Constructed or Deconstructed in the Face of Chaos? ... Society in the Social Imagination

All societies are constructions in the face of chaos. Could that be true? Hardly, given that any society is a group of people and much larger than a tribe. Really now, such a statement that "all societies are constructions in the face of chaos" presupposes society; especially, if they are recognizing chaos and the need for change of behavior or reorganization... they must have been previously organized and stable.

You see, if a society is facing chaos, then before that face off... they were a stable society. How else could they realize the need to construct a stable society in the face of chaos?

The author of an interesting paper (see link below) suggests that this statement is true because of the constant possibility of anomic terror (anomic - socially disoriented; "we live in an age of rootless alienated people" alienated, disoriented and or unoriented - not having position or goal definitely set or ascertained) is actualized whenever the legitimations that obscure the precariousness are threatened or collapse.

But again, making such a statement "all societies are constructions in the face of chaos" they lose sight of society as existing thing prior to the feeling of being socially disoriented... I am saying that experience can only happen if the feeling prior to disorientation was one of orientation, contentment and or social harmony.

Now, I realize that man's basic desire for constructing society has a lot to do with the importance of that fundamental trait of the natural attitude which Alfred Schutz calls “fundamental anxiety”: “the weight of living, that secret melancholy of the knowledge that we all must die, that everything is so difficult and in all likelihood so futile” (Musil 1972: 713).  

Moreover, and even more profound is man's desire to be alive and his need to live socially, right from the beginning. For without others in our midst, what would we be and could we even understand what it means to be human let alone a person in need of society?

What the author misses in his/her pursuit to deconstruct society in order to prove that chaos constructs it... is that there is 'society' from the beginning and one should ask who was that first (prime mover according to Aristotle) social organizer and how did he/she come to be or came about is anyone's guess; but as you, my readers know, it was an act of God. 

But, for this blog, we want to explore how chaos comes about and how it deconstructs society. To begin, let us look at any activity that one performs relative to and or distinct from others. When observations of others' behaviors do not 'match', made possible through the encounter with another tribe or society, the outcome can be either helpful or destructive.  

What happens then can be the beginning of the end... such an encounter can become the first block to be pulled out from under the foundation of that society... (this is why I disagree with participant observer ethnographic method). And, it can be very destructive if a certain society is driven by the fundamental anxiety.

You see, any society or group wants to live and live abundantly. Yet it cannot live knowing there exists a vast number of impossibilities for them to work out or get through in the place they are. We all survive better thinking/knowing that all things are possible... even if we just imagine that to be true. 

Society cannot live and certainly not survive knowing that a large number uncertainties exist for them in the place where they are. If that kind of information gets in (an error upload so to speak) what sets in next is chaos ...first as a disenchanted vision of the world it has constructed. 

For simple groups, there is very little for them to lean on when this happens... they either move on with new information introduced or even forced on them or they adopt it slowly over time. 

For western civilization... well, that is obvious. We have been witness to it....and its happened over time indeed. Its the rise of the scientific perspective. 

Today, we in the west and even worldwide (those adopted western views) tend to hold science up as if it exists outside of man... waiting to be praised and we ready to be saved by it with the hopes of squashing the fundamental anxiety to death.

Again, chaos is the de-constructor more than the constructor of society. Sometimes is hits us like a tidal wave and other times it creeps in like a virus... it sets up a world that controls what was considered “normalcy” by sanctioning any other possibilities. In this way the fragility of the social consciousness appears to slip into a pandemic stupor. The crisis glimpsed on the horizon has finally come to pass and panic steps in.

Our civilization is a template of that... "if left unchecked, it will become madness and or dreaded chaos"...Society, then has no choice but to reconstruct the given realization and face the abandonment of what was, the point of view of the given social world, the “inessential” world (as we lead ourselves to believe), and make new visions possible. 

While that maybe so, what about the transition process and what new vision? Whose vision? 

The society that tends to fall is the one that never was established on solid ground... and one that believes man in not inherently evil and the foolish idea that we can live forever in a fallen world. Otherwise, how would/could chaos creep in...?

Society reconstructs in the face of chaos... keep in mind that what seems new is not always 'new'... there is nothing new under the sun ~ Ecclesiastes 1:9 

*ONLINE SOURCE ~ https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/228546992.pdf