I’m not really sure where this blog post is going to go; one of the reasons that I decided to have a website is so that I can write things on it – even if it is intermittent. They writing isn’t so much about sharing my ideas – though anyone reading it is welcome – but more as an aid to my thinking. That’s probably why I post so much about my research work; I find it’s a way to work out some of the kinks in my lines of thought.
That’s not what this post is about. Instead, it’s something that came to me while I was tinkering in my shed. I know that it’s a particularly middle-aged male kind of thing to do – to tinker in one’s shed – but it’s something I’m more than willing to embrace. Besides, I like it. I’ve been interested in iFixit and the right to repair movement for a little while. Tangentially, it’s related to few of my interests – social movements, active citizenship and education technology, without really every doing more than touching on my ideas. But I do have an iFixit poster up in my shed, and one of the thing that it says is that repairing things is ‘war on entropy’. It’s stuck with me – and returned at odd moments – because I think entropy is perhaps one of the most fascinating ideas I’ve ever come across.
Entropy has its roots in thermodynamics, I believe; it’s certainly where I first come across it, and it’s closely linked to notions of chaos. But basically, the idea is that systems move from order into disorder and chaos over time. Often, we talk about things ‘falling’ into chaos. And I think that’s an interesting choice of word sin and of itself – why do we talk about ‘falling’ when we talk about chaos, as if that’s something bad? Well, of course, to our ordered lives and ways of thinking, it is. But chaos is a good thing, too, right? After all, order is stasis – and stasis means there’s no possibility for change. And if you’re committed to social change, then that means you’re naturally opposed to order, doesn’t it? So why do we feel so afraid of a bit of chaos?