Philosophy of Order
The Philosophy of Order (“lajnromnala” in Malaszec), or simply Order, is the idea that the world by itself exists in a state of chaos and anarchy, and that the purpose of intelligent life is to bring order to the world by overcoming chaos to create the perfect society. Its adherents believe that nature (including all people) contain some mix of chaos and order, but the capacity to overcome chaos and produce order separates intelligent life from beasts. Many actions can create order, but broadly speaking, actions that contribute to a greater societal good are considered orderly. Most elves in Malaszec believe in Order in one form or another, as do many people of other races in the country. Order is an ancient concept, and there are many variations among its adherents including different conceptions of what chaos and order look like and different justifications for why intelligent life should strive towards order.
Dichotomy of order and chaos
One of the core tenets of Order is that violence, crime, and evil stem from an excess of chaos. Without a source of order, whether that be the rule of law or adherence to social norms, a society becomes embroiled in chaos. In a chaotic society, its members succumb to the chaos within themselves and act selfishly without regard for the greater good. Members of an ordered society are able to overcome their this chaos and create a society that is greater than the sum of its parts. This hypothetical utopian society would be free of crime and evil, and last as long as its members continue to act orderly.
As nature desires order, and plants and animals do not have the capacity to create a utopia, it becomes the duty of the intelligent being to reform nature for its purpose. Farming is considered an example of this because it bends nature to feed the society. For the same reason, practices like genetic engineering of crops can also be orderly. As agriculture is the foundation of modern society, domesticated nature is a symbol of Order among Malaszec elves. The desire to reconcile the purely functional pre-fab architecture of the Malaszec Communist era with symbols of elvish Order gave rise to the Urban Green architectural style. In Malaszec cities with elf influence, gardens and nature are integrated into urban planning as a way to remind its residents of their commitment to order and by extension, other things like reducing crime and violence.
Man-made disasters such as the Arev Incident, where acres of Malaszec’s countryside were ravaged by uncontrollable magical fungus, are considered extremely chaotic and against the fundamental principles of Order. Such an incident is a major embarrassment to Esterlod ZE, the company that caused the Arev Incident and headquartered in a part of Malaszec that is majority elves. Because of this, Esterlod has tried to cover it up with extensive censorship even though decades have passed since it happened.
Topics of debate
Some topics about Order that are under debate include:
- Whether Order and Chaos are inherently good or bad, or whether they simply create conditions conducive to morally good or bad actions.
- Whether sapients are a part of nature, or are a separate entity.
- Whether creating Chaos is justifiable if it leads to greater Order.
Inherent moral quality of order and chaos
Some believe that order is inherently good and chaos inherently evil. In this view, chaos not only causes people do do evil acts, but is evil in and of itself. By removing all chaos from the world, nobody would be evil ever again and the perfectly orderly utopia is self-perpetuating. On the other hand, in a perfectly chaotic dystopia, nobody will ever be good again. In this view, nature and even sapients themselves innately contain evil, and it is the sapient’s duty to rid this evil from the world.
Others believe that order and chaos are both neutral, but push sapients towards good and evil acts. Sapients are thought to have “strong” free will, so that if the world around the sapient is perfectly chaotic, they are still capable of good acts and vice versa. In this view, the ability to push back against the forces of absolute chaos is a distinguishing factor of sapients. This is the majority view in Malaszec.
Order in government
The application of Order in government and policymaking has always been a hot debate, as the mere existence of law or social norms is not enough if it does not actually benefit society. Ideas behind what laws and norms are Orderly have changed over time, the dominant view is usually dictated by those who are in power. During the Malaszec imperial era, strict social stratification and imperialism were considered Orderly by the government, justifying the exploitation of the lower classes by the higher classes by claiming it is necessary to build the perfect society. During the Communist era, the government did away with those ideas and promoted a classless society where all are equal as the pinnacle of Order, and justified the forced relocation of workers and disappearance of dissidents as necessary for the functioning of the state. In Federal Malaszec, where the traditional notion of government has been replaced with entities that are simultaneously political and corporate, conventional opinions of what is Orderly has fallen into the hands of the various Zloije CEOs and their upper management.
Since the capacity for creating order distinguishing intelligent life from beasts and crime is considered a product of chaos, Order has been used to justify the death penalty for criminals. The idea is that criminals have succumbed to their chaos and are no better than beasts, like cows and chickens. One point of contention among followers of Order is whether chaos is justifiable if it ends in greater order. Some schools of thought, such as people who are also followers of the Fellowship of the Forest, believe that the ends do not justify the means. As a result, a violent act such as the slaughter of animals for their meat is unjustifiably chaotic, even though it feeds the society. In the case of the death penalty, the killing of a criminal is also unjust, even if it rids society of an agent of chaos.