Milgram is famous for his 1961 experiment demonstrating how simply blind obedience could be elicited. His subjects continued to deliver what they were told was lethal electric shocks to an unseen individual just because that's what they were instructed to do. Even scarier than reels of Mailgram's work are images of the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. In this experiment, subjects were told to simulate a prison. They took it way too far, forcing prisoners to do everything from sleeping on the floor naked to compelling them to perform homosexual acts of humiliation. As some of the participants recalled here, it provided an eerie precursor to the Abu Gharib prison scandal decades later.

Mr. MILGREM: The photographs were strikingly familiar to the photographs that we had taken, many of the photographs I had taken in the prison study.

They didn't do any stuff that you see in Abu Gharib where they, you know, get in a big pile or something like that, but they certainly subjected them to all kinds of humiliations. I don't know what I would have done myself. Given enough time, we could have gotten there.

Mr. WALLENSTEIN: Over and over, human behavior experiments hammers home a rather chilling point, that acts of evil aren't necessarily executed by uniquely depraved individuals, but ordinary people caught in a perfect storm of easily-manipulated circumstances. Credit Gibney's documentary for illuminating the darkest corners of human psychology, where it needs it most.

CHADWICK: Andrew Wallenstein is an editor for The Hollywood Reporter. He's also co-host of Square Off on the TV Guide channel. The Human Behavior Experiments airs tonight on both Court TV and the Sundance Channel.

Copyright © 2006 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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'Human Behavior Experiments': Schools for Scandal

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Court TV and the Sundance Channel are both airing a new documentary called The Human Behavior Experiments, which takes a historical look at the psychology of unethical behavior by examining the work of social scientists in the 1960s and 1970s. Television critic Andrew Wallenstein says the documentary is particularly powerful in light of many of today's scandals.

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Marooned in the Arctic: the true story of Ada Blackjack the female Robinson Cruscoe written by Peggy Caravantes

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Marooned in the Arctic: the true story of Ada Blackjack the female Robinson Cruscoe written by Peggy Caravantes

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The real life story behind new film Adrift

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The real life story behind new film Adrift

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There are few forces on Earth more powerful or deadly than a Category 4 hurricane. These storms can stretch for hundreds of miles over the ocean. At its centre a category 4 generates winds of nearly 200kmph and waves more than a hundred feet in height. The typical energy discharged over the lifetime of one of these storms is equivalent to more than 10,000 nuclear bombs. They have sunk fully-laden cargo vessels, devastated coastal communities and killed tens of thousands. They are, in short, terrifying.

And in September 1983, 23 year-old Californian Tami Oldham found herself aboard her tiny boat with British fiancé Richard Sharp, right in the middle of one.

Credit: Tami Oldham Ashcraft

Her voyage had started off well enough. Oldham was gaining experience as a sailor. She had travelled to Mexico directly after graduating high school and, on a whim, had joined a crew sailing to New Zealand. The high seas had been a part of her life ever since.

Tami met Richard in Tahiti, and they spent six months together sailing their own boat, but were then hired to deliver a luxury yacht, the Hazana, by friends of Richard. The plan was to sail from Tahiti to San Diego, a 4,000-mile trip. But two weeks into the voyage they heard on the radio of a rapidly developing storm that lay directly on the Hazana's planned route. Despite trying to outrun it by changing course, what was by now Hurricane Raymond also unexpectedly changed direction, and the young adventurers found themselves sailing directly into the heart of the Category 4 hurricane.

The Hazana was battered by 40-foot waves and, while making the boat watertight, Oldham was flung into the hold, knocked unconscious and only awoke, groggy, weak from blood loss from a gash in her forehead and in agonizing pain, 27 hours later. Though the storm had abated the luxury yacht was now a wreck. Its radio and electronic instruments were all destroyed. While there was canned food and water in the hold, the only navigational tool left was a traditional sextant.

The next six weeks were a gruelling battle for survival. Having managed to rig a makeshift sail, hallucinations began to set in - including an island thought to be Hawaii appearing on the horizon one day, only to disappear the next. A tiny plane failed to spot the boat - if ever it had been in the sky at all.

Credit: Getty

In one of the story's darkest moments, convinced that a rescue would never come, Oldham grabbed a loaded rifle and put the barrel in her mouth. "The story was so rich and had so much depth to its truth," says Woodley of her role. "I wanted to make sure we were honestly depicting what happened."

Starring Shailene Woodley ( Big Little Lies, The Fault In Our Stars) as Oldham and Britain's Sam Claflin ( Journey's End, Me Before You) as her partner Richard, is an astonishing and inspiring story of courage and survival in the face of gruelling conditions. And it's one that, thankfully, we can experience from the warm, dry comfort of our local cinema.

Adrift

This Telegraph feature is brought to you by the new film Adrift.

Released in cinemas nationwide on Friday 29 June and directed by Baltasar Kormákur, Adrift is based on the incredible true story of two young adventurers, who after setting off on the journey of a lifetime across the Pacific Ocean are pushed to their limits as they sail directly into one of the most catastrophic storms in recorded history.

To watch the trailer and to buy tickets, go to adrift.film

Motion Picture Artwork © 2018 STX FINANCING, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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The real life story behind new film Adrift

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There are few forces on Earth more powerful or deadly than a Category 4 hurricane. These storms can stretch for hundreds of miles over the ocean. At its centre a category 4 generates winds of nearly 200kmph and waves more than a hundred feet in height.

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Learn about Maria's plight at the hands of Drake and his crew on board the Golden Hind; it is shocking. It is thought to have inspired Shakespeare in The Tempest. More recently, author Nikky Marmery has novelised Maria's time on the  ship.  Read this article by Nikki Marmery about her novel 'On Wilder Seas' and how she was inspired to give Maria a voice.

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Learn about Maria's plight at the hands of Drake and his crew on board the Golden Hind; it is shocking. It is thought to have inspired Shakespeare in The Tempest. More recently, author Nikky Marmery has novelised Maria's time on the  ship.  Read this article by Nikki Marmery about her novel 'On Wilder Seas' and how she was inspired to give Maria a voice.

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Nikki Marmery, the author of On Wilder Seas, was inspired by a throwaway line in a 16th-century manuscript to resurrect the hidden life of an African woman taken on board the Golden Hind as spoils of - if not war, then piracy. She tells Historia how she reconstructed Maria's life.
On Wilder Seas is the story of Maria, the only woman aboard the Golden Hind during Sir Francis Drake 's circumnavigation voyage in 1577-1580. It is inspired by a single line in a browned and curling manuscript at the British Library in London, in which an anonymous sailor describes the raid of a Spanish merchant ship off the Pacific coast of El Salvador.

From this ship, it says, "Drake tooke... a proper negro wench called Maria, which was afterward gotten with child between the captaine and his men pirates, and sett on a small iland to take her adventure."

I was pregnant when I first read this account. Perhaps that is why I was so drawn to this horrifying story of a woman, alone among men, sailing into the unknown - who survived the Pacific crossing only to be abandoned to face the great ordeal of childbirth on a desert island so far from her home.

BL Harley MS280 f83

I wanted to know everything about her. Where had she come from? What was it about her that made Drake defy his own rule forbidding women on his ships - uniquely - in her case? What happened to her after she was abandoned? But scarcely more than this brief reference exists in the historical record.

And while other details from the anonymous sailor's narrative were used to compile the first published account of Drake's circumnavigation, in Richard Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nationin 1589, all mention of Maria was erased. Nor was she referenced in Purchas His Pilgrimes, which carried an account of the voyage in 1625, or in the fuller account, published as The World Encompassed by Drake's nephew in 1628. Maria was excised from the story, presumably because it did not reflect well on Drake.

Despite this erasure, Maria's story was not unknown to contemporaries. Fifty-eight sailors returned to England on the Golden Hind in September 1580, and gossip about the events of the voyage could not be contained.

On November 1, 1611, William Shakespeare unveiled his new play, The Tempest, at the new Blackfriars Theatre. In scenes that suggest knowledge of Maria's plight, Sycorax, an African woman from Algiers, is abandoned by sailors, heavily pregnant on an island. If Sycorax was inspired by Maria, it was not a sympathetic portrait:

"This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child,
And here was left by th' sailors."

In 1625, the first English translation of William Camden's Annales, a history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was published. Camden reports the return of Drake from his circumnavigation, "to the great admiration of all men", though he lists as a "crime layde to his charge" that he had "most inhumanely exposed in an Iland, that Negro or Black-more-Maide, who had beene gotten with Child in his Ship."

This was the sum total of all evidence about Maria for 300 years - until the archaeologist Zelia Nuttall uncovered in the Spanish archives the depositions of John Drake, Sir Francis's nephew and his page during the circumnavigation voyage.

In 1582 John Drake had captained his own ship in the fleet of Edward Fenton 's disastrous voyage to the Americas. Marooned at the River Plate and captured by the Spaniards, he was interrogated about his famous cousin's voyage. He said: "They ran along the coast towards Guatulco, taking, on their way, a vessel bound for Lima in which there travelled a gentleman named Don Francisco de Zarate.... [Drake] took from Don Francisco a negress named Maria and the pilot of said ship."

In all these references, Maria appears only fleetingly. Described in objectifying, dehumanising language: a "black-more maid"; a "proper negro wench"; a passive object who is taken and set down; "gotten with child"; it is hard to see the real woman. I wanted to know what Maria would say about herself if she could; what were her motivations and aspirations?

Although the trail on the historical Maria was cold, I decided to build a picture of her by researching other women who lived similar lives - crucially, from own-voice narratives to avoid the misrepresentation that is so common when women are described by men.

It is usually vanishingly rare to find records of early modern African women speaking in their own words, but in the Spanish New World, that is not the case. Via the work of historians who have found such voices in the archives, I was able to read the words of women like Maria in colonial Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Brazil.

In this, Afro-Latino Voices: Narratives from the Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World 1550-1812, edited by Kathryn McKnight and Leo Garofalo, was a fantastic resource.

Here I read the words of wily women such as Paula de Equiluz, who defended herself in a witchcraft trial in Cartagena in 1624 - afterwards living freely, having obtained her release from slavery during the trial; of Felipa de Santiago, an African woman in Seville, petitioning the crown in 1594 to travel with her three children to join her Spanish husband in New Spain; the wills of affluent free black women in Lima, and the eye-witness accounts of brutal Queen Leonor, leader of the palenque - a settlement of refugees from slavery - of Limón.

Here were canny female litigants who used Spanish law for their own ends: to protect themselves from abusive husbands, and to be reunited with enslaved spouses from whom they had been parted.

Dangerous Speech: A Social History of Blasphemy in Colonial Mexico by Javier Villa-Flores also helped me re-imagine a bold and active Maria. Using voices from the archives, Villa-Flores shows how enslaved people used blasphemy as a strategy of resistance.

By renouncing God, and denouncing themselves, a slave might invoke intervention by the Holy Office, which had the authority to remove a slave from an excessively abusive slave-owner. By threatening to blaspheme before a master inflicted punishment, enslaved people practised a form of 'moral bribery', holding the master accountable for the grave sin of blasphemy.

In my novel, I imagined Maria using this strategy herself, and later, relying on the shocking power of blasphemy to distract Drake at a crucial juncture. The language she uses to minimise her punishment: "I am an ignorant woman without judgment," are the words of real women in similar positions, as recounted by Villa-Flores.

In these, and many other resources, I found very different possibilities for Maria from the passive, objectified woman described in the English sources.

Through these voices that echoed across the centuries, I found inspiration to reconstruct Maria as she undoubtedly was: an active and courageous woman, armed with the skills and intelligence to exert her will, despite her circumstances; a woman on a journey of her own no less important to her than Drake's, with her own secrets, aims and motivations.

by Nikki Marmery is published on 16 March, 2020.

In a previous life, Nikki worked as a financial journalist, editing magazines about credit and foreign exchange trading. She now writes historical fiction from a rural village in Buckinghamshire. Read more about On Wilder Seas at nikkimarmery.com, on Twitter @nikkimarmery and Instagram @marmerynikki.

1 This possibility was first raised by Miranda Kaufmann in her 2017 book Black Tudors. Previously, David L. Cole expounded the many similarities between Drake's voyage and The Tempest, suggesting Shakespeare, who was 16 at the time of Drake's return in 1580, was heavily inspired by the circumnavigation voyage. Drake's Brave New World and 'The Tempest.' CEA Critic, vol. 51, no. 4, 1989, pp. 40-52.

Images:

Portrait of an African slave woman, c1580s, attrib Annibale Carracci: via Wikimedia
Fragment of the Anonymous Narrative, British Library, Harley MS280 f83
The capture of the Spanish treasure-ship Cacafuego by Sir Francis Drake (the ship Maria was on) from an engraving by Friedrich van Hulsen, 1626: via Wikimedia
Vera Totius Expeditionis Nauticae by Jodocus Hondius, 1595, showing Drake's route around the world: via Wikimedia

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Maria: the African woman who sailed with Drake on the Golden Hind

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Nikki Marmery, the author of On Wilder Seas, was inspired by a throwaway line in a 16th-century manuscript to resurrect the hidden life of an African woman taken on board the Golden Hind as spoils of - if not war, then piracy. She tells Historia how she reconstructed Maria's life.

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The Tempest written by William Shakespeare in 1611. 

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The Tempest written by William Shakespeare in 1611. 

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During the 'Age of Discovery', when Drake returned from circumnavigating the world on the Golden Hind, Shakespeare was just sixteen years old. It is highly likely that Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' was inspired by tales of discovery, conquest and colonisation. It is a castaway story involving a shipwreck and the survival of individuals and small groups of Europeans in a remote locale, an island.  Unwittingly, 'The Tempest' fulfils the key conventions of an emerging literary genre that 96 years later was coined: the robinsonade.

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'Robinson Crusoe' written by Daniel Defoe in 1719.

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'Robinson Crusoe' written by Daniel Defoe in 1719.

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Robinsonade is a literary genre that takes its name from this 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.  The literary form came generally to be associated with tales of male exploration, adventure and survival in a castaway setting.  However, these stories are not just about adventure and survival.  They are also stories about colonialism with the male protagonist making a typically European home away from home.  Even 200 years later, colonial and imperialist ideologies continue to feature in more modern robinsonade novels.

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Gulliver's Travels written by Jonathon Swift in 1726.

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Gulliver's Travels written by Jonathon Swift in 1726.

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Gulliver’s Travels was an immediate success upon its first publication in 1726. Since then, it has never been out of print.

Gulliver’s Travels satirizes the form of the travel narrative, a popular literary genre that started with Richard Hakluyt’s Voyages in 1589 and experienced immense popularity in eighteenth-century England through best-selling diaries and first-person accounts by explorers such as Captain James Cook. At the time, people were eager to hear about cultures and people in the faraway lands where explorers were claiming colonies for England. It's clear to see how the travel narrative shares a great deal of common ground with the robinsonade genre.

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Read for Pleasure robinsonade suggestions

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Read for Pleasure robinsonade suggestions

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Robinsonade (/ˌrɒbɪnsəˈneɪd/) is a literary genre that takes its name from the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The success of this novel spawned so many imitations that its name was used to define a genre, which is sometimes described simply as a "desert island story" or a "castaway narrative".

The word "robinsonade" was coined by the German writer Johann Gottfried Schnabel in the Preface of his 1731 work Die Insel Felsenburg (The Island Stronghold). It is often viewed as a subgenre of survivalist fiction.

Also See: Shipwreck...more

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Robinsonade (/ˌrɒbɪnsəˈneɪd/) is a literary genre that takes its name from the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The success of this novel spawned so many imitations that its name was used to define a genre, which is sometimes described simply as a "desert island story" or a "castaway narrative".

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Hannah Hewitt; or the Female Crusoe written by Charles Dibdin in 1792 

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Hannah Hewitt; or the Female Crusoe written by Charles Dibdin in 1792 

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During the first half of the eighteenth century, classic castaway narratives were concerned with a solitary male protagonist who overcomes a series of hardships and eventually reproduces a recognisably and comfortably European existence on an island he then claims as his own.

However, mid-century authors began to explore possibilities of different types of protagonists, starting with the solitary female Crusoe figure.  Female robinsonades were most popular in Germany with over sixteen female castaway stories published before the year 1800.  In comparison, only three English female robinsonades were published in England.  Despite being less popular than the male robinsonades, there was still significant interest in them.  In fact, Hannah Hewitt: or the Female Crusoe was so popular that it was reproduced as a musical drama at London's theatre royal in 1798.

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Hannah Hewit; or, the female Crusoe. Being the history of a woman of uncommon, mental, and personal accomplishments; who was cast away in the ... sole inhabitant of an island Volume 3 of 3

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Hannah Hewit; or, the female Crusoe. Being the history of a woman of uncommon, mental, and personal accomplishments; who was cast away in the ... sole in...

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Swiss family Robinson written by Johann David Wyss in 1812

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Swiss family Robinson written by Johann David Wyss in 1812

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Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the robinsonade form has included children, groups containing adults with children, and even stranded animals have survived adventures in remote places, not always a distant foreign country.  Previously, the form was concerned with male and then some female adult protagonists. With the introduction of children, family and animal protagonists, it had become a form most commonly produced for children.

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William, a Swiss pastor, and his wife Elizabeth are sailing to Australia with their four sons - Fritz, Ernest, Jack and Francis - when their ship is caught in a storm and they become shipwrecked on a deserted island.

Taking all the ship's cargo to land, including livestock, the family set up camp on the island and prepare for a long stay. They explore and adapt to their new environment, encountering an amazing array of animals on the island. Covering ten years of their adventure and survival, the book has all the impossibilities of a tropical island that a child will love.

Originally written in German in 1812, the language is a bit antiquated and carries a religious undertone that you would expect in a book from the 1800s, but the strong sense of adventure remains. Numerous adaptations and translations have resulted in changes from the original version, and the 1960 classic Disney film that most will know took many liberties with the plot.

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William, a Swiss pastor, and his wife Elizabeth are sailing to Australia with their four sons - Fritz, Ernest, Jack and Francis - when their ship is caught in a storm and they become shipwrecked on a deserted island.

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Treasure Island written by Robert Lewis Stevenson in 1883

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Treasure Island written by Robert Lewis Stevenson in 1883

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At the peak of the British Empire in the Victorian period, the robinsonade was perhaps the most dominant form of boys' adventure story: notable examples include Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883); R. M. Ballantine's The Coral Island (1857), Captain Frederick Marryat's The Little Savage (1848) and Jeffrys Taylor's The Young Islanders (1842). Given their context, it is not surprising that these novels disseminate imperialist and colonial attitudes.

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“For sheer storytelling delight and pure adventure, Treasure Island has never been surpassed. From the moment young Jim Hawkins first enc...

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The Coral Island written by R M Ballantine in 1857

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The Coral Island written by R M Ballantine in 1857

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At the peak of the British Empire in the Victorian period, the robinsonade was perhaps the most dominant form of boys' adventure story: notable examples include Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883); R. M. Ballantine's The Coral Island (1857), Captain Frederick Marryat's The Little Savage (1848) and Jeffrys Taylor's The Young Islanders (1842).  Given their historical context, it is not surprising that these novels disseminate imperialist and colonial attitudes.

In the early 20th century, The Coral Island was considered a classic for primary school children in the UK, and in the United States it was a staple of high-school suggested reading lists.

It was also the inspiration for Golding when he came to write Lord Of The Flies. Although Golding had enjoyed The Coral Island as a child, by the time he was in his early 40s in the 1950s, he no longer felt its message about human co-operation and kindness was true. He wanted to challenge it, and so he wrote Lord Of The Flies to convey a very different message to his modern readers.

In Year 8 we will read 'Lord of the Flies' together in class and consider what that message might be.

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Ralph has always longed for adventures but little did he know that, when he went to sea, he'd find so many!

On a voyage to the South Seas, a dreadful storm wrecks his ship but Ralph, serious Jack and young comical Peterkin manage to swim to an island - marooned and with no hope of escape. They realise this could be the adventure of a lifetime - one they have always longed for. On their idyllic new home they find everything they could possibly need - all kinds of exotic and exciting foods; wonderful underwater caves; an abundance of wildlife to hunt and admire, and a coral reef to explore. Life seems perfect and plentiful to the young adventurers, as they swim, dive, and climb on their beautiful new home, without a single care. They even find a deaf and blind cat to care for!

Just when it seems as if life could never be better, disaster strikes and, suddenly, Ralph has a lot more to worry about...

This book was amazing! It was really exciting and packed with adventure, yet still managed to be full of beautiful descriptions that really brought the lovely tale to life - like a cross between 'wordy' (in a good way!) classics and a modern day adventure novel - the best of both worlds! Some say that this was the original inspiration for the now famous Lord of the Flies, so this sounds like a perfect book if you're wondering what to read next - I know I'll be searching it out..

The only 'negative' is that in some ways, the story has dated a little - hard not to when it was written in 1858! One example from the second half is the mention of cannibalistic South Sea islands, where Christian missionaries are travelling round converting the chiefs. You would hardly find that in a children's adventure novel today! But in some ways it really adds to the story, making it very exciting - I won't say any more!

I've also got to mention the cover which manages to be both modern and old fashioned at the same time - very simple but beautiful, and it feels really nice too... I think I'd buy it just for the cover! I couldn't recommend a book more - it's definitely earnt a prime spot on my bookshelf.
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Ralph has always longed for adventures but little did he know that, when he went to sea, he'd find so many! On a voyage to the South Seas, a dreadful storm wrecks his ship but Ralph, serious Jack and young comical Peterkin manage to swim to an island - marooned and with no hope of escape.

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Lord of the Flies written by William Golding in 1954

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Lord of the Flies written by William Golding in 1954

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In 1954, William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies, when the world was in the middle of the silent yet terrifying Cold War soon after the World War II. It is not only a tale of boys surviving after their plane crashed on a deserted island; it is an allegorical novel about the conflicts between savagery and civilization.

In the early 20th century, The Coral Island was the inspiration for Golding when he came to write Lord Of The Flies.   Although Golding had enjoyed The Coral Island as a child, by the time he was in his early 40s in the 1950s, he no longer felt its message about human co-operation and kindness was true. He wanted to challenge it, and so he wrote Lord Of The Flies to convey a very different message to his modern readers.

In Year 8 we will read 'Lord of the Flies' together in class and consider what that message might be. Are humans innately cruel or kind?

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The Lord of the Flies by William Golding - review

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Aiman.A: ‘If you like your books to have gripping and believable characters with a plot second to none, then Lord of the Flies is for you’

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Island of the Blue Dolphins written by Scott O'Dell in 1960

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Island of the Blue Dolphins written by Scott O'Dell in 1960

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Island of the Blue Dolphins is a 1960 children's novel written by American writer Scott O'Dell.  It is a fictionalised account of the real life Indigenous American Juana Maria who was left alone on San Nicolas island for 18 years during the nineteenth century.  This castaway narrative has a nonwhite  female protagonist which contrasts with the genre's typical white male protagonist. Male authors also dominate the genre.

Island of the Blue Dolphins tells the story of a 12-year-old girl named Karana, who is stranded alone for years on an island off the California coast.

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In the four decades since I read Scott O'Dell's magical book Island of the Blue Dolphins, I've been very careful not to read a single word of it again. I've bought it for lots of kids, I've recommended it far and wide, but I haven't even opened the cover of that book for fear of breaking the lifelong spell it cast over me.

That book, about a strong and resourceful young woman, helped me become one myself. And Scott O'Dell, by writing it so beautifully, helped me understand what I most wanted to accomplish as a writer.

Imagine five 12-year-old girls who do everything together: sleeping in tree houses, hopping the train to Boston for urban safaris, climbing the radio tower on the soccer field to watch the world from on high, and haunting the school library, passing around our favorite books until we'd all read them. And then building those stories into our own lives.

I was lucky enough to be one of those girls. And I was blessed to read Island of the Blue Dolphins in their company, all of us forever linked to Karana, the stranded girl who finds a way to survive the elements and her brutal loneliness.

When my friend Sarah adopted a dog, she named him Rontu after Karana's dog. When we roamed the beaches of Cape Cod, we imagined Karana, learning to live off the sea to survive. And when we grew up and went our separate ways, I relied on my memories of those times and that book to keep my friends close, no matter where I was.

O'Dell did not just write a compelling story about an extraordinary girl. He spun a world of words where I absolutely belonged. I was there with Karana through all those lonely years. I was there, alongside her, as she learned to rely on herself for everything. She taught me never to underestimate myself. Never to concede anything in the face of challenges. Most of all, she taught me that to be strong and self-reliant is to be in excellent company, even when alone.

It's hard to say much about O'Dell's writing from such a great distance, but there really is no distance at all between Karana and me. If I can't remember the words themselves, I can easily remember how I felt as I read them. And that's always been my goal as a writer: to make readers feel as if they are in the world I've created, and that they want to stay there.

I hope the rural setting in my own novel, Wolf Hollow, will draw readers in the way O'Dell's island setting drew me in. And I hope that Annabelle, the girl in my novel, will inspire other young people to dig deep. To tap their own strength. Be their best selves.

I suspect Karana and Annabelle would have been good friends despite their many differences. Because of them, too. And I think readers of all ages will be glad to spend time with them. Maybe even decades.

Perhaps I should reread Island of the Blue Dolphins now. It won't be the same, but that's okay. Karana will surely have different lessons for a grown woman than she did for the girl I was. And so will Scott O'Dell.

Lauren Wolk's book Wolf Hollow is available from the Guardian bookshop, as is Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins, which has just been reissued by Puffin Classics.

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Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins cast a lifelong spell over me

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In the four decades since I read Scott O'Dell's magical book Island of the Blue Dolphins, I've been very careful not to read a single word of it again. I've bought it for lots of kids, I've recommended it far and wide, but I haven't even opened the cover of that book for fear of breaking the lifelong spell it cast over me.

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Hatchet series written by Gary Paulsen 1986-2003

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Hatchet series written by Gary Paulsen 1986-2003

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Buy books online and find book series such as A Hatchet Adventure written by Gary Paulsen from PenguinRandomHouse.com

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Guts: the true stories behind Hatchet and the Brian books written by Gary Paulsen

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Guts: the true stories behind Hatchet and the Brian books written by Gary Paulsen

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Due to widespread clamor among his fans to hear the true stories of how Gary Paulsen gained the intimate knowledge of wilderness survival he wrote about to such convincing effect in Hatchet and the other Brian's Saga novels, the author released Father Water, Mother Woods: Essays on Fishing and Hunting in the North Woods in the 1990s. It was well-received, but readers lobbied for more. They craved specifics about the incidents in Mr. Paulsen's life that directly inspired thirteen-year-old Brian...more

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Due to widespread clamor among his fans to hear the true stories of how Gary Paulsen gained the intimate knowledge of wilderness survival he wrote about to such convincing effect in Hatchet and the other Brian's Saga novels, the author released Father Water, Mother Woods: Essays on Fishing and Hunting in the North Woods in the 1990s.

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Life of Pi written by Yann Martel in 2001

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Life of Pi written by Yann Martel in 2001

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I personally found the multiple religions that Pi chooses to embrace quite interesting. Unlike most religious books where the author chooses to develoI personally found the multiple religions that Pi chooses to embrace quite interesting. Unlike most religious books where the author chooses to develop a character's faith in one religion, Life of Pi is a universal novel that questions the meaning of religion itself. Pi decides for himself, much to the dismay of his parents and teachers, that "all he wants is to love God". With Pi's youthful view on religion, Yann Martel forces the reader to for once look outside their own religion and into what religion really is. I understand this may be offensive to some, but it is a philosophical piece, like the rest of the novel. ...more (less)

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I personally found the multiple religions that Pi chooses to embrace quite interesting. Unlike most religious books where the author chooses to develoI personally found the multiple religions that Pi chooses to embrace quite interesting. Unlike most religious books where the author chooses to develop a character's faith in one religion, Life of Pi is a universal novel that questions the meaning of religion itself.

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The Gone series written by Michael Grant in 2008-2015

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The Gone series written by Michael Grant in 2008-2015

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The Gone series is a young-adult dystopian science fiction book series written by Michael Grant. The first novel in the series, also entitled Gone, was o...

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The Hunger Games Series written by Suzanne Collins in 2008 to 2020.  

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The Hunger Games Series written by Suzanne Collins in 2008 to 2020.  

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - review

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ABitCrazy: ‘I imagined it completely differently to how they did it in the film - and I liked my version better’

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An incredible story of survival at sea, is the inspiring tale of a young couple who set out to cross the ocean from Tahiti to San Diego but didn't reckon on sailing into one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in history. Directed by Baltasar Kormákur, the Icelandic filmmaker behind 2015's gripping true-life adventure Everest, Adrift stars Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin as Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp, two real-life adventurers whose astonishing story of determination, strength and sheer resilience is played out on the big screen in the face of a storm of awesome ferocity.

Here are some other incredible tales of survival at sea against the odds:

Two fishermen in a cool box

In December 2008, a small Thai fishing boat sank while on an expedition and most of its 20-strong crew were never heard from again. But, 25 days later, a customs plane spotted an ice box bobbing about near Horn Island, in Australian waters; in it were two Burmese men from the fishing boat disaster. They had made it through Cyclone Charlotte and shark-infested waters by sheltering in a cool box usually used to store fish.

Torpedoed by Nazis

For a long time, China's Poon Lim held the record for most days spent adrift at sea on a raft, for 133 days between November 1942 and April 1943. The British merchant ship he was on had just left Cape Town when it was torpedoed by a Nazi U-boat.

Credit: US Navy

After throwing himself overboard, Poon Lim had to tread water for two hours before he finally spotted a life raft, where he found biscuits, a torch, some flares and a supply of fresh water. When those meagre rations ran out, he caught fish, seagulls and sharks to eat before being rescued by three Brazilian fishermen at the mouth of the Amazon river. On his return to Britain, King George VI awarded him a British Empire Medal, and the Royal Navy added his story to its survival manuals.

One man and his laundry

Louis Jordan was rescued by a German tanker 66 days after the rudder, mast and radio on his boat were knocked out by a storm during a fishing trip. The perk of being shipwrecked on his particular boat was that he had a supply of tinned food and a lot of useful tools to hand, such as his laundry. When the food ran out, he used his laundry to attract fish that he then caught with a net. He was so well fed on his return that people were reluctant to believe he had actually been lost at sea for two months - the authorities even checked his bank account to see if he had used it.

The record holder

On 30 January 2014, two Ebon Atoll locals found quite a sight on their local beach - a thin, bearded man, stark naked, clutching a knife and shouting in Spanish. This was José Salvador Alvarenga, who had been lost at sea for more than a year - 438 days to be exact.

Credit: Getty

His fishing boat had blown off course when its motor cut out during a storm off the coast of Mexico. His only companion, a 22-year-old known only as Ezequiel, died four months in, but Alvarenga managed to survive by eating fish, turtles, birds, sharks and drinking rainwater. Although he contemplated giving up a few times as his craft meandered across the Pacific, he says his faith kept him alive.

76 days in an inflatable

It takes a stout heart and some pretty serious faith in your boat-building abilities to set out on a transatlantic boat trip in a vessel you made yourself. But that's exactly what Steve Callahan did. One week in, his DIY boat was damaged beyond repair and he spent the next 76 days on an inflatable life raft, eking the most out of the meagre supplies he managed to grab before his boat went down. Luckily, one of those supplies was a spear gun, which he used to catch fish - at least until one angry fish broke a spear and then took its frustration out on the raft. Callahan managed to patch up the burst dinghy as best he could but was very relieved when he was picked up off the coast of Guadeloupe a few days later.

Adrift

This Telegraph feature is brought to you by the new film Adrift.

Released in cinemas nationwide on Friday 29 June and directed by Baltasar Kormákur, Adrift is based on the incredible true story of two young adventurers, who after setting off on the journey of a lifetime across the Pacific Ocean are pushed to their limits as they sail directly into one of the most catastrophic storms in recorded history.

To watch the trailer and to buy tickets, go to adrift.film

Motion Picture Artwork © 2018 STX FINANCING, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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An incredible story of survival at sea, is the inspiring tale of a young couple who set out to cross the ocean from Tahiti to San Diego but didn't reckon on sailing into one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in history.

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Bushcraft 101: a field guide to the art of wilderness survival written by Dave Canterbury

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Bushcraft 101: a field guide to the art of wilderness survival written by Dave Canterbury

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SAS Survival Guide written by John 'Lofty' Wiseman

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SAS Survival Guide written by John 'Lofty' Wiseman

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How to Stay Alive: the ultimate survival guide for any situation

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How to Stay Alive: the ultimate survival guide for any situation

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True Survival Stories by Paul Dowswell Photograph: theguardian.com

This book is all about survival stories such as sinking submarines, blazing airships, shark attacks and much more! My favourite story is Swallowed by a Volcano, because it is very exciting and you can't stop reading. There are some cameramen, who have to get pictures of this volcano called Pu'u O'o in
Hawaii. When they go on to the helicopter they try to get a good shot of the volcano, so the helicopter has to tilt, but the helicopter goes out of control and crashes inside the volcano! Fortunately, there is a ledge that saves them, rangers see the crash and rescue them!

I rate the book 9 out of 10 because it is amazing and you can't stop reading. The reason I have not given it ten is because some of the stories are a bit boring. I recommend this book for people between 8 and 12 but if you're a bit younger I still think you would enjoy the book.
Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop. Want to tell the world about a book you've read? Join the site and send us your review!

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True Survival Stories by Paul Dowswell - review

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This book is all about survival stories such as sinking submarines, blazing airships, shark attacks and much more! My favourite story is Swallowed by a Volcano, because it is very exciting and you can't stop reading. There are some cameramen, who have to get pictures of this volcano called Pu'u O'o inHawaii.

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True story of a teen crash survivor's journey home

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True story of a teen crash survivor's journey home

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When 16-year-old Autumn Veatch emerged from a plane crash last weekend - bruised, burned and dehydrated - she awoke deep in the middle of nowhere, on a mountainous route leading to a place called, rather underwhelmingly, Easy Pass Trail.

The Cascade range, known to locals as the Alps of Washington, is as dense as it is treacherous, a wooded labyrinth where the sunlight is quickly blocked out by thick forest. Experienced hikers at the trailhead said the canyon where Autumn landed was a place so disorienting "you can't really tell where you are" at worst.

By the time she made it past the rustling creek, up over the wooden footbridge and, one freezing night later, to the sound of civilization - cars breezing by on Highway 20 - the teenager was dazed and overwhelmingly confused.

"But she was very quiet, very calm," said David Crosby, the cashier at a local grocery store who was asked, rather casually by a teenager on Monday afternoon, where to find the restroom.

When Autumn returned to the register a few minutes later, Crosby recalled at the store on Wednesday, she said: "I have no idea where I am."

Autumn Veatch's plane journey to disaster in Washington.

Autumn is home now, after a remarkable journey that her father, who encouraged her to watch the reality show Survivorman, called a "miracle". The high-schooler has yet to tell her tale - her mother, Misty Bowman, told the Guardian the family was grieving for Autumn's step-grandparents, who perished in the crash - but to hear the authorities and the shopkeepers tell it in this sleepy corner of Washington state, where mountain meets riverbed and nowhere turns into somewhere, this is not merely the stuff of reality TV.

"I don't think people truly understand," said Sheriff Frank Rogers of Okanogan County, who spoke with Autumn on Monday. "It's so dense and thick."

'You couldn't see anything'

After visiting family in the city of Kalispell, Montana, Veatch departed around 1pm on Saturday in a four-seat Beech A-35 plane with her step-grandparents, pilot Leland Bowman, 62, and his wife, Sharon Bowman, 63.

The aircraft crossed the Idaho-Washington border at 2.21pm. An hour later, it dropped off the radar in a remote section of the state, about 50 miles south of the Canadian border. That afternoon, officials said, storms periodically rolled through with occasional bursts of wind.

"It was extremely cloudy," said Sheriff Rogers, whose department initially responded to reports of the crash, in an interview with the Guardian. "You couldn't see anything."

It remains unclear when the aircraft went down, but the last known phone signal was flagged around 3.50pm on Saturday. The plane struck a series of trees and barrelled toward the ground, sparking a fire.

Rogers said the teenager tried to help her grandparents, to no avail.

So she turned around and began a daunting trip out of the woods: the sheriff said Autumn fell down a small cliff, before following a creek to a sandbar, where she spent a cold night.

"She said the first night she was coming down she was freezing," Rogers told the Guardian.

On Monday morning, Autumn made toward the trail through a landscape of dense forest and scattered logs.

"If you were just out in the timber," said Tom Beck, an experienced hiker who recently moved to the region, "it'd be pretty difficult."

The trail is "thicker than what we hiked in south-west Colorado, by far", said his wife, Sandy Rost, walking near the trailhead of the sprawling Easy Pass landscape. "You'd have to be in good shape."

Authorities credit the teenager's intuition to follow the creek downstream from Rainy Pass to Easy Pass. She also needed some luck.

"If she'd gone up the ride and came up the other side, it could've been much longer," said Sheriff Rogers.

Her mobile phone would have been useless: Easy Pass sits within a dead zone miles across.

'A very impressive, determined, very strong lady'

As Autumn neared the Easy Pass exit, she might have thought help was at hand.

But she does not appear to have encountered any passing cars for miles: the sheriff said the teenager had to turn back from the highway to the trail's parking lot, where barely able to stand, she sat down next to a parked sedan.

Soon after, two men pulled into the lot and asked Autumn if she was OK.

Nearly two full days after the crash, Veatch explained to the pair what happened. They immediately drove her about 30 miles down Highway 20 to a general store in the minuscule town of Mazama (population: 200),the first for 70 miles for motorists heading that way.

Autumn called 911 at 2.41pm, after the vehicle rolled into the parking lot of the Mazama general store.

"I was riding from from Kalispell, Montana, to Bellingham, Washington, and about ... I don't know where, but we crashed and I was the only one that made it out," she told the dispatcher.

David Crosby, an employee at the store, said she seemed "maybe a little bit dazed, but he and his colleagues soon realised gravity of the situation: her face was "a little red ... like it had a rash", Crosby said, and her clothes were ragged.

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The Mazama general store, from where Autumn Veatch was finally able to dial 911. Photograph: Flickr

"It looked like she had been rolling in the sticks and stuff - stuck to her back," he said. "So she'd definitely been outside."

She was still disoriented whenCB Thomas, a first responder and operator of the nearby Goat's Beard Mountain Supplies, rushed into the store.

"He came over, introduced himself to her," Crosby said. "From there, it kind of just took off."

Sheriff Rogers said by the time he spoke with her on Monday evening, Veatch showed "a lot of character." She's "just a very impressive, determined, very strong lady", he said.

Autumn was released from the hospital onTuesday evening after officials said she was treated for dehydration and minor burns and lacerations. Dr James Wallace, of the Three Rivers hospital in Brewster, Washington, where Veatch was treated, said at a press conference onTuesday her the teenager's survival was largely thanks to her good general health. Her father, David Veatch, told local news outlets his daughter is an "amazing kid". Family friends joined him at Three Rivers, where a stream of selfies showed Autumn, with scrapes and a nose ring, smiling for the camera.

Family friends said that Autumn needed more rest at home and declined requests for comment.

On Wednesday, a search-and-rescue crew located wreckage of an aircraft fitting the description of Autumn's plane; two bodies believed to be her step-grandparents were found.

Outside the Veatches' family home in Belligham, Washington, a solitary local TV news truck remained, preparing a shot on the five-o'clock news. .

Inside, a 16-year-old was watching television, grateful to still be able to enjoy the simple things in life. Her father had brought her McDonald's.

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Out of the wild: the incredible true story of a teen crash survivor's journey home

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When 16-year-old Autumn Veatch emerged from a plane crash last weekend - bruised, burned and dehydrated - she awoke deep in the middle of nowhere, on a mountainous route leading to a place called, rather underwhelmingly, Easy Pass Trail.

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Learn how to survive in the woods like Alone contestant

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Learn how to survive in the woods like Alone contestant

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eft to fend for herself on Arctic land, with only 10 pieces of gear - among them a sleeping bag, a pot, and a bow and arrows - Woniya Thibeault didn't just want to survive. She wanted to find joy in the process of surviving.

Scattered miles apart in the same rugged wilderness were nine other contestants looking to outlast one another and win big on the History Channel's popular survival reality series Alone. In it,contestants compete to stick it out for the longest time with limited resources - all have the option to tap out if it gets too much. The prize money - $500,000 - would have changed Thibeault's life, but winning wasn't her top priority. She was there for the experience.

The season she starred in started streaming on Netflix during the pandemic, when watching contestants grapple with exponentially more intense isolation started to feel as familiar as it did compelling.

Now, having come second in the show, the last woman standing that season,Thibeault is teaching a course in basic survival skills. In eight weeks, students learn how to start a fire, tie knots, build rudimentary shelters and make medicines and food stuffs like Yerba Santa tinctures and sauerkraut.

In Alone, Thibeault is first introduced savoring the chance to lick sap directly from a tree. It is immediately clear she will revel in being cast away, potentially for months, with no company other than the cameras she used to film herself. "It's so sweet and delicious," she marvels, joking: "Woniya out in the woods by herself making out with birch trees."

Kitted out inbuckskin clothing she made herself, the then 42-year-old ancestral skills teacher described herself as "a smallish woman coming at [survival] from a place of relationship rather than brute strength and dominance".

After weeks of starvation, she joked as she cleaned poop from the frozen rabbit intestines she'd saved for fish bait so she could cook and eat them. Every time she had food, which wasn't as often as she hoped, she'd express thanks and offer a bit to the ancestors. She'd sing the sun down every night, and once a week, she had a dance party.

When we first sit down to talk on Zoom, she tells me the purpose of these rituals of gratitude. "[I was] taking some time to just be in joyful expression of the beauty of the life I was living," she says, sitting among bundles of willows and baskets of acorns in the craft studio she rents in Nevada City. She is wearing a brown T-shirt over a home-tanned buckskin skirt, deer antlers dangling from her ears.

Woniya Thibeault holds up some acorns. Photograph: Woniya Thibeault

The continuous practice of gratitude is in keeping with Thibeault's ethos, summed up by the portmanteau "surthrival". "When we use the word 'survival'," she says, "it implies that the world is somehow out to get us. That we have to grit our teeth and endure it, to survive against all odds. That's the polar opposite of my approach, which involves a sense of belonging ... The 'survival mentality' is actually detrimental to our survival."

Attended by more than a hundred people worldwide, Thibeault's class focuses on specific skills - handcrafts, plant medicine and hide tanning. Some of us have come to the class as novices - people like me without much wilderness experience who were inspired by Thibeault on Alone; others are longtime members of the ancestral living skills community who already use deer brains to tan hides and maintain their knives with bear fat.

The 'survival mentality' is actually detrimental to our survival

As a vegetarian, I skip most of the meat- and hide-based parts of the course, knowing they aren't relevant to my life. I do, however, give myself the challenge of watching others on our online class approach the task, as Thibeault recommends coming at it from a place of curiosity instead of fear or disgust, to look for beauty inside moments we might otherwise consider "gross".

She points out the iridescence of a sheet of deer fascia, reminding us that we can learn about our own bodies by looking at those of other animals. She celebrates the "gorgeous subtle shades of difference in organ colors", reminding us to see livers and hearts and lungs as wonders instead of flinching, as I did.

"The edge of comfort is where the most learning can take place," she says.

hile many of the contestants on Alone wrestled mightily with distance from the world they knew, Thibeault (who finished second place, tapping out as a birthday present to herself after 73 days) showed solitude doesn't have to mean lack of connection. She harvested plants from clusters that needed thinning, sang to the water as she fetched it, and thanked the sun for waltzing with her. She maintained a sense of gratitude and playfulness, dressing up like a rabbit for Halloween, even when she hadn't eaten in days and was having trouble getting warm inside the double-walled A-frame shelter she had constructed.

Her lifestyle was ample training for the show: she has spent most of her adult life living off grid, with minimal electricity and no refrigeration, growing and gathering as much of her food and material goods as possible, and making a lot of what she needs with her own hands.

"Being able to shift your mindset so that you don't feel threatened actually makes you more aware," she explains. "It gives you better control of your faculties. It reduces your caloric need because being in a panic state with your heart beating fast actually burns through your calories faster. So there's all these ways that not being survival-oriented are ironically better for survival."

As a young girl, Thibeaut fantasized about living as a hunter gatherer, her play revolving around harvesting food and building shelters.

Woniya Thibeault with a chickadee on her hand. Photograph: Taylor Donvan

She didn't know it was possible to live in such a way in modern America until, as an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz studying biology and environmental studies, she took a revelatory eight-week field course backpacking around Idaho and learning "primitive living skills" (a term she dislikes, preferring "ancestral living skills", which respects the sophistication and nuance such skills require).

During the course, students picked a trail name for the summer, and at 19, not yet understanding cultural appropriation, Thibeault chose Woniya from a book of Lakota stories, and kept it after the life-changing trip.

"I was naive and unaware of my privilege and it never occurred to me that it was a disrespectful choice for a young white girl to give herself a name from a culture not her own that she didn't have permission to use," she writes in her forthcoming book about buckskin sewing. Once she realized the impact of this choice, she considered changing her name yet again, but decided not to let herself off the hook. "It's important for me to have culpability when talking about the subject," she says.

Thibeault tries not to replicate the appropriation that many white people in the ancestral living skills community engage in today. She uses modern tailoring in her buckskin designs, avoiding elements like fringe and beading, focuses on teaching Stone Age skills that are not from any particular tradition but part of everyone's human lineage, and offers scholarships and discounted rates to her classes for indigenous, Black, LGBTQ+ and other underserved participants.

In class, Thibeault gives us a crash course in "bird language" and I find myself deciphering the difference between when the birds are comfortable, and when they sense a threat; between their territorial squawking and cries of alarm.

We are told to keep a "butter journal", packed with observations "that make your life rich and delicious and fulfilling. Mine is quickly filling with doodles of the creek's shifting wrinkles and the emergence of snow berries and tiny yellow pine cones.

When we keep our senses awake and receptive, we can be what Thibeault calls "better animals", more fully alive in our bodies and in the world. Knowing my reinvigorated relationship with the land can support my wellbeing during and beyond the pandemic, I feel like one.

Other students find themselves going through important changes, too. Shannon, who started the class as a vegan, was so inspired by Thibeault she skinned and butchered a deer she found as roadkill. If someone told her she'd be doing this a year ago, she says she would have thought they were being ridiculous.

Tereza, who joined the class from Prague, has tanned her first ever buckskin and plans to make it into a skirt. Henrietta, a student in New Zealand, told me the class helped her "feel my own agency and trust in my ability ... It's not an exaggeration to say it's been life changing for me."

That is Thibeault's intention with these classes: to help others develop a deeper connection with nature, and remember that through it, they're never alone.

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She survived in the wild against all odds. I took her class to learn how

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eft to fend for herself on Arctic land, with only 10 pieces of gear - among them a sleeping bag, a pot, and a bow and arrows - Woniya Thibeault didn't just want to survive. She wanted to find joy in the process of surviving.

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Where the World Ends written by Geraldine McCaughrean 2017

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Where the World Ends written by Geraldine McCaughrean 2017

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This is a piece of historical fiction set in the Eighteen century and is based on a true story. Rather than being shipwrecked, young boys are left on a remote rocky stac.

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Carnegie medal winner Geraldine McCaughrean has castigated the books industry for dumbing down language in children's literature, warning that a new focus on "accessible" prose for younger readers will lead to "an underclass of citizens with a small but functional vocabulary: easy to manipulate and lacking in the means to reason their way out of subjugation".

McCaughrean was named winner on Monday of this year's CILIP Carnegie medal for her historical adventure novel Where the World Ends, 30 years after she first took the prize, the UK's most esteemed children's literature award. She used her winner's speech to attack publishers' fixation on accessible language, which she called "a euphemism for something desperate".

"Most of its tyrannies are brought to bear on younger books right now. But blink twice and today's junior school readers will be in secondary school, armed only with a pocketful of single-syllable words, and with brains far less receptive to the acquisition of vocabulary than when they were three or seven or nine," she said. "Since when has one generation ever doubted and pitied the next so much that it decides not to burden them with the full package of the English language but to feed them only a restricted diet, like poorly patients, of simple words?"

Words are mastered, said McCaughrean, by meeting them, not by avoiding them, and young readers "should be bombarded with words like gamma rays, steeped in words like pot plants stood in water, pelted with them like confetti, fed on them like Alphabetti spaghetti, given Hamlet's last resort: 'Words. Words. Words.'"

Otherwise, she warned, publishers would "deliberately and wantonly create an underclass of citizens with a small but functional vocabulary: easy to manipulate and lacking in the means to reason their way out of subjugation, because you need words to be able to think for yourself."

McCaughrean told the Guardian that she had recently seen one of her novels turned down by a US publisher for being too difficult for children: "[The publisher] said, 'for instance you use the word gallimaufry. No child is going to know what it means'. Of course they're not. Most people don't know what gallimaufry means, but you get it from the gist, from the context. That's how you learn language ... and who doesn't want to come across gallimaufry?"

Where the World Ends is based on a true story and tells of a group of young boys who find themselves stranded on a remote Scottish sea stac in the 18th century. McCaughrean said that she felt "quite ashamed" by how much she had wanted to win the medal, which is the UK's oldest children's fiction award and has been won by the likes of Noel Streatfeild and Arthur Ransome. When McCaughrean first won the prize, in 1988, for A Pack of Lies, "it felt like, 'OK, I can do this, I can actually be an author for the rest of my life.'" She has been shortlisted eight times for the medal. "I wanted to be able to do it again, prove to myself I could do it. It's like bookends to my writing life," she said.

Jake Hope, who chaired the Carnegie judging panel, described Where the World Ends as an "outstanding and hugely deserving" winner. "Each of the characters caught on Warrior's Stac has their own tale and the tension built through the predicament they find themselves ensnared in - quite literally caught on a precipice - is palpable. Like a diamond, this is a story with an impressive array of sides and surfaces, each reflecting and refracting experience and understanding in ways that judges feel will stay with readers for a lifetime," he said.

The librarians on the Carnegie judging panel, he added, "heartily endorse Geraldine's call for intellectual freedom through stories with rich language and complex themes that equip all children with the tools to understand - and, in some cases, change - the world around them".

The Kate Greenaway medal for the best children's illustrator was also announced on Monday. Canadian illustrator Sydney Smith won for Town is By the Sea, a picture book about a boy growing up in a coal-mining town in the 1950s. Smith travelled to a miner's museum in Cape Breton's Glace Bay as part of research for his illustrations, which Hope described as "impressive and expansive in scope and beautifully evoke both time and place". McCaughrean and Smith each win £5,000, a golden medal and £500-worth of books to donate to a library of their choice.

McCaughrean ended her passionate defence of literary children's fiction on a note of hope, pointing to her fellow shortlistees Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give and Patrick Ness's Release.

"Research has been saying for years that 'literary children's books' will soon be as extinct as the dinosaurs," she said. "But look! The Carnegie says that we're still allowed to use interesting vocabulary and architectural sentences and parcel up our stories as stylishly as possible and not be banished for it."

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Carnegie medal winner slams children's book publishers for 'accessible' prose

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Carnegie medal winner Geraldine McCaughrean has castigated the books industry for dumbing down language in children's literature, warning that a new focus on "accessible" prose for younger readers will lead to "an underclass of citizens with a small but functional vocabulary: easy to manipulate and lacking in the means to reason their way out of subjugation".

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This is an interesting twist on the castaway narrative. Rather than a faraway island, the setting is on Mars - a Science Fiction Robinsonade.

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Read 85.4k reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. No...

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Mind of a Survivor written by Megan Hine

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Mind of a Survivor written by Megan Hine

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***Shortlisted for the Great Outdoors Book of the Year***
Surviving in the wild takes a great deal of strength. Often faced with froze...

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The Castaways written by Lucy Clarke 2020

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The Castaways written by Lucy Clarke 2020

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This story has many of the ingredients of a classic robinsonade novel: a plane crash on a deserted island. However, this is a psychological thriller version that will have you on the edge of your seat!

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The Castaways book. Read 653 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. A SECRET BEACH. A HOLIDAY OF A LIFETIME.WISH YOU WERE HERE?THINK A...

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Psychological studies help us to understand human behaviour. Piliavian (1969) studied bystander apathy and under what circumstances people act to help a victim.  

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Psychological studies help us to understand human behaviour. Piliavian (1969) studied bystander apathy and under what circumstances people act to help a victim.  

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Piliavin I. M., Rodin, J., & Piliavin, J. A. (1969). Good samaritanism: an underground phenomenon?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13 (4), 289. Aim This study was designed to investigate how a group of

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Psychology helps us to understand human behaviour: what makes a good person do bad things?  Why might a person act cruelly if wearing a mask?

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Psychology helps us to understand human behaviour: what makes a good person do bad things?  Why might a person act cruelly if wearing a mask?

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As the story goes, Dr. Jekyll uses a chemical to turn into his evil alter ego Dr. Hyde. In real life, however, no chemical may be needed: Instead, just the right dose of certain social situations can transform ordinarily good people into evildoers, as was the case with Iraqi prisoner abusers at Abu Ghraib, argued former APA president Philip G. Zimbardo, PhD, in a presidential-track program during APA's 2004 Annual Convention in Honolulu.

Indeed, Zimbardo--an emeritus psychology professor at Stanford University--highlighted how this Dr. Hyde transformation occurred among U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib by presenting classic psychology research on situational effects on human behavior.

Zimbardo, who will be an expert witness for several of the U.S. soldiers on trial, argued that situations pull people to act in ways they never thought imaginable.

"That line between good and evil is permeable," Zimbardo said. "Any of us can move across it....I argue that we all have the capacity for love and evil--to be Mother Theresa, to be Hitler or Saddam Hussein. It's the situation that brings that out."
Seduced into evil
In fact, the classic electric shock experiment by social psychologist Stanley Milgram, PhD, showed that when given an order by someone in authority, people would deliver what they believed to be extreme levels of electrical shock to other study participants who answered questions incorrectly.

Zimbardo said the experiment provides several lessons about how situations can foster evil:

Provide people with an ideology to justify beliefs for actions.

Make people take a small first step toward a harmful act with a minor, trivial action and then gradually increase those small actions.

Make those in charge seem like a "just authority."

Transform a once compassionate leader into a dictatorial figure.

Provide people with vague and ever-changing rules.

Relabel the situation's actors and their actions to legitimize the ideology.

Provide people with social models of compliance.

Allow dissent, but only if people continue to comply with orders.

Make exiting the situation difficult.

Particularly notable, Zimbardo said, is that people are seduced into evil by dehumanizing and labeling others.

"They semantically change their perception of victims, of the evil act, and change the relationship of the aggressor to their aggression--so 'killing' or 'hurting' becomes the same as 'helping,'" he said.

For example, in a 1975 experiment by psychologist Albert Bandura, PhD, college students were told they'd work with students from another school on a group task. In one condition, they overheard an assistant calling the other students "animals" and in another condition, "nice." Bandura found students were more apt to deliver what they believed were increased levels of electrical shock to the other students if they had heard them called "animals."

People's aggression can also increase when they feel anonymous--for example if they wear a uniform, hood or mask, Zimbardo said.

"You minimize social responsibility," he explained. "Nobody knows who you are, so therefore you are not individually liable. There's also a group effect when all of you are masked. It provides a fear in other people because they can't see you, and you lose your humanity."

For example, an experiment in 1974 by Harvard anthropologist John Watson evaluated 23 cultures to determine whether warriors who changed their appearance--such as with war paint or masks--treated their victims differently. As it turned out, 80 percent of warriors in these cultures were found to be more destructive--for example, killing, torturing or mutilating their victims--than unpainted or unmasked warriors.

What's more, a person's anonymity can be induced by acting in an anonymity-conferring environment that adds to the pleasure of destruction, vandalism and the power of being in control, Zimbardo noted.

"It's not just seeing people hurt, it's doing things that you have a sense that you are controlling behavior of other people in ways that you typically don't," Zimbardo said.

Zimbardo noticed that in his own simulated jail experiment in 1971--the Stanford Prison Experiment--in which college students played the roles of prisoners or guards, and the guards became brutal and abusive toward prisoners after just six days, leading Zimbardo to prematurely end the experiment. The experiment showed that institutional forces and peer pressure led normal student volunteer guards to disregard the potential harm of their actions on the other student prisoners.

"You don't need a motive," Zimbardo said. "All you really need is a situation that facilitates moving across that line of good and evil."
Prison abuses
The same social psychological processes--deindividualization, anonymity of place, dehumanization, role-playing and social modeling, moral disengagement and group conformity--that acted in the Stanford Prison Experiment were at play at Abu Ghraib, Zimbardo argued.

So is it a few bad apples that spoil a barrel? "That's what we want to believe--that we could never be a bad apple," Zimbardo said. "We're the good ones in the barrel." But people can be influenced, regardless of their intention to resist, he said.

As such, the Abu Ghraib soldiers' mental state--such as stress, fear, boredom and heat exhaustion, coupled with no supervision, no training and no accountability--may have further contributed to their "evil" actions, he noted.

"I argue situational forces dominate most of us at various times in our lives," Zimbardo said, "even though we'd all like to believe we're each that singular hero who can resist those powerful external pressures, like Joe Darby, the whistle-blowing hero of the Abu Ghraib prison."

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As the story goes, Dr. Jekyll uses a chemical to turn into his evil alter ego Dr. Hyde. In real life, however, no chemical may be needed: Instead, just the right dose of certain social situations can transform ordinarily good people into evildoers, as was the case with Iraqi prisoner abusers at Abu Ghraib, argued former APA president Philip G.

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Psychology helps us to understand human behaviour: what makes people obedient to the extent they will carry out evil orders? Why are evil leaders followed?

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Psychology helps us to understand human behaviour: what makes people obedient to the extent they will carry out evil orders? Why are evil leaders followed?

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Stanley Milgram Shock Experiment: Summary, Results, & Ethics

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Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, carried out one of the most famous studies of obedience in psychology. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. Milgram