The political philosophy of anarchism is integral to self-development and individuation, alchemically speaking, but its general apprehension and application is myopic and considerably juvenile as consequence of its adherents possessing a lack of knowledge of Heraclitus’ concept of flux.
Heraclitus posited that life exists in a perpetual flow of change; that nothing remains the same; that order and disorder phase in and out of existence.
The average anarchist states their commitment to ensuring a lasting state of entropy within societal systems for the purpose of providing everlasting autonomy and opposing any form of subjugation. The issue with this directive is that it goes against the concept of flux and Nature’s mechanics, which ostensibly present that every facet of life experiences a period of order and disorder.
The forest, for example, lives in a state of order: there is hierarchy among the living things within the trees and fauna, with every living thing consuming, breeding and sheltering in accord with that hierarchy. That is until a wild fire comes along and sows disorder, burning to cinders their habitats and uprooting their routines; decimating plant life and killing animals and insects in the process. After the passing of time, the forest begins to bloom again and become populated once more, returning order to it – c’est la vie.
Flux reveals that order and disorder co-exist in a macrocosm; for their expressions – as and when they are expressed – are part of a cycle, a system, an order, which is cosmic.
“We both step and do not step into the same, we both are and are not”
— Heraclitus
Therefore, this cosmic flow of order and disorder is something that cannot be prevented by human agency, only delayed, as the dam will inevitably break and order or disorder will drown our binary beliefs.
What this means is that chaos cannot be the only raison d’être for the anarchist because to continue under the notion reveals a hubristic lack of insight in addition to indolent reasoning. The purpose of an anarchist must reasonably and empathetically be to create fertile ground for the seeds of the new, creating conditions through destruction and disorder in which natural order, sans human interference, can bloom.
The alchemical application of this raison d’être as it relates to Mayhem – the Anarchist instance in the Nine Worlds cosmology of the 9A:O – will hopefully contribute to self-development in so far that an understanding of the expressions of Mayhem, as being part of the natural cosmic order, has been imparted by this revision of conventional anarchism.