Chaos, Order, and The Dark Side of Revolutionary Movements
Why revolutions are not as romantic as one might think
The context
At the dawn of humankind, humanity was scarce. There were not many of us. People were poorly clothes (if clothed at all), had no tools, and were susceptible to a variety of dangers, such as wild predators, cold, infections and other types of diseases.
Now, we live in a very different world than that of our ancestors. Most of us are well-clothed and possess tools that help shape the environment to our liking. This, to an extent, protects us from the harshness of nature and the unpredictability of existence.
How has all of this come to be?
The Greek and the Mesopotamian myths
The Ancient Greeks, similar to the people of Mesopotamia and Babylon, believed that our world is governed by two forces: chaos and order.
According to the Greeks, chaos is the very first thing to have ever existed.
It is like the primordial goo from which all tangible forms were first produced, including the universe itself. It is unpredictable, hectic, devouring, yet at the same time — highly creative. It is said, that the very first deities were born out of chaos. These include Earth, Love, The Underworld, Darkness and Night.
Order, similar to everything else, was first extracted from the depths of chaos.
In the ancient myths of Mesopotamia, this had been done by Marduk: a god commonly depicted as a deity having eyes all over his head. In addition to his all-encompassing sight, it is said that he possessed the ability to speak magic words. These were the attributes that helped him slay Tiamat — the goddess of chaos, often depicted as a primordial dragon.
The story of Marduk and Tiamat represents the eternal struggle between chaos and order. Too much chaos oftentimes is dangerous, while too much order can be suffocating. Our goal is to find the right balance between the two.
Nature and Culture — Yin and Yang?
For a helpless romantic, such as me in my earlier days, nature appeared as all butterflies and rainbows, the mother goddess, the creator of all life and its wonders.
The romantics (starting with Jean-Jacques Rousseau) believe that nature is perfect and only man is flawed. Thus he should embrace nature and quit his nagging pretensions to subdue it. This point of view is fine and maybe even plausible. Unfortunately, it misses one important thing…
Nature is not just beauty and creation, it is also darkness and destruction. Instead of only producing butterflies, it also creates worms that decompose their beautiful wings after the appropriate time has come. In other words, nature is at once the force from which all life has come, and the place where all of it will eventually return.
The people of the past realized this. They saw the devouring force of nature much clearer than we do now, thus, they looked for ways of dealing with it. In the contemporary world, we only glimpse this side of nature. It peaks is head through the occurrence of natural disasters, extreme weather conditions, or incurable diseases that may strike us without notice.
Naturally, to protect themselves from early annihilation, our ancestors thought of ways of how to shield themselves from this unpredictable side of nature. They created walls: some real, some metaphorical.
These metaphorical walls have ammounted to what we currently call as culture — the extraction of order (predictability) from chaos (that which cannot be predicted).
Revolutions and their (un)intended consequences
Every reformation creates novelty. It is something that appears when the predictable patterns of an existent culture no longer serve their purpose or are deemed no longer necessary. Let’s take France, for example. First, it started as a Monarchy. Then, it turned into a Republic. Later, it became an Empire. After its fall, many years later, now it is a Democracy. Can you ponder how much blood was shed during these transformations?
During the time of the Reign of Terror (1793–1794) of the French Revolution (1789–1799) over 300 thousand Frenchmen and Frenchwomen were arrested and around 50.000 of them were executed on the pretext of them being counterrevolutionaries and thus — a threat to the Republic. The same happened in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Lenin, Stalin, and their successors. Similar measures were taken in Nazi Germany, Maoist China, North Korea, and Suharto Indonesia.
Not many people know about the last one, but it is safe to say that somewhere between 500.000 and 1.000.000 people were purged in Indonesia due to their associations with the Indonesian Communist Party (the KPI), be it real or imaginary. You can read more about the topic here.
That is the cost of reformations when they are done carelessly and without much thought. If we decide to make changes to our socio-cultural fabric it should be known that these changes can bare unpredictable results, at times, even worse than could have ever been imagined. Just take a look at what was happening in China during its Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and you’ll see where I’m heading at.
Culture — the shield that protects us from the harshness of nature and our own cruelty.
It is no wonder then why the great civilization of Egypt lasted for over 4000 years without much change. Ancient Egypt was one of the most stable civilizations ever to be recorded until its collapse in 30 B.C. when Cleopatra committed suicide and the kingdom got annexed by the Roman Empire.
Stability and order provide security. Revolution and reformation — chaos. Both of them are necessary at certain times, but should never be treated lightly.
As written by Jordan B. Peterson, the author of the book and lecture series Maps of Meaning:
“Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know.”
In a cultural context — change is a must, especially when the previous order has become blind or corrupt. On the flip side, it doesn’t mean that the revolutionaries are not subjected to the same blindness and corruption as their predecessors. For this reason, change has to be guided by sense and reason, instead of being directed by plain emotionality and vagueness. Otherwise, it will end up as a complete disaster with monstrous circumstances.
Finishing words
I’d like to finish this article with a quote from Maps of Meaning:
“It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.”
We should be better students of history and learn from the mistakes of previous generations. We are more error-ridden than we would like to expect, and only through centuries of failure and learning from our mistakes can we evoke somewhat stable, yet at times tyrannical and precarious structures that we call cultures.
Thus, if we see change as a necessity, it has to be governed by sense, and not just an inflated and omnipotent ego of a certain leader or party. Thus:
When things fall apart, and chaos re-emerges, we can give structure to it, and re-establish order, through our speech. If we speak carefully and precisely, we can sort things out, and put them in their proper place, and set a new goal, and navigate to it — often communally, if we negotiate; if we reach consensus. If we speak carelessly and imprecisely, however, things remain vague. The destination remains unproclaimed. The fog of uncertainty does not lift, and there is no negotiating through the world. — J. B. Peterson
Thank you for reading!
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