Suddenly, a naval vessel appeared in the distance
Intersectional 5th wave non-appropriative inclusive postcolonialist genderfuck Lord of the Flies, by Joe Keohane in The New Yorker.
“Excuse me,” Roger began, “remind us again why you get to interrupt us even if you don’t have the conch?”
“Because I’m the chief,” Ralph said. “I was chosen.”
“By whom?”
“By you.”
“I didn’t vote for you,” Roger said, with a frown.
“We had a vote. The majority rules.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant—the majority,” Jack scoffed. The littluns tittered. “If anything, that means you have even less of a right to interrupt than we do!” Jack faced the others. “If you agree with me, wiggle your fingers.”
They wiggled their fingers.
“Look, I’m trying to get us rescued by the grownups,” Ralph said, gesturing toward a plane that had been circling the island for some time, and now seemed to be flying away.
“You are speaking from a position of privilege,” Jack said, “so you have no right to criticize us or tell us what to do.”
“Uh-uh,” Piggy interjected. “My auntie is a constitutional-law professor at Staffordshire. She says that … ”
Oops. I doubt they have constitutional law professors in the UK, on account of not having a constitution.
Suddenly, a naval vessel appeared in the distance. A dinghy dropped into the sea; a small team of sailors climbed into it and paddled toward the island. The boys regarded them warily as they landed on the beach.
“Are you the boys who need to be rescued?” an officer shouted.
“Why is he screaming at us?” Percival cried. “I feel very unsafe!”
“Some of us identify as gender-questioning,” Jack called back to the officer. “And we reject your Eurocentric imposition of the jungle-rescue narrative.”
“No, please! Save us!” Ralph yelled, rushing to the officer. “Save us!”
“Er, see, here’s the thing,” the officer said, backing away. “I’m going to have to radio back to my supervisors to make sure I’m following the proper protocols for dealing with self-identified indigenous populations before I can do anything.”
They stared at him. He shrugged. “Or else we’ll just get killed on Twitter.”
So off they sailed, and all the boys got eaten.
H/t Stewart
http://ukconstitutionallaw.org/
John, That’s just a bunch of people who like to discuss and analyse the “UK Constitution”. I quote mark it because it doesn’t exist as a single defined document, making it rich material indeed for study and argument. In that respect it is very much like the New Zealand Constitution, perhaps not unsurprisingly.
Given what happens in the US, I’m not sure whether having a single comprehensive document is a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe a single line saying “Be nice to each other” would be better.
I think Morales’ point is that there are constitutional law professors in the UK.
Yes, there are constitutional law professors in the UK and the country has an ‘unwritten’ constitution that’s evolved over the past 1000 years—it seems to work.
Rob,
Interesting, I’d assumed, until recently, that NZ had a written constitution like Australia.
All the boys got eaten, and all the genderquestioning ones had a good meal, I guess.
In response to this I’d suggest Roger Sandall’s book The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and other Essays. His reflections on some “savage” cultures (such as the initiation rites of the Australian aborigines or of some PNG tribes) are very helpful in pointing out that tribal customs were not always dreamt up in Paradise. And yes, as others have said, there are professors of constitutional law in Britain. Britain does not have a written constitution, but it does have a documentary one.
We have a constitution in the UK, perhaps the oldest in the world, and whether or not an action is constitutional provides lots of clever people with lots of interesting things to do all the time.