Evey: All this riot and uproar, V... is this Anarchy? Is this the Land of Do-As-You-Please?
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.
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.
Examples:
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Advertising
- There's a pizza commercial for one of those "already prepared ready-to-go" pizzas where a guy walks in and asks for a pepperoni pizza and the girl behind the counter turns around, grabs one, and hands it to him. He says something like "No ordering? No waiting? There's no rules!" and begins taking his clothes off. A voice in the background yells "Put your shirt back on!", which he does, still yelling excitedly, ''There's one rule!"
Comics
- As pointed out in the page quote, V for Vendetta is actually a subversion, pointing out that "mindless chaos" and "anarchy as a social system" are not, in fact, the same thing. Unfortunately, the peoples' reactions at the end of the comic (and those of many readers as well) demonstrate that not everyone realizes this.
Film
- xXx: The antagonists are former Russian intelligence agents turned anarchist terrorists called Anarchy 99, (due to leaving their government's service in 1999 and advocating anarchy) who want to incite war between different countries by a False Flag Operation, creating chaos-For the Evulz, apparently.
- The primary antagonist Bane, in The Dark Knight Rises.
- A subversion, actually. Anarchy's a tool to bring Gotham down, not something he himself believes. Excepting the Kangaroo Court — maybe — he's clearly in charge.
- Although in the Dark Knight, the Joker clearly links chaos and anarchy together in his speech to Harvey Dent/Two-Face when he tells him, "Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos."
- Ricky's children in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby appear to have this view, despite admitting to not knowing what the term means.
- Intentionally averted in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where King Arthur comes across an anarcho-syndicalist commune of literal mud farmers. They are decidedly non-violent, particularly when compared to Arthur himself, but they are extremely irritating, screaming "oppression" when... Arthur grabs one of them in annoyance.
Literature
- The Man Who Was Thursday: The anarchist organization in the book takes this position. It's pointed out that there's a difference between the revolutionary who throws a bomb to kill a king, and the "anarchist" who throws a bomb to kill anybody. However, all of them turned out not to be anarchists in the end.
- As far back as the Book of Judges in The Bible, we have this quote: "There was no king in Israel those days. Everyone did as he pleased."
- The Larry Niven story Cloak of Anarchy posits "anarchy parks" with just one rule: no violence (making them the anarcho-pacifist sort of anarchy). Any time a fight starts (or looks like it might start), floating robots stun all participants, who are then separated. They wake up a few hours later, and it's mentioned that the threat of losing part of your holiday is enough to keep most people in line. Then someone figures out how to make the scanners break down, so "just one rule" (anarcho-pacifism) becomes "no rules", which pretty much fits the "chaos" definition. It's not pretty.
- The science fiction novella Anarchaos by Donald E. Westlake, plays this trope utterly straight, as the title would imply. He posits a world entirely colonized by anarchists, which quickly breaks down into, well, chaos (in the story the colonists is named Anarchaos by the anarchists themselves, which seems very unlikely). Overall it comes off as Westlake having a dislike of anarchism that he's trying to get out by Author Tract, but even so it's a good story.
- Averted in The Dispossessed by Ursula K Leguin. Much of the plot revolves around Shevek (the main character) fleeing his anarchist people because they've become too unchaotic, with an unofficial government firmly in charge.
Toys
Video Games
- Elite features star systems with different government classifications, one of which is Anarchy. Anarchic systems tend to be the most infested with Space Pirates out of all of them.
Webcomics
- In the webcomic series SSDD, the part of the timeline set in the future features (among other super-governments) the Anarchist Collective, which sort of goes back and forth. Officially, there are only two laws, "do not profit at the expense of another anarchist" (which can be interpreted to cover anything from scams to murder), and "there are no other laws". The officials in charge are referred to as "Advisers" who don't put out laws so much as "suggestions"; you can technically break them without any sort of official penalty, but since the only difference between local police, angry crowd and lynch mob is how organized they are... The Collective does have a rather intimidating military, not to mention a secret weapon, though.
- There's also a reference to "true anarchists" who live in the wasteland between cities, taking potshots at passing vehicles.
