ridecamp@endurance.net: Order and Chaos

Order and Chaos

Tivers@aol.com
Fri, 4 Apr 1997 11:59:02 -0500 (EST)

Some of you are at a loss as to the reason for the occasional fistfight that
breaks out between myself and some others on this list. I think I can give
you a clue with this partial rewrite of some Stephen R. Donaldson prose:

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History is often viewed as a conflict between the instinct for order and the
impulse toward chaos. Both are necessary: both are manifestations of the need
to survive. Without order, nothing exists. Without chaos, nothing grows.

The instinct for order is and expression of humankind's devout desire for
safety (which permits nurture), for stability (which permits education), for
predictability (which permits one thing to be built on another)--for
equations of cause and effect simple enough to be relied upon.

The instinct for order is therefore aggressive. It actively opposes any
alteration of circumstance, any variation of perspective, any hostility of
environment or intention.

The impulse toward chaos focuses on the resources of individual imagination
and cunning, rather than the potentialities of concerted action. Its most
common overt expression involves an insistence upon self-determination
(freedom from restriction), individual liberty (freedom from requirement),
and nonconformity (freedom from cause and effect).

The impulse toward chaos is also aggressive. The very fact of freedom breaks
down systmes of order: it contradicts safety, avoids stability, defies cause
and effect.

Nevertheless stability and predictability themselves would be impossible
without chaos. Chaos exerts the pressure which requires order to shape itself
accurately. Without accuracy, order would self-destruct as soon as it came
into being.

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It's a necessary fight.

ti

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