General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Authoritarianism is a sickness. [View all]geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)We're talking about anarchy, the condition of a lack of authority and order.
If one wants to get technical, anywhere there are families or clans or tribes there can't be anarchy, since those all involve hierarchies and authority.
By that stretch, anarchy has been defined out of existence.
There are several, competing authoritarian structures in Somalia--but no stability, with conflict breaking out between and amongst them in different configurations all the time.
Just like black can be the absence of color, it can also be all colors combined at once. A state of being where the only source of 'order' is whoever happens to be holding an AK47 in the closest proximity is not order, it's chaos. It's anarchy--the complete absence of an ordering authority, regime, set of principles, or otherwise stabilizing forces.