What's Happening



collapse/expand topics back to Main/AnarchyisChaos

06:41:12 PM Feb 16th 2013
edited by Scardoll
This trope's name is misleading. It's a trope about how having no rules is associated with chaos. It is not a trope about associating the word "anarchy" with chaos, because the word "anarchy" in layman's terms means chaos. When people talk about anarchy, they're generally not talking about political anarchy, they're just talking about something chaotic.

The examples seem to be sound, but I've found at least a few on other pages that say "A chaotic time is called anarchy, and that's this trope!"

Also, the description is too damn long and most of it is not about what this trope is.
02:01:09 PM Sep 17th 2013
This trope is written perfectly. To suggest that anarchy and chaos should be conflated simply because most people do so, only adds to the ignorance.
03:57:14 PM Aug 17th 2012
edited by UncleSumer
there's a spiffy, if rambling definition of "anarch" at The Urban Dictionary site — which addresses this distinction, and it's more individual "inverse", as it were ...


unk (aka author of said definition, under another nom de web, heh...)
01:16:17 PM Dec 30th 2011
Why does this page have no examples? Is there a reason I should be wary about adding some? For instance, there's a WhitestKidsUKnow sketch where anarchists take over the world, only to start killing each-other once there's the slightest hint of organization.
10:03:42 PM Jul 12th 2012
edited by Fireblood
My apologies for neglecting the examples section. I have added xXx, other Tropers followed with theirs. Please add any that you feel are relevant.
05:02:33 PM Jan 6th 2011
I think possibly that deciding whether anarchy naturally leads to chaos (or even naturally leads to rulership) is completely beyond us and possibly even beyond social science as it stands today.

So my vote (although it's a very weak vote) is that this thread as it stands is completely thrown out and becomes merely about examples in literature which don't display or recognise that an anarchist may not advocate chaos.

We can agree that anarchists can either advocate or not advocate chaos, the Did Not Do The Research is in assuming all anarchists advocate chaos and that is entirely separate from it's real world implications.

Also to me (UK Welsh citizen) Libertarian conjures up images of Amnesty lawyers and campaigners as opposed to bomb-throwing terrorists.
04:32:26 PM Jan 30th 2011
Anm, about this... read this article, please.
04:16:58 PM May 19th 2011
The first thing I notice in that article is all the mass societies lasted less than 3 years :D and of the rest of the list only Trumbullplex and and Stapleton colony survived and Blitz is basically a house of squatters known for being the violent sort of anarchist.

The two that survived are both very small and technically under the authority of the government but I'd be willing to take them as presented but I'd say it's really still inconclusive. I'm going to live with some friends in a house next year and there will be no hierarchy and we'll rule by consensus but I don't think it counts as an anarchistic society
07:07:31 PM Nov 30th 2010
Can this topic be re-written by someone who DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ANARCHISM? This is like listening to a pedophile explain that his beliefs are perfectly natural due to X,Y, and Z...
05:59:27 PM Jan 29th 2011
1. Pedophilia isn't a belief, it's more like a fetish or a sexual orientation. 2. This article is neutral.
11:14:19 AM Feb 8th 2012
You'd rather write it? And why compare us to paedos? What have we ever done to you?
12:19:11 PM Oct 3rd 2010
This should be divided into two articles, with the part about what anarchy isn't staying here and the part about real anarchism becoming a separate Useful Notes page.
03:24:07 PM Jul 8th 2010
edited by
This entry acts as an overview and introduction to anarchist schools of thoughts, when that task is best left to Wikipedia. This article should function as a reference for times when anarchy is associated with chaos, ignoring any philosophical or historical information. This is a quick way for writers to streamline a complicated story and distill it into a simple narrative. It's a result of not doing the research, in spite of anthropology research which shows leaderless communities have and do exist. It's also associated with Bomb Throwing Anarchists, which is equivalent to Dirty Commies and Those Wacky Nazis. The difference between Anarchy is Chaos and Bomb Throwing Anarchists is that the Anarchy is the society or situation where leaders disappear and society falls apart, while Bomb Throwing Anarchists are individuals referred to as anarchists who don't act like anarchists. An example: xXx is a film in which Bomb Throwing Anarchists try to destroy major cities to create a revolution... some how. The book Lord of the Flies shows a group of boys on a deserted island turn on each other without mercy, because Anarchy is Chaos.
04:34:34 AM Apr 9th 2010
If Anarcho-Capitalism is described as a subcategory of anarchism, then anarchism should be defined in an economically neutral manner. The definition I was taught in University is than an Anarchist is someone that believes the State should not exist. A simple neutral definition that includes the Anarcho-socialists and Anarcho-capitalists.

The simple fact of the matter is that anarcho-capitalism is merely an economically-subjectivist version of individualist anarchism. Any definition of "Capitalism" that casts markets as intrinsically authoritarian fails economics forever and is based (at best) on confusing the modern world's corporatist-Keynesianism with the actual Capitalism supported by Locke, Mill, Hayek, Mises, Rand, et. al.

back to Main/AnarchyisChaos

Privacy Policy