Maddenation
Rage for Order
I actually wrote this the other day, but I’ll post it now. I think it’s a small example of how everyday stuff can turn into thought on interesting subjects. And it’s a slight bit newsy, so it may satisfy the whole family. Onward:
I just came in from hanging clothes on the line to dry. I made sure to hang my underwear together, then an undershirt next, then a t-shirt of mine, then Karina’s shirts, then the kids’ pajamas—Pato’s pants & shirt, Adi’s pants & shirt—then Pato’s sweatpants, then his shirts, then Adi’s shirts. Then I hung the kids’ underwear, Adi’s first, then Pato’s, in order of their trim colors: red, blue, black, red (so as to begin a repeating pattern). Partly this will help later on with folding and putting away because I can group clothes according to their owners, get them all folded, then put them away at once instead of either having to fold all the clothes first or having to put things in the same drawer more than once. But otherwise, what’s the practical use of such maniacal order? Why am I like this?
This is my “rage for order,” a phrase I’ve heard (it’s a Queensrÿche album for instance), but which I don’t know much about. Let me go look it up on the Internet. OK, I’m back. It’s the title of a film about autism with Oliver Sacks, for one thing, thus the connection with mania. Turns out the phrase comes (perhaps not originally? I had suspected Nietzsche) from Wallace Stevens’s poem The Idea of Order at Key West which I had read (for my exams, no less, so I should have been paying attention and noticed and remembered it) and liked. It ends thus:
Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.
I don’t know if that gets me any closer to the meaning of the phrase, except that maybe the phrase itself is self-evident. If words are arbitrary, phrases aren’t. Sometimes a neologistic phrase can transmit its meaning without any background. You hear “rage for order” and you understand it, you feel it is right. You hear a longer phrase—”These are the times that try men’s souls”—and you know that there is no better way to express that thought, no other combination of words in the English language that can do it as well. Of course, that’s what all writing is, in some way, or at least good writing. We put words together in a new way and transmit some new thought unique to us.
By the way, I like Wallace Stevens, even when he’s a little difficult to understand (as in this poem, which is about language and creation, in a general sense). Did you know that he was a lawyer and eventually a vice president of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company? Yep. And he wrote poems on the side.
Patrick • Observations/Quotes • 06/21/03 • 3 comments
Comments
Dad • 06/21/03 • 10:41 AM:Good entry, among other good entries, but this one compels me to comment immediately rather than wait until I have hours of contemplative time to think and compose. The first thought I had was that it is not necessary to order the clothesline as you do. One could set the order later, as the dry clothes are removed. Or later than that, as you suggest, by sorting after folding. Or even later, albeit with more work, by simply moving from room to room as needed and openning drawers multiple times. Order always takes energy (remember entropy?) and there is only one “minimum energy”, so called “reversible” way to produce a given end result.
The second, or if not second, top five, thought I had was how “rage for order” is like “rage against the machine.” Where does that come from? Let me check. OK, I’m back. Must keep this from taking too long. I’m already beyond the time originally allotted. I couldn’t find the direct quote on the internet, but I’m sure it’s in some Luddite thing. Of course, as you must know, Rage Against the Machine is a rock group with their own web site: http://www.ratm.com/. Anyway, machines mostly are used to bring order, so raging against them is the opposite of raging for order. Are they really opposite?
I find I must fight against my own tendency toward excessive order, hence my adage, “Do it now, do it quickly.” What I mean is, don’t over-plan or over-think, just get on with it, and of course, don’t waste time. Yet I often rant and rage against stupidity, or especially the actions of others that reflect lack of awareness or thinking. There’s an optimum here, short of entropic reversibility, that serves our needs best. He who hesitates is lost, but a rolling stone gathers no moss (except I’ve never figured out whether gathering moss is a good or a bad thing). Think before you act, but don’t spend too much time and energy thinking. Rage for order, but don’t rage too long, and be prepared to settle for less-than-perfect order.
Patrick • 06/22/03 • 11:16 AM:How’s that for a monopoly on a phrase? There is so much on the Internet about Rage Against the Machine the band that you can’t find the origin of the phrase. I tried limiting it with words like “original phrase” and stuff, but I still couldn’t get anything more than the band. I cannot yet conclude that the band made it up (or created independently a phrase that is not so original that it couldn’t have been thought up by others as well: Independent Redundancy), but it seems like that may be the case. I’ve even tried to look through some FAQs for the band, which explain the allusions in some of their lyrics, but nothing on the band name.
There’s also, of course, the famous Dylan Thomas poem (a villanelle), which I first read because it was alluded to in a Rush song (“Red Tide” originally, now again in “Sweet Miracle” also):
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And, while we’re free associating, here’s a parallel to Dad’s last sentence in these comments: “Hold on loosely, but don’t let go. If you cling too tightly, you’re gonna lose control” (.38 Special).
WS • 09/08/03 • 9:17 PM:i too was under the impression that the phrase ‘rage for order’ belonged to wallace stephens, but i have recently read (in a very scholarly work) that henry james coined the expression. i was looking for the reference when i found your sight.
W.
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