Order in Chaos

The claim that “people need to believe that order can be glimpsed in the chaos of events,” is relevant to several areas of knowledge. Based upon my own understanding, this claim largely relates to psychology as well as sociology, which both study order when there are extreme amounts of chaos.

In my psychology class last year, we studied social psychology, which is a subfield of psychology that deals with how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by our social interactions with others. Although this doesn’t appear to directly relate to how people find order in chaos, there are many studies where this was investigated. In my opinion, the most prominent of these studies was one conducted by Muzafer Sherriff, known as the “Robber’s Cave Experiment.” The purpose of the Robber’s Cave Experiment was to test the Realistic Group Conflict Theory, which contains three “stages.” The first stage is the idea that if two groups are competing for scarce resources, there is a hierarchical formation within both groups, which ultimately leads to “out group prejudice.” The second part of the stage is that if these two groups are put in competition with each other for the scarce resources, the prejudice which was formed will begin to show to the other members. These two stages don’t seem to pertain much to the idea of finding order in chaos, however the third stage pertains to it a tremendous amount. In the third stage, it is believed that the presence of super-ordinate goals and the chance to work together to get the super-ordinate goal is able to reduce prejudice. This concept of the Realistic Group Conflict Theory applies to the quote adapted from John Gray even more when it is looked at in the context of the experiment.

In the Robber’s Cave Experiment, a simulated summer camp experiment was created. Boys were randomly placed into two different groups, and they were left for a few days to get acquainted with each other. Once this happened, it appeared as though in each group people were being assigned certain roles, and some were looked at as leaders. Then, the two groups of boys were made aware of each other, which is where the chaos began to happen. Middle school boys who are put in competition with each other are definitely chaotic. In this study, the boys were putting each other down, and doing everything they possibly could to win over certain things at the camp. For instance, one main thing that the boys wanted to have control of was a baseball diamond, because whoever had control over this was seen as the better group. Therefore there was a bunch of chaos because both of the groups were competing as they tried to be better than the other one. However, the camp counselors told the boys that the water supply was covered by a rock, and that there was no way that only one group could move the rock alone. This is when stage three of the Realistic Group Conflict Theory comes into play. The boys attempted to move the rock alone, within their own group. More chaos was created, because the boys started to panic as they thought that they would not be able to survive without having any water. Finally, the boys started to listen to what the camp counselors had told them-that the only way they could get this water was if they all worked together. This is when the boys started to see through the chaos and develop a sense of order. They worked together and were able to move the rock as they put their differences aside. Ultimately, this shows that if the right conditions are created, order can be developed even in the most chaotic situations. However, this only applies to young boys in summer camp, so it is important to look at the bigger issues regarding finding order when chaos is at its highest point.

Recently, in my TOK class, a criminologist who studied patterns in homicides visited to talk with the students. In my mind, when I think of a murder, I think of craziness as well as a lot of chaos. The criminologist who visited covered a few of these points, such as how to hide the body, and the chaos that surrounds this. There are so many things that could go wrong with a murder, that he pointed out to us, which makes the whole thought of killing someone way to chaotic to bother with. However, it seems that when a person is investigating a murder, there must be a lot of chaos as well. There are so many things that a criminologist might not have evidence for, which could create problems, especially if they accuse the wrong suspect of committing the homicide. They are potentially dealing with the future life of someone else, who may actually be innocent. Therefore, it seems that the life of a criminologist may be way too complex to even consider, because there are too many possible variables that ultimately could create problems. This was my opinion on criminology, up until the point where Dr, O’Kane, the criminologist, visited our class.

When Dr. O’Kane spoke to our class, he started out by asking us some questions, which seemed a bit ridiculous to the class. For instance, he asked us “what day is a homicide most likely to occur on?” Everyone in our class guessed the wrong day- because it turns out that the most common day for a homicide to occur on is Saturday. He then proceeded to ask us questions about our opinion as to what time was the most prominent for murders to occur at… which was between 9 to 10 o’clock at night. These answers seemed pretty basic and it appeared as though anyone could figure them out if given the time. However, the questions began to get more elaborate, such as where would the murder occur if the person who committed the act was a man versus a woman. Surprisingly the results varied. When a man is committing the murder, it most prominently occurs down the street from a bar. However, if a woman commits the murder- it happens in the kitchen. All of these facts do not seem to have a lot to do with my point- that order can be found in chaos; however, in reality the facts are all about finding order in chaos. Criminologists are able to study the patterns that are related to murders, so that they can gather their evidence to persecute the correct suspect. Despite all of the chaos that goes on with a murder, people study simple statistics and find ways to see order so that in the end the chaos of the murder isn’t as prominent as the important facts. Of course, not everyone is going to agree with this point however, which is why it is important to note the counter claims of an argument such as this.

A person can easily disagree with a criminologist who studies statistics, because the truth of it is that these statistics do not stand alone. Somebody could make the argument that not all homicides occur on Saturday nights, between 9 and 10 at night, which is completely true. However, it is important to consider these statistics when studying homicides, because in the majority of cases, these things are true. The implication of this is that if a homicide doesn’t occur on a Saturday during that specific time period, it might be a bit unusual because it breaks the patters of the norm. However, this just results in the criminologist looking even further into why things were different in that specific case. Thus, it is important to remember that order can be seen even when there are large amounts of chaos. Order is what enables us, as human beings, to be able to live as a human being. Everything in our life is made up of order and patterns. Although the order may be hard to see when there is chaos occurring, we cannot forget that we always will have a sense of order in our lives, and no amount of chaos can change that.

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