“Mischief Managed”—Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I am largely conservative by temperament.
While my politics run along the whole spectrum, my emotional reaction is usually: if it's not broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, wait to make sure it’s really broken, and then try to live with it anyway because it’s probably not as broken as you think.
So, I don’t want to blow it all up. But let’s pretend I did. Let’s talk about mischief. Let’s talk about chaos.
I believe that the attraction of chaos is largely a desire for justice. Chaos is generally desired by those with less power and perpetrated against those with more. When it is violent, we call it terrorism. When it is perpetrated for a specific end but largely peaceful, we call it a protest or sit-in. When it is done for humor, we call it a prank. And when it is done as a celebration of youthful rebellion, we call it mischief.
The day before Halloween is called “
Mischief Night” in some areas (also common: Devil’s Night”) As Wikipedia put it, some places have separated the “tricks” from the “treats” of Halloween.” What is the appeal of TPing your neighbor’s house or egging their car? Not much, which is why I think it is mostly done by teenagers. Teenagers, being largely powerless (expect in physical capacity) find oppression everywhere they look, and not only the imaginary oppression of loving but strict parents. They are old enough to see injustice in the world, yet not old enough to be overwhelmed by it. This is why many social justice movements start with the young. They have the energy and the (at least seemingly) fresh perspective necessary to engage injustice with gusto. What the young lack is power. They want to correct a wrong *now*--as they well should--but they are not established enough within the world’s structures of power in order to do so. When you combine a seemingly fresh injustice with the seeming hopelessness of working within the system, you get a desire to burn it down. You get revolution. When you don’t even have that power, you lash out at whoever is near who has more power. Thus, November 1st suburbanites find themselves heading to the car wash.
I believe this desire for justice through chaos is one of the appeals of zombie apocalypses. Though in theory a hellscape of gun-toting libertarian survivors against a faceless foe would seem to be more of a right-leaning fantasy, zombie apocalypses are popular with everyone. Corrupt society has been wiped away. The enemy is clearly visible and can be eliminated by straightforward and violently effective means. It’s a reflection of the desire to start "fresh".
I believe revolutionary desires can be helpful for maintaining the health of a society. There are certain things so wrong that to not radically (though peacefully) combat would be a wrong in itself.
However, the important thing to remember is the revolutions are chemotherapy, not vitamins. They are a radical attempt to save a society that is about to lose it soul, not a daily corrective measure. Chaos becomes unhealthy if it is
violent or
perpetual. The ultimate goal of revolution is to fix society and restore it, not to scrap it. The chaos of a perpetual revolution cannot create a better life for humanity any more than stagnation can. As a mentor of mine once said to me “Winners don’t get rid of everything and start from square one every time they make a mistake. They use what they have to get more.” He was speaking about jobs and income, but the same thing I think applies to society. Fortunately, as youths become adults, most of them learn they can do more within a system than without.
However, some people become bitter at justice's perceived slow pace and resort to nihilism. This is reflected in horror fiction by the Lovecraftian-style apocalypse: alien gods come and eat all our souls. Everyone is eternally undead in permanent torment. But this nihilistic deus ex machina merely shows our desire for Christ’s Parousia.
When Christ comes at the end of time, he will correct all the injustices of the world, (and some of us who considered ourselves just will have things flipped on our head. As CS Lewis says in classic British understatement: “
There will be surprises.”) This is not to say we should tell the oppressed to just wait until heaven; we are all called to live justly here and now. But starting history anew is reserved to God alone.
I think this cry for Christ’s justice also explains the very strange associate of Guy Fawkes (a terrorist theocrat) with anarchy (a philosophical system that believes in abolishing governments, historically using terrorist tactics).
Alan Moore may not have intended it, but both the violent anarchist and the violent theocrat want society to change for the better. Unfortunately, they are willing to make it worse in order to do so.
The chaos of Halloween, whether the nihilism of an apocalypse or the minor pranks of trick-or-treaters reflects, ultimately, a desire for God’s justice. The desire for justice cries up from every human heart. If I may be permitted to be biblical for a minute “The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds[...]God will indeed not delay” (Sirach 35: 21a, 22a). When people fell God is seeming to delay, they often take matters into their own hands, and sometime use immoral means. Compared to some forms chaos, maybe some toilet paper on the roof is a small price to pay.
PS: On final aspect of Chaos that I almost made its own essay is chaotic appearances. From T
he Addams Family to
Hellboy to
Frankenstein, story after story affirms the humanity of those who look different than us. Writing this on the subway often in the same car as crippled homeless people, missing teeth or covered in skin diseases, I can’t but think how much the world needs this lesson. The world is full of strange beauty. As Gerard Manley Hopkins says
“Christ plays in ten thousand places, / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his /To the Father through the features of men's faces."
