On the Nature of Anarchy

http://www.scribd.com/doc/338338/Edmund-Leach-Political-Systems-of-Highland-Burma-A-Study-of-Kachin-Social-Structure-introduction


For years, I naively assumed that "anarchy" meant the total absence of law, order, government. Then I read that in the Bible, the Prophet Samuel advocate a kind of anarchy when he cautioned regarding the drawbacks of choosing a king, as the other nations had. It struck me that the opening scene of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai described a feudal time of anarchy, where each clan or village was on its own, to secure defense and justice. In these times, the tribal regions and clan justice in places like Afghanistan/Pakistan seem to me to be that sort of anarchy. And the opening testimony of the introduction (above) speaks of negotiating an alliance with another clan. This reminds me of the times of Prophet Mohammad, when someone would seek the protection of a clan, as client, and where blood revenge was a major deterrent to homicide. Am I mistaken in my notions regarding the nature of anarchy?

In a desire to highlight some differences between our culture, and Arab cultures, one journalist remarked that in an a Muslim society, people's very first thought in any situation, would likely be "is it Haram or Halal (forbidden or permitted under Sharia).

I suppose one great touchstone of any society is the degree of stability and also longevity. We should easily be able to point to the most stable and enduring of cultures in history, as well as the most volatile, much as we can rank the elements in chemistry, from most to least stable.

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I am thinking about Karen Armstrong's "A Short History of Islam." People who lacked a strong tribe or clan, or a strong defense, would forge an alliance with a strong tribe or clan, and become their client.

When the Shah of Iran fell, and the Ayatollah Komeini came to power, one change enacted was to lower the age of marriage for girls from 14 to nine, since this is the age of Aiyesha, when the Prophet Mohammad took her in marriage. I asked an engineer acquaintance in Tehran if he ever saw a nine year old bride. He said that in the cities, one would see brides as young as 13 or 14, but, only amongst the nomads would one see a nine year old bride. It occurs to me that, from ancient times, the exchange of a bride between families was one way to form a strong bond, an alliance, to to achieve a greater degree of political stability. If this is true, then, the ethics of the transaction, the moral justification, is a political consideration, rather than some subjective individual consideration of the bride or her desires, or her capacity to make choices and give informed consent.

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Imagine, the numerous tribes of native Americans, living for millenia in this form of tribal anarchy, some loosely associated, but most not associated at all. Justice was maintained by custom and oral tradition, and not by the written word, interpreted by some organized body of authority.

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I see the benefits of the tribal life of the native Americans to be benefits for the species or group as a whole, in a system where the individual's interests are subordinate. The group as a whole remains very hardy, with little need of medical science or antibiotics, but an individual may suffer greatly. In our modern, technological society, the comfort of each individual is maximized at the expense of the robustness of the species as a whole, since we become ever increasingly dependent upon science and medicine to survive and propagate.

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Let us be fanciful and conjure some hypothetical situation, in ancient history, where the natives of the Americas foresee the coming of the European, and realize that their entire way of life shall be destroyed; and that they shall be enslaved by their invaders. Surely, the North American natives would consider their culture and life style to be far superior to that of the invading Europeans. The natives would most likely see the concept of private property as a perversion; and see monarchy and church as the enemy of natural liberty. Furthermore, let us imagine that the native North Americans possessed some biological weapon, to which they are naturally immune, but which would be utterly lethal to the invading Europeans. Certainly, the natives would feel it their righteous moral duty, both to themselves, and to the plant and animal kingdom under their stewardship, to methodically destroy the races of Europe and Asia, in a mass genocide.

Whenever we see an evil of the magnitude of, say, Hitler and the Nazis, then, we do not find it strange at all that a pastor such as Bonhoeffer (author of The Cost of Discipleship with its concept of Cheap Grace), should attempt an assassination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Discipleship

I see ethics/morality as relative, and not absolute. Many feel a desparate need to cloak duty in absolute terms of some divine scripture, or, in the case of someone like Kant, in axiomatic principles.

But, if we look at the logic of a Nixon or Bush, who sees themselves as heroes, defending the very culture itself against some demonic enemy, then, any injustice, however monstrous, becomes dignified and respectful as a means to an end, in the face of some absolute morality.

Under normal circumstances, we see both suicide and genocide as morally repugnant. In a curious way, suicide is genocide turned inside out. Each tactic has the goal to make the adversary disappear.

When the entire human species, in prehistoric times, is a mere million, then the first mitzvah or commandment becomes "Be fruitful and multiply." Yet, China, faced with demographic

In 70C.E. the Jews, besieged at Masada, saw suicide as the only option, and an acceptable, honorable option, when faced with capture by the Roman forces.

Would the Athenians have hesitated to annihilate the Persians, if they had the technological means?