Anarchy has usually been defined as a societal utopia wherein absence of governance is employed to the achievement of well ordered, sustainable, yet absolute freedom of the individual. This is obviously a paradox.
And while, in spite of the fact that this is an excellent starting point, I believe most practical and romantic models of anarchy naturally go a little further. Practical anarchy may be understood as a sort of persistent revolution, a combative movement which, by some dark secret, manages to orbit its contrusion of antithesis indefinitely, defying the laws of nature which would have it plunge through the atmosphere in an angry ball of death-bearing flame, and thereby defeating the paradox of opposition, the way all paradox is defeated; by maintenance in tension.
It is commonly known that government fulfills an essential societal function, namely, that of preserving order in a world naturally bent on chaos, but to understand the necessity of, and mechanism for, the destruction of government, we must examine its current role, and current mechanism. Namely; to consolidate, and redistribute power to the end of enforcing a bare minimum of order for its own preservation. Its power is harvested through a sort of social contract wherein stability and security are exchanged for freedom; where order is exchanged for chaos.
That freedom which is taken is used to buy and sell humanity like as many cattle, by whichever man is sufficiently tyrannical to take the reins of the machine of self preservation with which (like the monarchs of Israel) humanity has willingly imprisoned itself. Because no mere human is capable of operating the machine with impunity, the machine has developed ways of limiting even those humans which suffer the delusion of having control over it. Part of which occurs via the cyclical shifting of power between the conceived rulers and the conceived ruled, in a pattern colloquially known as revolution.
The world has joyfully suffered under various iterations of these machines for thousands of years, during which the mechanical monsters have managed to reshape the world to their liking, and to re-craft a humanity wherein they are a necessity, to turn the world and stand it on its head, leaving behind them a reality wherein deviance from the created order, divorce from normalcy, and departure from the structure and natural stability of hierarchy and morality are instated as the new norm, thus necessitating the existence of their own manufactured order, false security, and conglomerated power. Thus we may see that it is the absence and corrosion of natural hierarchy which necessitates the existence of corrupt and paltry human alternatives. Thus persists the rule of un-redemptive hierarchy.
Fortunately for us all, this hierarchy does not rule alone. We can get a glimpse of the distinction of hierarchies in the genesis account, wherein we discover the significance of familial hierarchy, and the source of this unnatural bent towards chaos, and even the nature of relationships broadly speaking.
As I know of no other method, we shall go back to the beginning and work up to the natural conclusions from there:
The first and most lasting relationship in the universe, and therefore the most significant, is that of the Father to the Son. It is a relationship which, like all others, is predicated on fundamental inequality, and fundamental equality (what you might ambiguously term mutuality) held paradoxically in unison, the unreadable balance of which is the existence of hierarchy. The next relationship we see is that of God to the angels, and then that of angels to other angels, both of which are unambiguously hierarchical by every definition of the term, but as the relationship has no direct relation to us, it is not relevant to our current purposes, and we shall move on to the relationship of God to his first enemy.
The fall of the Satan was a monumental event for many reasons, not the least of which was that it was the first disruption of hierarchy. It is a topic about which Tolkien speaks very eloquently, but we will not explore the significance of this fall at the moment either as we have more pressing concerns, so on to the first relationship of man, of us. Which is that again of God to His sons, though we be sons of a different sort, and which is yet again, an explicitly hierarchical relationship. Note in all of these mentioned, in these bases of relationship, while they survive, we find all of them to be hierarchical, all of them to be immensely powerful, and yet, all of them to be fundamentally based in love, and all of them extant for the benefit of all of its members. (While this is admittedly an inaccurate portrayal of contemporary inter-human hierarchy, remember, we haven’t got to the fall yet.)
Next we see the relation of man to the word, one not only of hierarchy but explicitly of subjugation. Now we reach the first relationship of humanity to itself, and fittingly, the very first human relationship is to be the first of billions of beautiful prophecies of Christ and his church, the clearest and most sacrificial portrayal of human love, the love for which paradise itself pales in comparison. Again we see a paradoxical marriage of equality and inequality, almost sacramentally maintained in unison, as we saw in the godhead, God pronounces them as unequal, in that the one issues from the other, and simultaneously pronounces them equal in the pronunciation that they are one flesh, a pronunciation which concludes with an unexpected thing: a thing which answers in part the modern, nihilistic objection to marriage or romance being considered exceptional: God himself puts this newest of created orders on a pedestal.
In a perfect, beautiful, un-spotted world, God declares that man will, and indeed is intended to, abandon all other familial relationships for this one alone. He will sacrifice the bonds of childhood, sacrifice his love, his comfort, even his duty, and alone cling to his wife, and God declares it good.
He will sacrifice the bonds of childhood, sacrifice his love, his comfort, even his duty, and alone cling to his wife, and God declares it good.
Elijah Milioni
And here we find the first of three types of human hierarchy, which is an extension of its divine predecessor
The next relationship we see is that of man to the Satan. It is unique at this point to man, in that it is the first hierarchy which he experiences which is not ordained by god. We see Satan presenting for the first time, his alternative hierarchies, wherein man may ascend the ranks, where there need be no pinnacle, in symbolic terminology he would exchange the triangle for the circle, the exclusion of the mountaintop for the inclusion of the plain, he would mar the structure of being itself to assert a false doctrine of non existent equality. And we see for the first time, as we shall see many times again, in a manner distinctly
Reminiscent of the aforementioned patterns of governance, humanity choosing an artificial hierarchy over the natural morality of divinely instituted hierarchy.
Eve sinned not in that she was deceived, but in that she abandoned the order God created for one of her own choosing, after which we see Adam sin in choosing to adhere to the divine hierarchy of marriage, rather than to the divine hierarchy of subjugation to the Heavenly Father.
Now we have a world wherein the natural hierarchies designed by God himself to structure the universe, and beautifully maintain it and its subjects, are destroyed, by stepping out of his place. In the hierarchy under god, man abdicated the responsibility of all other hierarchies, regardless of the fact that the hierarchy he stepped into was also of God’s choosing, and the resulting imbalances cause the very earth to groan.
In the curse of the Satan there is much of interest, but we will skip for the sake of concision, to the pronouncement regarding the relation of marriage, which is as follows:
“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Genesis 3:16-19
The first pronouncement is one which (in indisputably plain language) drastically alters the nature of the romantic hierarchy, and to woman God says, “you will desire to rule your husband, but he will rule over you.”
This is an almost terrifyingly hierarchical statement, wherein God himself explicitly places un-redeemed man over un-redeemed woman in a stated hierarchy of rulership.
The pronouncement to Adam is no less severe, but singular in that it makes no mention of woman.
In this we see God offering a divine alternative for the carnal problem. Man rejects God’s hierarchies in favor of another, and God sees immediately that the hierarchy of man’s choosing is deadly, and so he offers them a new hierarchy, the bridge behind them has collapsed, and there is no going back, the path ahead is certain death. And a brutal hierarchy of law is instated. So God blazes an alternative trail ahead.
As they could not follow the direction they were set on before, lined with all the fruit of paradise, and run along side the very fountain of youth, this time the path is one of unyielding concrete, lined by razor wire fences reaching to the heavens, and he set on their heels the hounds of hell, with death in the lead. They would not accept his hierarchy of mercy, of mutuality, and so they must accept one of subservience, of rigid order. Of imprisonment, and as is repeated in the preceding passage, one of constant sorrow.
They would not accept his hierarchy of mercy, of mutuality, and so they must accept one of subservience, of rigid order.
Elijah Milioni
This is the world we now inhabit
Now there are dozens of new hierarchies, ordained by God, yes, but not in line with the ideal he had set before .
Now enters a second type of hierarchy, one which we must follow whether we find them to be advantageous or no. The difficulty is that man is still not content with God’s hierarchies and still attempts to instate his own. He still attempts constantly to scale the wall which protects him from himself, and all he succeeds in doing, is cutting his own hands. And still, this is how the world must run…
Until redemption.
In the interim: There is a strange mercy unexpectedly inherent in the harsh instatement of the law, namely that though the walls reach the heavens on either side, the heavens above are open, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust; the sun rises on the good and on the evil. Amidst all the sorrow bellow, the heavens above proclaim incessantly that man may at any time, by choosing to align himself with a higher order, with god, with the vacant position of Adam as he should have been, he may rise above the course pavement, he may yet transcend the limitations of the law if he might only follow their heart, rather than attempting to scale the walls. God reveals that, while paradise will always be destroyed, every man may yet fulfill the divine relationship, and thereby find himself exempt from the judgement of his forefathers.
I say that the mercy is inherent in the law, because though Christ realized it for all of humanity, He also pointed out that Abraham, in arguing with God, David, in eating the temple bread, job, in his service to god, Phineas, in killing the Midianite woman and her Jewish partner, all recognized the heart of the law and followed it, and found themselves free.
And for all of the laws we realize that redemption was always possible all along
In Paradise we have innocence. Under the law is knowledge of sin, and consequence. And then redemption transcends sin and offers a more durable purity than ignorance.
Paradise says death does not exist. The law says thou shalt not kill. Redemption says thou shalt not hate.
Paradise says love is nature. The law says to love your neighbor, redemption says to love your enemy.
Paradise says nothing can be lost or taken. The law says an eye for an eye. Redemption says do not repay evil.
Paradise denies the existence of dirt. The law says be clean. Redemption says be perfect.
Paradise says humans are united under God. The law says that there is enmity between a man and his wife. Redemption says you shall love and sacrifice one for the other, you shall give yourself entirely to the other, not even your body will be your own,
Redemption says you shall love and sacrifice one for the other, you shall give yourself entirely to the other, not even your body will be your own,
Elijah Milioni
Paradise knows not the corruption of power. The law says the wife will desire to rule her husband. Redemption says the wife will submit.
Paradise requires no ruling for humanity save God. The law says the man will rule the woman. Redemption says the man will love the woman.
We see here illustrated a central theme in redemption, that redemption is not reinstatement. Humanity fell from a garden, and will be redeemed in a city, man is born naked, and is reborn in robes of white, man is innocent in youth, and is not returned to it in redemption, rather he is brought to a higher state than could ever have existed before. By the same token, hierarchy redeemed is not what it was before, it is something far grander, deeper, and more beautiful,
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:17-19
And in all of these cases, redemption still keeps one within the bounds of the law, but it does so by inviting one to participate in a higher law rather than by containing one within the guidelines by sheer force.
Redemption invites humanity to participate in an inverted but quite practical and literal hierarchy wherein one participates out of love for another, and thus naturally desires to be below them, rather than the hierarchy of the law wherein one interacts by necessity and so naturally desires to find himself above all else.
Where love overrides power is the instatement of the highest hierarchy.
