Lord of the Flies and Thinking as a Hobby

There are definite similarities between William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and his “Thinking as a Hobby.” Aside from the fact that they were both written by the same author, there is evidence in both pieces of writing that show his thoughts on thinking, and the grades of thinking. He says in “Thinking as a Hobby” that there are three “grades” of thinking: Grade 3, where one believes what one likes, and blindly ignores contradictions in one’s beliefs, however obvious. There is Grade 2 as well, which is when one begins to detect contradictions, and sees them, and ventures so far as to ask “Wait a minute… how could this be true if that was?” And Grade 1 is where one answers that question, and learns by discovering, and is logical. In Lord of the Flies, there are characters of all these grades of thinking.
Ralph and Piggy, for the most part, are Grade 1, even though they are merely kids and aren’t very educated; but typical education is not what determines th...