Is it anarchy or chaos that the media is referring to?
I wrote this in response to this ignorant post on this NO metroblog site, but I am getting an error when I try to publish it.The blogger said, "At some point, people in charge have got to come to their senses and realize that anarchy has reached the point beyond which order can be restored through civilized means and now must be restored at the point of gun by people willing to pull the trigger."
This is not anarchy. Of course people raping and killing each other is not cool, but it needs to be said that anarchy is not uncool, and raping and killing does not equal anarchy.
I am getting really upset about people saying that what is going on in New Orleans is "anarchy." Even the definition on dictionary.com is better than what people are hinting at. Dictionary.com says:
"1. Absence of any form of political authority.
2. Political disorder and confusion.
3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose."
It defines chaos in the following way:
"1. A condition or place of great disorder or confusion.
2. A disorderly mass; a jumble: The desk was a chaos of papers and unopened letters.
3. often Chaos The disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space supposed in some cosmogonic views to have existed before the ordered universe.
4. Mathematics. A dynamical system that has a sensitive dependence on its initial conditions.
5. Obsolete. An abyss; a chasm."
Read more about what anarchy is, and "What could the social structure of anarchy look like?" - "This empowerment of ordinary citizens through decentralisation and direct democracy will eliminate the alienation and apathy that are now rampant in the modern city and town, and (as always happens when people are free) unleash a flood of innovation in dealing with the social breakdown now afflicting our urban wastelands."
Unfortunately, the relief organizations and governments in the US have rescue and relief operations "organized" to be so top-down as to be ineffective. The Red Cross can have all its oneneighborhoodpermajorcitybeingpreparedfordisaster programs that it wants, but we will still not be prepared for the next major disaster.
Going in and shooting the people who have guns or are helping themselves to the remaining goods in stores in a destroyed city is not going to change the confusion, sadness, homelessness, disease, hunger, and thirst that these people are facing. Getting them out of New Orleans, out of harm's way, and into stable housing will help a lot. Giving them a sense of empowerment would also be a nice idea. Right now they can't do anything for themselves except wait and die. That's not right.
posted by mahtin @ 11:35 PM
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