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Article: Clarification.(on the use of the word anarchy)
- Article from:
- The American Poetry Review
- Article date:
- July 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 World Poetry, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The most commonly misused words in our language are anarchy, anarchism, and anarchist. Every afternoon on the NPR news I hear these words applied to violence in Kosovo, social disorder in the Congo and Chiapas, scenes of mob uproar at rock concerts in Kalamazoo or Albuquerque, and the like. The situation in the schoolyard after the shooting is always said to be "anarchy." Clearly reporters and announcers have no idea--I mean none at all--of the genesis of these words in ancient philosophy or of how they've been applied in serious political discourse in the western world for the past two hundred years.
An means the inverse. Archy means an organized expression of ...