Use Your Voice

 Social order is disturbed and chaos occurs because of the human instinct of desire for structure and the fear of the unknown as shown in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, and the Stephan King excerpt. 

We crave structure to the point where we will do almost anything for it, even if that means completely upsetting social order. For example, “‘P’raps we ought to go too.’ Ralph looked at him, quickly and Piggy blushed. ‘I mean— to make sure nothing happens’” (Golding 148). In Lord of the Flies, Piggy and Ralph both desire a society with structure, unlike their own. This quote shows how easy it is to give into that instinct because we naturally fear a society with many unknowns. However this could create lots of chaos, for example, the complete loss of humanity of Jack’s group even with structure. Another instance of this is, “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box” (Jackson 1). Because people of the town in the short story “The Lottery”, wanted structure in their society so badly, they blindly followed a cruel tradition, even though it was clearly upsetting social order year after year. 

Along with the desire for structure comes the fear of the unknown. Also in the Lord of the Flies, “The beast came from the sea” (Golding 82). Even though  they don't know for sure if the existence of the beast is true or not, the boys fear it anyway. They even took the precaution to mercilessly kill Simon, out of plain fear. Their desire to get rid of the unknown goes as deep into social disorder as murdering a friend because they were so blind-sighted by that fear. This is also shown in the excerpt from Danse Macabre by Stephan King. This excerpt shows that people are more afraid of the fact that a creature behind a door is unknown, than the actual creature itself. This fear can create so much unnecessary chaos for even the tiniest amount of unknown information.  

The want for structure can cause social disorder. The fear of the unknown creates chaos. The two go hand-in-hand to justify why societies turn chaotic. We as humans can overcome this with our independent thought. Use your voice to provide order in the midst of disorder. Use your voice to warn others that fear is not real until you make it real. Use your voice to make a difference.