Anarchy (which I also discussed in a post in the Chapter on Anthropology when describing hunter-gatherer societies) has some implications for the amount of energy available to do work in organisations.
When I was studying physics I was aware of and interested in chaos. (Of course, the fact that I was interested in it doesn’t mean I understood it fully)!
Anyway, many years later I began to be interested in how chaos is manifest in the human experience. In this context, I began to consider the continuum of chaos in society.
My understanding of it was that the Army, in which I was at the time serving, was among the least chaotic of environments in society. In the army, I never felt that I really had a say in my own destiny as almost all decisions were made by someone else who was of superior rank to me and then I was informed of the decision.
The most obvious parallel is of course being in prison, where one doesn’t have much of a choice about decision-making either.
In society in general, (in what we call Western society at least) we have a democracy. We can vote for what we want. This introduces chaos to the scene, and that chaos is managed to the extent that the vast majority of people can live reasonably ordered and structured lives.
Anarchy, however, in most people’s understanding of it, is chaos in action, and it has a bad press, conjuring up images of men lobbing no-warning bombs into establishment institutions to destabilise society.
And I remember many years ago there was a book entitled The Anarchist’s Cookbook (which nowadays would probably be dwarfed by the amount of stuff on the internet) that gave instructions in how to grow, do and make all sorts of illegal things that would get one arrested.
When I was in the Army, in a post that required more paperwork that anything else (and which I didn’t particularly like) the senior officer in charge gave me a book to read. It was entitled Anarchism; and was written by George Woodcock. My superior officer’s intention was (I’m pretty sure) to copper-fasten my beliefs in respect of the primacy of the well-ordered, top-down structure of society and particularly the military where everyone knew their place.
However the book had the opposite effect on me!
The images conjured up in George Woodcock’s book (and other material that I subsequently read – i.e. Kropotkin in the previous Chapter on Anthropology) were focused more on self-organisation and individual responsibility, an existential given.
Both are very interesting characteristics to study in the context of chaos and order.
In most working environments – and not only in very structured, ordered, environments such as the army, police or prison – the amount of self-organisation is minimal. Also, the amount of individual responsibility that we take for our actions can be diminished. We follow an order, and if the order contradicts what our conscience tells us we accommodate it as we have been conditioned – often from a young and impressionable age – that we are obliged to do what we’re told [1]. Mostly, the conditioning is so pervasive and subtle that we are not really aware of its effects. (I’ll be revisiting this topic here).
Anarchy in its truest sense, on the other hand, implies not only individual responsibility for our actions but also responsibility for the impact that our actions have on others, our family, our community and society at large. I believe that if we are committed to sharing power, positive elements of anarchy – combined with good leadership where people are invited rather than coerced – will result in far higher levels of energy among staff than rigid top-down structures.
In the Table below I list organisations that are on a continuum from very structured to very anarchic. (You may have to scroll across to see all the Table). You will note that I feel that an army is more structured than a prison or police force. The reason for this is rooted in systems theory, i.e. an army, generally, doesn’t have day-to-day dealings with the public – so can remove itself a little more from chaos.
More Anarchic <<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>> More Structured
Yes, everyone taking individual responsibility is a bit Utopian – again! After all, most people would wonder if a hippie colony ever actually achieved anything.
Well, in the nineteen-sixties and early nineteen seventies, it could be argued that the influence of hippie-type behaviour, where peace and love was promoted over war and hate, was a causative factor in stopping the Vietnam War. (And as I said in a previous Chapter – this was – from my point of view anyway – the pinnacle of true democracy in my lifetime).
What about the next one up – the Art/Drama Company? Well-functioning art, music and/or drama entities can absorb all the anarchic argumentation and conflict that arises where you have a lot of creative people with (possibly) big egos. (Remember the tension from the last Sub-Chapter). They can manage all this anarchy, maintain order and put on wonderful shows and uplifting productions.
Utopian or not, it is of value to community workers to know something about what I might call ideal anarchy where people take responsibility for their actions.
Because in mainstream democratic society, we actually do, in that we choose those who make decisions for us, at election time. If the decisions are against what our conscience or values ordain we can (in theory at least) choose other people more in tune with our values to govern us at the next election.
Of course in a typical modern democracy this process is distorted by many factors such as the level of honesty of those hoping to be elected and, in turn, our gullibility when we are voting, but in theory it is sound.
[1]. ‘Theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to do or die’ as quoted from a poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade‘, about a battle in the Crimean War in the second half of the 19th Century.