Order Born of Chaos and the Trust Destroyed by the Powerful

In today’s world, the concept of security has taken on a meaning far beyond military literature. The understanding of security associated with states has given way to efforts to ensure the security of individuals, societies, communities and global life.

At the same time, serious deviations have also appeared in the traditional understanding of “individual security”.

We now live in a world where, along the chain of individual, society, state, world and space, not only the security of life but also quality of life and status anxiety are perceived as “security problems”.

Nobody intends to postpone, defer or hand over their privileges. Giving up one’s rights, meanwhile, is perceived as, so to speak, a “stupid” attitude.

The Happiness of the Other

The happiness of “the other” takes on the character of something that threatens, restricts or provokes our own expectations of individual happiness.

How does this happen?

It is genuinely hard to understand.

I think we will be able to explain it by laying the ethical problems of the world we live in on the table.

We can do so by turning over in one part of our minds the butterfly effect theory and in the other the story of the man who throws starfish from the beach back into the water.

Strange but True: The Perception of Abstract Threats

On the other hand, we are also faced with the strange notion of fighting abstract threat perceptions for the sake of building concrete “security”.

The postmodern time we are still living in has made many concepts abstract by rendering them “strange” and “blurred”.

Accepting these “abstract” concepts, with the new meanings they have acquired, as unerring guides in our lives inevitably carries us to the point of alienation, othering and deviance that Adorno pinpointed with his aphorism “Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.”

In the face of concrete threats we can multiply our methods of resistance with a partly traditional and partly modern approach.

But what about abstract threats?

With this question, we must note the following assessment:

It is no longer really possible to travel safely through the affective, abstract and uncertain world of perceptions. Instead, we must produce thought and develop policy by taking into account conceptual frameworks of facts that have at least taken on some flesh and blood.

I think this will be a sounder choice for giving both our individual and our social understanding of security a useful character.

The Search for Security in an Unbalanced World

In fact, the question that should have been asked at the start was this: In a world whose balances have been turned upside down, is it possible to take entirely correct steps towards building individual and universal security?

My answer to this question is clear: Yes.

I think a workable method for making progress on this path is to multiply efforts to build a healthy foundation for thought.

The Security Problem Caused by the Powerful

Research requires a dedication that goes beyond chronological history-writing. I think it is important for those who think about security issues to record their thoughts by speaking from within life and to strive to develop approaches that make our lives safe in every respect.

When those in power turn their eagerness to remain in office into an inexhaustible ambition, what emerges is a security problem that concerns the whole of society.

Yet sadly, the crowds who keep up their fanaticism for power through an ideological conditioning with no clear limits are not aware of this security problem.

Because there is a chaos that nobody wants made visible, and an order arising from this chaos.

And the powerful who build this order of chaos and turn this wheel whenever they need to stand before us as a security problem in their own right.

Rights, Law, Justice

Not willing to stay silent and swallow the unlawful practices they are subjected to.

We must not forget that we owe a debt to people from every part of society who refuse to bow to injustice and strive to stand upright.

Everyone who strives in the struggle for rights, law and justice deserves at least a round of applause.

It is up to us to support the struggle of these conscientious people at the top of our voices, without hiding behind the walls of ideology.

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Note: This article is an updated version of the article we published on 17 June 2021 under the title “Başlarken” (Getting Started).