Anarchism: The Chaos at the Beginning of the World
By Lisa Fazio Reposted with Permission
Anarchism or anarchy is a widely misunderstood and falsely defined word in contemporary language, politics, and in general social discourse. It is often wrongly construed with negative connotations or completely disregarded as an invalid system, or no system at all, of social arrangement. Often when we hear mainstream talk of anarchy it is with disgust or sarcasm. I’ve heard people say things like “we need government or there would be anarchy!” The word anarchy, in this context, is intended to elicit scenes in our mind of mass destruction, violence, and mayhem where it’s “every man for himself” (capitalism much?). Anarchy, from this guise, is where looters, vandals, and criminals run amok and unrestrained.
Anarchy is often associated with the word chaos. Chaos is yet another misunderstood term that has somehow come to imply a lack of evolution and creativity when, in fact, it is the very source of both.
In Greek mythology Chaos is the void from which all creation emerges with all of it’s unpredictable, disorderly, and untamed potency to generate and reconceive the world. It is also the empty abyss, and ultimately the contact zone of divine union, between heaven and Earth that occured when they first separated. Chaos is the bridge between worlds. And out of Chaos came Gaia, the mother of the world.
Chaos is the basic condition of creation.
This idea is expressed in the phrase “conscious chaos” which has been exemplified by the birth of anarcho-punk in the UK and Europe.
The hard, edgy, and chaotic sounds spilling from the music represented a form of liberation that was desperately needed, while the lyrics roared against the establishment and aimed at deadening conformity and the music industry’s increasingly corporatized and cookie-cutter production value¹
Similarly, the movements of hip-hop and gansta rap have basically created an emergent revolutionary culture in the midst of the United States where economic and social oppression have hit the hardest.
While not explicitly anarchist, hip-hop took on an identity that mirrored authentic anarchist philosophy. Its anti-authoritarian nature was far from nihilistic, but rather survivalist; born in response to centuries of racial subjugation, economic strangulation, and violent oppression at the hands of domestic police forces. Hip-hop’s birthplace, the Bronx (NYC), characterized its development².
In this sense, chaos is absolutely imperative to generate the momentum necessary to disrupt this type of inter-generational state imposed inertia and provide a channel for the repressed creative brilliance and “dignified rage”³ of humanity.
I believe that the definition of anarchy as well as our concept that chaos is not an imperative process in a healthy culture, has embedded in our collective consciousness, at least in part, as a design of our capitalist, centralized, top-down dominant culture. Our Western economic/political treatise has long since demonized any visionary, innovative, and creative alternatives that would halt the steamroller of our competitive market (that interestingly seeks and lobbies for the least possible government involvement), material accumulation, and patriarchal ethos that relies on centralized plutocratic institutions to sustain itself.
If we look at the etymology of the word anarchy we see it has changed greatly over time starting from the root an- “without” + arkhos “leader,” literally meaning “without a leader.” This is where everyone says “What? People need leaders!” And this is where our understanding of the word “leader” and our idea of leadership comes in. How we define words matters and a single word can have many meanings of which do change as time and culture proceeds as well as when they are empirically and repeatedly enacted in different scenarios.
Leadership and leaders can certainly be helpful and necessary when organizing social systems and, in the process, certain individuals will naturally take the lead on projects, groups, or councils. Leaders emerge without question but not without context, and absolutely within cultural conditions and systems that regulate, for better or worse, the way that power is distributed amongst community members. Having someone step up to lead is not the same as having an authoritarian, supreme, or ultimate leader or governing body.
If we look up the definition of the word “lead” we see that it is both a verb and a noun. As a noun it means, “the first or foremost place; position in advance of others,” and as a verb it means “to conduct by holding and guiding.”
Anarchism as a system “without a leader” means without someone in advance, first, or foremost of others. This does not mean that there aren’t those that are willing to conduct, hold, or guide in service to the community. As well as those willing to take on stirring the pot, calling things out, and basically initiating the chaotic potential of social change.
In this sense, anarchy is essentially a social system that is without unjust hierarchies that place one person’s or group’s needs or agenda above others. It is not necessarily without leadership, however, and those that may step up in service to others as guides and facilitators, in effect, take a larger responsibility for certain aspects of civil life. This paradoxically positions leaders at the foundation of society as service providers that create the container for the generative and emergent creativity of others. If we wanted to illustrate this type of leadership in a hierarchical system leaders would, in fact, be on the bottom of the pyramid holding others up.
Considering all of the above, as well as the past and contemporary work, both experiential and philosophical, of modern anarchists, anarchism is:
A socio-political organizing method whereby individuals, communities, and institutions are sovereign, agential, cooperatively managed, and organized based on self-governing and self-regulatory principles emerging from free associations in a stateless society. The state and any type of authoritarian rule is made irrelevant as anarchism mimics natural, rhizomatic systems that are innately designed to facilitate the egalitarian, self-organized distribution of power and resources as well as the appropriate conscious world building chaos that is needed to adapt to life on a living breathing changing planet. Unjust hierarchies and other oppressive systems that occur are checked, dismantled, and replaced.
Noam Chomsky, visionary writer, linguist, and philosopher, describes it brilliantly:
“Primarily, [anarchism] is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just. And, as I understand it, anarchy is just that tendency. It takes different forms at different times.”
Based on my own direct experience with nature as well as my training and education in natural and environmental systems, I have found wild nature to be one of the most vivid expressions of anarchism we have. Nature is a complex ecological and social system that is profoundly collective, self-organized, and self- regulated. Of course, we do find just hierarchies in nature based on my observation as well as my lifelong study (both academic and informal) of the psychology of aggression and non-violence in mammals.
Anyone who has spent enough time with horses knows that there is a social hierarchy in their herd system. The lead mare of the herd holds the greatest responsibility for others, conducts a state of high neurophysiological vigilance, and displays keen sensory reception in her efforts to react to and signal imminent threats to others. As part of this system, the head mare is granted first choice of available food sources. She will express her dominance if necessary by whinnying, nipping, or even pushing others out of the way.
When I was raising horses at our farm, if we threw out a bail of hay or called the horses in for buckets of grain, the leader always started eating first in line, after that there would be a regular order of who was next and so on. This is justified because her nutritional needs must be optimally met if she is to sustain the level of attentiveness necessary to hold her position and, ultimately in a wild setting, keep others from being killed. In essence this hierarchy is self-organized, self-regulated, and profoundly collective as long as there is no extreme lack of resources.
There are numerous examples of non-hierarchical operating systems in nature and, if you’ve followed any of my previous work, you’ve heard me talk about the self-organized, fractal, and decentralized system of rhizomes. I’ve written more about this HERE but, basically, rhizomatic systems work by running lateral and connected underground stems in weblike pattern through the soil network. This web weaves itself with the other systems and patterns beneath the surface, as well as above in the stems, leaves, blossoms, and fruits, by exchanging information and nutrients with other roots, the mycelia, and soil microbes.
“Rhizomes, therefore, are heterogeneous and can create multiplicities, or many different roots, that are sovereign but still in contact and communication with all other parts of the system. This is in contrast to, for instance, a tree, which has a central origin or trunk from which all of its roots and branches emerge.”
And although tree roots, as well as many other plants, grow from a centralized tap root or trunk, they are still enmeshed in a symbiotic relationship with the rhizomatic networks both above and below. Yes, above as well; the atomic exchange of organic chemicals that organize fractally combining and recombining in creative and emergent intra-action⁴ with ecological conditions in the air is an above ground network of exchange. Also, pollination is a collective, self-organized method of perpetuating life by fertilizing the seeds of future generations. Afterall, no one is out there yelling at the bees and butterflies to get to work!
The whole of the Earth as an organism, or what some have called Gaia, is a miraculously synergistic self-regulating system from which all of our lives have emerged.
It’s important to add that Anarchism is not an idealistic, utopian, or unattainable vision of society and neither is nature. In a world of light and matter shadows always exist. Chaos exists. Any just social system will include full spectrum of universal forces. Neither is anarchism a fundamentalist philosophy with a set of formulas or fixed rules. If we are truly cultivating the self-organizing agency of the collective then other systems, including those that haven’t been imagined yet, will emerge and be able to function within it as long as they are just.
Anarchism, although still experientially defining itself, is a social- political system that is not itself chaos or disorganized but that which allows chaos and disorganization to naturally occur so that change and movement can develop organically. Rules and leadership may emerge as well, but justly, if they are established in a system designed to dismantle oppression, tyranny, and fascist rule and replace them with more mutually adaptive means of living well.
Not only can anarchism be observed in nature but there have been many examples in human societies. A discussion of these examples is beyond the scope here but are easy to research. From Neolithic European civilization the work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas explores the world of Old Europe before the Indo-European/dominator culture invasions. For more contemporary models, one of the most famous is the Spanish Revolution of 1936. These are just two of the many examples throughout human history that have shown us that there are other ways of being and operating social structures.
Resources and footnotes
[1] Juxtaposing Anarchy: From Chaos to Cause
[2] Ibid.
[3] Dignified rage is a term coined by Zapatista Subcommander Marcos in the speech he gave in the town of in the town of La Realidad on May 25, 2014: https://www.akpress.org/the-zapatistas-dignified-rage.html
[4] The theory of “intra-action” was developed by American feminist theorist and physicist Karen Barad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0SnstJoEec
More on:
The Spanish Revolution: https://libcom.org/history/1936-1939-the-spanish-civil-war-and-revolution
Marija Gimbutas: http://www.marijagimbutas.com
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