The Uses of Disorder

1. Adolescent identity formation shapes community dynamics

The desire for purified identity is a state of absolute bondage to the status quo; there exist few resources for analyzing how society works, only intense strengths, through the medium of coherent symbols, to transform the status quo into a generalized abstract state of life.

Adolescent identity crisis: During adolescence, individuals develop the capacity to synthesize moral and value rules that define their identity in a social context wider than the family. However, they lack the adult-like experience to guide them in using these new powers.

Purification of identity: To resolve the tension between their new capacities and lack of experience, many adolescents create a coherent, pain-transcending identity. This leads to:

• Projection of meaning onto experiences they fear having
• Voluntary limitation and withdrawal from social life
• Servitude to projections of social reality that are unified and pain-transcending

Community impact: These adolescent identity formation patterns often persist into adulthood, shaping community dynamics:

• Desire for homogeneous, conflict-free social environments
• Resistance to diversity and complex social interactions
• Formation of purified community identities that reinforce social withdrawal

2. Purified community identity leads to social withdrawal

When the dreams of the more idealistic young—which is to say, a large number of young people—are simply ignored, or rejected through coercive force, nothing is changed.

Myth of solidarity: Communities often form a belief in emotional cohesion and shared values that has little to do with their actual social experiences. This "community by an act of will" serves to:

• Avoid dealing with each other's real differences
• Create a false sense of unity and shared identity
• Justify exclusion of those perceived as different or threatening

Consequences of purified identity:

1. Loss of actual participation in community life
2. Repression of deviants and outsiders
3. Escalation of discord with other communities into violent confrontation

Role of affluence: Material abundance provides the power to enforce myths of coherent community life by:

• Enabling physical control of community boundaries and composition
• Reducing the need for sharing and interdependence among community members
• Facilitating withdrawal into self-contained, self-sustaining homes

3. Modern urban planning reinforces purification myths

The essence of the purification mechanism is a fear of losing control. Real disorder is a problem, planners think, best left to politicians and the like.

Technological metaphor: Urban planning often adopts a machine-like approach to city design, treating the city as a system of parts determined by the whole. This leads to:

• Predetermined, functional zoning of urban spaces
• Emphasis on order and predictability over diversity and spontaneity
• Resistance to natural social evolution and change

Consequences of machine-like planning:

• Suppression of social complexity and diversity
• Reinforcement of purified community identities
• Inability to adapt to unforeseen social changes

Alternative approach: Cities should be conceived as social orders of parts without a coherent, controllable whole form. This would allow for:

• Varied, changeable use of urban spaces
• Natural evolution of neighborhood characters based on social interactions
• Greater diversity and complexity in urban social life

4. Affluence enables voluntary social segregation

Affluence, as shall be seen, gives a community new tools to define itself in this particular way. It is also affluence that makes this problem in community life one to be faced by post-revolutionary societies that have managed to survive as well as by the societies of the West.

Suburban flight: The post-World War II movement to the suburbs represents a desire for:

• Simplified social environments
• Homogeneous socioeconomic living conditions
• Intensification of family relations at the expense of broader social connections

Impact on urban diversity:

• Decline of multiple contact points in cities
• Reduction in public spaces for diverse social interactions
• Polarization of intimacy between family life and impersonal public spheres

Consequences of affluent withdrawal:

• Increased social isolation and fear of the "other"
• Reduced capacity to handle social conflict and diversity
• Escalation of social tensions into violence due to lack of experience with difference

5. Decentralized power fosters diverse social interactions

Really "decentralized" power, so that the individual has to deal with those around him, in a milieu of diversity, involves a change in the essence of communal control, that is, in the refusal to regulate conflict.

Rethinking bureaucratic power: To create cities that foster adult development, two key changes are needed:

1. Reduction in the scope of centralized bureaucratic power
2. Shift in the concept of order in urban planning

Decentralization strategies:

• Limit central control over schooling, zoning, renewal, and other community activities
• Encourage direct, non-violent conflict resolution among community members
• Distribute centralized resources to create decentralized, uncontrolled social situations

Benefits of decentralization:

• Increased individual responsibility for community problem-solving
• Greater diversity of social interactions and experiences
• Development of skills in negotiating differences and conflicts

6. Dense, disordered cities promote adult development

Other elements of psychic reality are always present to intrude. For this reason interpersonal pain and disorder is inevitable; this regression forms the essence of the social reality never to be erased by any utopian arrangement of society.

Characteristics of adult development:

• Acceptance of painful ambiguity and uncertainty
• Ability to tolerate and learn from disorder in social life
• Capacity to care about concrete, limited events without seeking total control

Role of dense, diverse cities:

• Provide a resistant environment that challenges adolescent purification desires
• Offer multiple points of social contact necessary for diverse experiences
• Create situations that require negotiation of differences for mutual survival

Benefits of urban disorder:

• Encourages development of adult coping mechanisms
• Fosters curiosity about the "otherness" of diverse people and experiences
• Promotes a more realistic and mature approach to social relations

7. Anarchic urban systems can be stable and beneficial

Unlike the conflicts in times of scarcity, survival is framed in terms of whether people will be able to communicate with each other, not whether they will be able to stay alive.

Redefining anarchy: Unlike 19th-century anarchism focused on violent overthrow, this vision of urban anarchy emphasizes:

• Ongoing disorder as a way to use wealth and abundance
• Decrease in the need for violence through regular social negotiation
• Dense, diverse cities as the setting for anarchic social systems

Stability through conflict:

• Regular expression of aggression in non-violent forms
• Economic "flooring" provided by affluence to prevent escalation to life-or-death struggles
• Development of skills in managing and benefiting from social complexity

Benefits of anarchic urban systems:

• Increased social flexibility and adaptability
• Greater individual autonomy and responsibility
• Richer, more diverse social experiences and personal growth opportunities

8. Technology and abundance can support social complexity

The proper uses of technological abundance, then, permit a social conception of survival different from that obtaining in the scarcity economies of the past.

Rethinking technological progress: Instead of using technology to create more controlled, predictable environments, it can be used to:

• Support greater range and complexity of social interactions
• Provide economic "flooring" for diverse social groups and conflicts
• Enable more flexible and adaptable social structures

Abundance as a tool for social complexity:

• Allows for greater regions of conflict without escalation to violence
• Supports the existence of diverse, independent social groups
• Enables focus on social acts and experiences rather than mere material survival

Potential outcomes:

• More dynamic and evolving social structures
• Increased capacity for social innovation and change
• Richer, more complex urban environments that foster adult development and social maturity

Last updated: March 28, 2025