Why is that the name of it? The word basically means an absence of rulership, wouldn't a more proper name be antiarchy, or anticracy, which would signify opposition to rulership and governance?
Mar 25 2014 07:12
Mar 25 2014 13:47
I understand it probably comes from two Greek words:
an-
a prefix occurring before stems beginning with a vowel or h in loanwords from Greek, where it means 'not’, ‘without’, ‘lacking’ (anarchy; anecdote ).
-archy
a combining form meaning ‘rule’, ‘government’, forming abstract nouns usually corresponding to personal nouns ending in -arch: monarchy; oligarchy.
Mar 25 2014 22:19
I posted up the best explanation I've come across a little while ago in the library, a discussion of the social and linguistic history of the term by Raymond Williams: https://libcom.org/library/anarchism-entry-keywords-raymond-williams
an- means without (Greek) and anti- means against (Latin). Arkhos is Ancient Greek so from one point of view it goes better with an- than anti- (thought you'd have to be quite anal to insist on that kind of thing). Anarchy is both against hierarchy as a movement now and (hopefully) without hierarchy as a social reality in the future, so both fit. But, to my mind, Anarchy sounds much better than Antiarchy, so let's stick with it.
Mar 26 2014 04:54
No ruler, meaning each individual is free and no one's freedom is wielded to diminish another's
Mar 26 2014 14:39
Quote:
an- means without (Greek) and anti- means against (Latin)
Actually, anti- is also from Greek.
Quote:
But, to my mind, Anarchy sounds much better than Antiarchy, so let's stick with it.
Maybe if you pronounce it an-tie-archy instead of an-tee-archy it does, but I think it sound ok when pronounced in the latter way, no?
Mar 30 2014 05:32
I talk about this now because I found out that the original meaning of "anarchy" is actually "chaos". When becoming a libertarian socialist and coming to identify with anarchism, I know I did the explaining innumerable times- anarchy isn't chaos, it was firstly used by Proudhon, it simply means absence of hierarchy, and is actually what can bring order, because hierarchy as a rule produces chaos, etc.
It turns out that "anarchy" was actually used before Proudhon, in the meaning of "chaos", and that Proudhon seems to have accepted the term somewhat as an ironic tool in line with his general somewhat poetic rhetoric.
Paradise Lost, from 1667 has a construction "waste Wide Anarchie of CHAOS", also these lines:
And time and place are lost; where eldest Night
And CHAOS, Ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal ANARCHIE, amidst the noise
Of endless warrs and by confusion stand.
Mar 30 2014 10:45
The origins of words are interesting, in their construction and more importantly in how they are used. Words evolve their meanings within a context. To the ruling class, the realm, the state, the legal authorities, are all considered essential to the orderly maintenance of society and civilisation. In their mouths the word an-archy means chaos, how could it be otherwise?
In a similar way the word ‘nihilist’, originally revolutionary advocates of democracy, in the mouths of the Russian ruling class evolved to mean those who believed in nothing. I was in a night class years ago, when the teacher discussing a short story by H.G. Wells described an anarchist as someone who believed in nothing. The two words had somehow fused into the conservative idea that a revolutionary concept challenging the existing status quo was dangerous non-sense.
Opting to change the word ‘anarchy’ into something more ‘meaningful’ will suffer the same fate because the ruling elite will use all its power to subvert it. It is called the class war.
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I've always understood the word meaning absence of hierarchy.
Seems fitting. (?)