Chaos and fear: Creativity and hope in an uncertain world

Roger Grainger fills a big void in the study of abstract concepts. He juxtaposes the psychological meaning of chaos with the mathematical chaos theory, inferring that all creativity is a result of chaos. The old trajectory of order–chaos–order is amplified by Grainger through various examples from theology, drama, mathematics, path-breaking innovations and discoveries. He brings a multidisciplinary perspective to the study of chaos from his own experiences as a priest, psychologist and actor. Most of the examples that support his research are from plays and dramas, since he feels that drama is the most vivid expression of the paradigm of chaos. He illustrates this by saying that even the creation of the cosmos would have been accompanied by a huge ‘unexpected, unavoidable, revolutionary, life-giving and death-affirming’ drama. Therefore the theme that binds the book throughout is one of creation and its accompanying narrative – the narrative of chaos.

Grainger illustrates the uses and aftermaths of chaos through chapters interestingly themed around such notions as ‘deconstructing life’ or the challenging void to ‘a very human chaos’. These chapters systematically lead us from the creation of the cosmos to the present-day multiplicity of chaos towards which humanity has progressed. The basic argument runs through the conundrum of the ‘order–chaos–order’ trajectory, irrespective of whether the event in question is factual or fictional. Grainger argues that this cycle of ‘order–chaos–order’ is the real harbinger of all change, in essence the ‘shape of real change’. This characterization of all change is, of course, subject to a variety of interpretations. It appears to be a result of Grainger’s background as a priest, since he sees religion as the absolute way of experiencing reality rather than a set of doctrinal constructions. Grainger appears to be totally swayed by his deep religious beliefs when he says: ‘Chaos is what we are unable to get at by thinking. Unlike God, we can’t even get a sense of what we are thinking about’ (p. 3). Useful as this characterization might be in deconstructing life, it is clearly not satisfactory as the ultimate intellectual and empirical interpretation of this phenomenon. In Chapter 2, entitled ‘Playing games with death’, Grainger states that it is through death that chaos reveals itself magnificently. It is the chaos of the loss that gives birth to a new reality and real change. He holds that religious practices such as funeral rituals function to remedy man’s delusion of immortality, and bring home the ultimate reality of change as a constant.

Grainger also sees a lot of wisdom in clowns and fools. Quoting from Shakespeare and Bakhtin, he alludes to the immense wisdom cloaked in the chaos of clownery and foolish play. Life reveals itself in its varied manifestations through the foolish or clownish acts in drama, as well as in real life episodes, thus laying bare the hollow crown of our superior aura about us and the world around. He describes the blankness or nothingness of space too as chaos. The creation of cosmos from space is a great drama of nature. When we transcend our sense of ego in order to consider space, we are overawed with feelings of immensity or divine powers, that is to say, powers so mighty that they fill in the voids of our knowledge, no matter how scientifically or logically oriented we may be. According to him, this also leads us to the marvellous beauty of the Bible, where it is stated that: ‘In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, and the Earth was without form and void, and the Spirit of the Godhead brooded and weaved over the depths.’ The pure and formless space got so befuddled with chaos that the ensuing drama resulted in the formation of the entire cosmos. Grainger illustrates this with examples from Shakespeare and various drama forms and therapies. He feels that it has been the result of this chaos in space that such a wonderful cosmos which is full of mysteries and life-giving material was created.

However, Grainger dissects myth as being a subject of varied interpretations. A myth poses its own kind of logic, a story that binds in different forms an idea with some mysterious powerful source. Drawing again from drama and cinema, Grainger brings out the importance of narratives in understanding the meanings of divine and quotes Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in support. Myths are constructed with a view that they receive life from the creator of that myth. Frustration with interpreting them leads to depression, because we do not clearly want to admit to ourselves the true nature of our frustrations which, invariably, is an offshoot of our own failures. Since depression is anger turned towards oneself, the cycle continues and traps one in its death-like claws. Without added effort one continues in that cycle of depression, which becomes a static chaos for that individual. The only way to break that cycle is to untie the knots of chaos so that order is restored. The book has tremendous academic and research value, for it fills a void in understanding the usefulness of an abstract concept like ‘chaos’ in creativity and order.

When chaos works lovingly on the human soul, it leads human beings to touch worlds that lie far beyond their imagination and reach. Chaos contains the seed of all life and destruction, and gives shape to the physical and psychic spheres of all things living. It leads to creativity, order and superior achievements. All great philosophies have been products of chaos. No Schiller or Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy or Gandhi would have achieved what they achieved had they not been through unimaginable chaos in their lives. Nations too have risen from chaos to greatness. Great nations have resulted from immense chaos, but so were great innovations in human history. This book is a powerful statement on an otherwise complex and abstract subject. Grainger has succeeded in succinctly and forcefully amplifying the impact of chaos in our daily lives as well as in social milieus of modern times, and thus asks us to make sense of our destinies in times of complexity in terms of chaos.

On the other hand, Rachel Pain and Susan Smith’s edited volume Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life is a timely release encapsulating a variety of approaches to the daily manifestations of a varied repertoire of fear in the current epoch. With the shrinking of the globe into an approachable community through the internet, with air transport and other mass modes of transportation, fear has become a palpable reality in almost all walks of life. The book is based on a conference held in Durham, UK, in 2005. The book consists of 16 articles culled from that conference, along with an introduction by Pain and Smith. The book consists of five sections, each dealing with a specific state of fear. Overall, this book offers a conceptual framework that highlights a common thread running between daily life and a larger geopolitical canvas. It analyses the ways in which fear may be contrived and deployed as coercive compliance strategies for political purposes, thus becoming a weapon of repression and subjugation.

In the introductory chapter the editors state that the best way to understand fear is through the narratives of victims of fear, rather than through other forms of empirical research. This is probably the right way to understand fear from the point of view of it being a state of mind. Fear creates a sense of chaos, and our reactions to that chaos differ depending on the specific constitution of the individual or the group experiencing fear. State-generated fear, the authors argue, is created to instil the will to submit to the dictates of its perpetrators, but counter-movements as well as willingness to submit are also a result of this tactic.

The first section of the book deals with the fears created by states and organizations. This section essentially elaborates how the state instils fear as an instrument of coercion. How this fear becomes a common lore is explained with global examples. In the first chapter, Nick Megoran discusses the geopolitical fears that influenced pop music and were embedded in the psyche of the populace in Uzbekistan. Cowen and Gilbert succinctly describe the US strategy of hunting terrorists whom the government feels to be a threat to the American way of life. Implicit in such a strategy is the feelings of terror generated by official pronouncements. Authors go on to elucidate the arrogance of the state against certain values that they feel threaten their own. In the concluding chapter of the first section, Cindi Katz describes the influence of modern gadgets on children, and how their mind gets embedded with certain cultural values alien to them through these gadgets. Katz shows brilliantly how the social landscape becomes influenced through the creeping materiality of the security state.

The second section discusses aspects of fear related to nature. The discussion covers both the benign and malignant understandings of nature, shown through its sheltering comfort and assurance and through its environmental disasters and catastrophes. The spatial reach of infectious diseases and the resultant fear is discussed with great nuance by Alan Ingram. Jo Little explores nature’s link to society and shows how society is intertwined with nature and that one exists because of the other. The fear caused on account of nature’s malignancy and spatial reach of modern infectious and epidemic diseases creates a kind of public health security phenomenon that carry multiple valences.

The third and fourth sections essentially deal with the racialization of fear that, although it had been around for a long time, took off with the September 11 terrorist attacks. The resulting sweeping generalization of Muslims as the ‘Other’ was fraught with horrendous consequences, all deeply mired in fear. This fear caused millions around the world to see themselves as the ‘Other’ and therefore have every reason to fear the security apparatus of the state and also the hostile attitude of the crowd around them.

The fifth section starts out with a title more soothing than the earlier grim scenarios: ‘Fear, resistance, and hope’. Human agency is explained in detail with the help of a case study and the consequent will of the people to face odds to bring about change. Rachael Pain cautions about the dangers in oversimplifying the impact of the war on terror. She feels that such a simplification creates monsters of another kind who are far more capable of creating bigger and larger fear syndromes in individuals, societies and the states. She argues that the relationship between fear and terror is likely to be highly dependent on context. Taking off from her, Sarah Wright explains that the best antidote to fear is hope. The emotion of hope is the deterrent and the cure for reducing the feelings and pulsations of fear. She illustrates this with a case study of Philippine farmers’ social movement strategies. In the concluding chapter, Kye Askins shows that negotiating between bodily and spatial differences can move us towards a transformative politics of place and identity. She states that honest engagements with the difficult situations that are influenced by mundane and routine daily fears and the feelings of otherness will rekindle the energies to cope with fear and uncertainty.

Fear is a deadly emotion. It is witnessed and lived by individuals across the globe irrespective of their social conditions and situations in myriad different ways. Individuals suffer from fear of want, fear of death, fear of starvation, fear of unemployment and all other kinds of fears. With the explosion in information technologies, the rise in population globally and shrinking energy resources, powerful actors have used fear as a coercive compliance strategy. Fear is created through pop culture, internet pornography, emails, phone scams and many other ways. Fear is present while flying, travelling, sleeping and working. The modern world is full of fear, and fear assumes a geopolitical connotation when applied or used by states against their probable adversaries as coercive strategies to obtain compliance. Similarly, religious terror has created such fear that no affected individual feels secure anymore. Since the end of the Cold War fear has been played out in the political landscape of world, and individuals and nations have been seeking ways to break out of its debilitating effects.

Although the compilation of papers in this book is a timely and welcome addition to the vast literature available on this theme, one would hasten to add that the perspectives presented are essentially Western. There is not a single article to voice Third World concerns or show how people in the lesser or under-developed world feel about fear and its global geopolitics. Probably that would have lent an entirely different lens to this book. Most of the late 20th-century crises and those occurring in the current century have almost all erupted in the Third World. The Middle East has been perpetually on the boil, as has been the case with Central, South and East Asia, where religious and ethnic tensions have exploded into insurgencies and civil wars. These areas should also have found representation in this fine collection. This concern notwithstanding, the book is an important and essential contribution to understanding various strands of fear, its geopolitical influence and reach and its effects and impact on everyday life.