CONCEPT: Chaos

Chaos: Philosophers, poets and painters have, at least since the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (6th century BCE), held a categorical view of  the universe -- or indeed all creation -- as a unity, or Cosmos. They attached to Cosmos such attributes as good order, calmness and peace -- indeed, symphony -- despite the complexity of its many and diverse parts. Their imagined opposite for this clock-work verity or metaphor was Chaos -- meaning, disorder, disharmony, disconnect and even jarring noise (or cacophony). 

In the 19th century, Alexander von Humbolt re-imagined Kosmos (Cosmos) for the modern world as a vast, complex but interconnected and harmonious unity. And in the 20th century, George Santayana suggested that Cosmos had no empirical opposite. There was only Order, often too hidden (or too obvious) to casually see. He saw Chaos as a figment of the imagination, arguing that it was "a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds". That is, the order or complexity imprinted in discrete phenomena or processes observable "out there" in the natural and social worlds may appear chaotic, but only so appear, to the observer who does not have the wherewithal (tools, time, training, frame-of-mind or the like) to grasp their essential or 'below-the-surface' nature. 

Dutto (2000), on the other hand, has argued that chaos is "...the complex and unpredictable motion or dynamics of systems that are sensitive to their initial conditions". These initial conditions may include a system's initial size/magnitude, position, weight, direction or velocity. But he adds that "Chaotic systems are mathematically deterministic -- that is, they follow precise laws, but their irregular behavior can appear to be random to the casual observer." In a word, they are 'ordered', and their orderliness is out there for the well-prepared to discover. 

His examples of chaotic behavior commonly observable within systems include: measles outbreaks, heart rhythms, electrical brain activity, fluids, animal populations and chemical reactions. Even the highs and lows of the stock market may appear chaotic to the more casual observer (see William Dutto, 2000, "Chaos Theory", Encarta). 

The organismic view of society, such as is dominant in structural-functionalism, strongly suggests that social life -- indeed human society -- is founded on a certain 'order of things'. In other words, society cannot properly function and thrive without a preponderance of it. Public policy implicitly or explicitly labels it "Law and Order", a breakdown of which must be prevented from degenerating into civil disorder or anarchy -- or, yes, Chaos.

Conflict (or Social Change) theorists of various persuasions, on the other hand, generally argue that an uncompromising emphasis on Order weakens society by stifling needed short-term and long-term change. Further, they argue that labeling agitators for change or reform as agents of anarchy or Chaos is, deep down, a reflection of the rulers' self-interest and determination to preserve the status quo -- which is beneficial to them. From this perspective, then/too, Chaos is in the eye of the beholder; and Conflict (or Change, or Reform) is, potentially at least, transformative.   

READ "Chaos" Plato, Stanford University.



UPDATED: March 2nd and 8th, 2018

Oritse Femi's Awoo Ewaa

In Tomorrow, as I noted in a previous comment, Oritse Femi wonderfully blended rap with melody of a uniquely Oristeferian kind to give us a deeply felt song. He does not disappoint this time around, either. 

There is no rap in Awoo Ewaa, you will see, but there is all the passion and the melody from before. Not only from Tomorrow, but also, I think one remembers, from Igbeyawo. Awoo Ewaa is simply the most emotionally intense of all the leading African songs I've heard in all of 2016. But it is more. And all this is thanks for the most part to Oriste Femi's all-conquering and irrepressible signature voice. He, who is his own favorite artiste.

Thus, whether it is an Igbeyawo (= wedding) motif, appropriately dressed for, or (as in Awoo Ewaa) a street-theatrical (all-people) power-pushing performance with accent on the authenticity of day-to-day and mostly peri-urban life -- and chic -- Oritse Femi excels with a fervor that never abandons him and that he never does. It's awesome!

SEE ALSO: Aiye Mi

The video, directed by Avalon Okpe, runs for 3:40 minutes of unrelenting lumpen-proletarian, almost religious, animation. The street crowd is engaged in an intensely physical way, but not aurally. There is a symphony of visual things and body texts, but the voice, the clipped and soaring voice, is Oriste Femi's -- and his alone. And nothing overshadows it. Nothing.

An invisible band delivers mesmerizing and almost hypnotic sounds. The music in its totality, fusing with the street dancing, makes for a fine and moving celebration. The intensity is everyone's, and so is the joy: "All the mama and papa dem shake body". The rhythm of bodies, young and older, is lumpen (as already suggested); here where life's usual chaff is not swept under some civic carpet. And where there is no rust cover. Organized frenzy is all, in the end -- "Jakomo"!   

I conclude by echoing Oritse Femi with these words, from his lyrics:

"oya make everybody dey dance oh
awooo ewaa
everybody dey dance oh
awooo ewaa
everybody
awooo ewaa" ~ Oritse Femi

Click to watch the video


HERE: The lyrics for Awoo Ewaa