Hobbes

• Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and is best known for his 1651 book 'Leviathan'.
• In his book, he argued that humans needed a strong, hierarchical social order - a contract - to ensure civilisation did not collapse and descend into anarchy.
• Prior to the conditions fostered by what he saw to be a largely benevolent, progressive, hierarchal society, he famously stated that life must have been 'nasty, brutish and short'. Hobbes believed that it was better to be ruled by a tyrant than to submit to anarchy.
• You could argue that LOTF is Hobbesian in that the boys are unable to establish a strong society, so they revert to a 'primitive' state of nature. However, the contemporary society that conditioned them is ignorant of these boys - beyond their literal isolation on the island - and has in any case probably been ruined by nuclear war.
• It seems Golding's experiences left him pessimistic about the benevolence of the hierarchal social order. After all, it is Jack - establishment incarnate - who initially praise the 'rules' but when this doesn't work for him, seizes power as a tyrannical chief at the head of a tribe - a form of social order, just not one clothed in democratic illusion.