Anarchy Is Chaos

A virtually ubiquitous trope, both in fiction and Real Life, is the misconception that anarchists have no beliefs, that anarchy is chaos. While anarchy and chaos are not mutually exclusive (chaos is anarchic, although it often devolves into despotism, but anarchy is not necessarily chaotic) such an un-mindset is properly called nihilism, the belief in nothing. However, the actual definition of Anarchism is the belief that rulership should not exist (as indicated in its Greek roots, an- [no] -arkhos [ruler]). There is much division on the extent and nature of rulership, and what it means. Regardless of this division, in fiction, Anarchists (of any stripe) are often accused of favoring a Hobbesian-style war of all against all.

This trope can be used as an anti-anarchism propaganda tool when played together with Chaos Is Evil. That's pretty much where it came from: those late 19th/early 20th century anarchists who did advocate and use violence generally did so because they didn't see any prospect of the existing system changing unless it was shaken out of its complacency. The mass media of the time had no interest in what the anarchists actually wanted (social change on a large scale), and were only interested in registering the outrage felt by much of civil society at the actions of the anarchists. And so, anarchism went from being a political philosophy like any other to a synonym for meaningless violence, because the people who associated anarchy with chaos were unable to understand why the anarchists were doing what they were doing.^note If you're unable to understand why the anarchists were doing what they were doing, we recommend you do some reading in late 19th century and early 20th century labour history, so that you can find out just how god-awful working conditions were for most people.

This trope is rare/more likely to be averted in Spanish works since a substantial minority of the population formed a highly regarded anarchist system during the Spanish Civil War. Some of them are still living and anarchist organizations are slightly more mainstream than in most countries. They are still a political minority, though.

In Real Life, this trope is usually averted. Many proponents of anarchy are actually quite high on the "idealistic" side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism; they genuinely believe that humans are good, and so a society with no form of higher authority or official rules will become utopia, as all people will be able to communicate with and understand each other as individuals and will choose to be good. Most other anarchists are more cynical, and believe that anarchy is desirable because Humans Are Flawed - giving them power, these anarchists contend, simply makes matters more chaotic, and will inevitably lead to power abuse. This was the position of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (the first person to declare himself an anarchist, incidentally), who penned the phrase "Anarchy Is Order." This is, by the way, the meaning of the circle A symbol you may have seen graffiti'd here and there (it's actually an "A" inside an "O"). More information, on social anarchism, can be found in our Useful Notes on anarchism.

In short, real-life anarchists tend to be about cooperation and mutual respect, and very much tend not to be about unleashing the natural savage instincts of humanity so that the weak will become fodder for the strong (supposedly in the belief that either they will be among the "strong", or that that'd still be better than the existing system, or that the sooner humanity goes extinct the better off it will be). A person who thinks like that will probably not become an anarchist in the first place (unless that person is a Misanthrope Supreme).

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