Is our society orderly or disorderly?

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Prof. Hans Christian von Baeyer's article on "Disorderly Conduct" in the May/June edition of Sciences has changed my old notions on order and disorder.

I am no longer sure how to interpret the political realities in countries such as Myanmar and Turkey: order, disorder, featureless order, orderly disorder, or order under apparent disorder. Or is it disorder under apparent order?

The chancellor professor of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S. discussed the phenomena of order and disorder as encountered in the world of physics.

The examples he used were taken from ordinary life situations and from experiments in physics. He suggested that the generalizations about order and disorder formulated in physics are not only useful in understanding physical phenomena, but can also be used to understand social phenomena.

He said that the intimate relationship between order and disorder explained in physics in terms of entropy can also be appreciated from a less mechanical, more intuitive point of view. And to support this thesis he cited a poem by Wallace Stevens called "Connoisseur of Chaos". It reads as follows:

A. A violent order is disorder; and

B. A great disorder is an order. These

Two things are one

Although at first it looks confusing, it is nonetheless beautiful. It says in a very concise manner that order and disorder are not separate, but intimately related.

In his article von Baeyer refers to "order" as an elusive concept. It is also a subjective thing. Reading his explanation about these two characteristics of order prompted me to think about my own situation. I have my own way of "ordering" my material; books, journals, clippings, notes and magazines etc.

I put them in various places in my office and in the house, and I know exactly where they are. I can find whatever I want within minutes. But my wife and daughter consider the way I "order" my things "disorder". From time to time they try to bring "order" into the house, especially into my office. But every time they reorder my things, I become confused. I cannot find the things I want as easily as usual, because the ordering system has changed. I feel that my office becomes disorderly every time my wife or my daughter puts it "in order". This is a situation which every person must have experienced in his or her daily life.

Being a subjective matter, order, according to von Baeyer, is like beauty. It is in the mind of the beholder. If beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, order and disorder is lodged "in the beholder's growing understanding". But while beauty is always a subjective thing, order is "a precise and powerful instrument in the tool chest of science".

The man who converted the intuitive concept "order" and "disorder" into quantitative entities was Ludwig Boltzmann, an Austrian physicist. More than a century ago Boltzmann made the astonishing claim -- which history proved right -- that entropy (the gradual process whereby temperature differences tend to even out) is "molecular disorder", and that the law of increasing entropy can be interpreted as "the tendency for things to become more disorderly".

The conceptual bridge that enabled Boltzmann to connect the quantitative term "entropy" to the intuitive concept of disorder was the idea of probability. Boltzmann observed that in any collection of molecules an orderly arrangement is improbable, and so it is assigned low entropy. On the other hand, a messy, disorderly arrangement is common and probable, and accordingly it is assigned high entropy. Today, schoolchildren learn the bland maxim that "order" is low entropy, and "disorder" is high entropy.

But to physicists, von Baeyer said, "the more probable state is more disorderly". This means that in the natural course of events my office has the tendency to become more disordered. Order can be restored, to be sure, and entropy lowered, but only at the expense of energy on the part of my wife or daughter.

On the basis of this understanding, it can be said that if disorder is the natural tendency of things, then order can be achieved only at a certain cost. The greater the magnitude of order we aspire, the greater the cost. So what is this cost? And are we capable and willing to pay it?

In terms of social relations, the cost is the willingness and capability for self-restraint. Only societies with a high capability for self-restraint will be able to generate and maintain order. Societies with a low capability for self- restraint will never be able to achieve order. In this kind of society social entropy, that is the social equalization process or the society's desire to eliminate discrepancies, will remain high.

Von Baeyer introduced two concepts in his article which are very useful for understanding our society. These two concepts are "apparent order (or disorder)", and "hidden disorder (order)".

What is "apparent order"? The example from physics used by von Baeyer is the smooth and shiny face of the blank portion of a compact disc. He called this "the embodiment of featureless order". But under a microchip "that level plane becomes an unruly heap of atoms piled higgledy-piggledy like pebbles on the beach". What we have here is hidden disorder behind apparent order.

On the other hand, a hologram recorded on a photographic plate "looks like a jumble of splotches and whirls, devoid of pattern, shape or order". Yet, laser light shining through it "creates a nifty 3-D image of the Taj Mahal, revealing the order hidden under apparent disorder".

So, what did the recent general election reveal about our society? Did we see hidden order under apparent disorder, or hidden disorder under apparent order? Or was it simply disorder?

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.

Window: Societies with a low capability for self-restraint will never be able to achieve order. In this kind of society social entropy, that is the social equalization process or the society's desire to eliminate discrepancies, will remain high.