For Love of Chaos, My Viking Binge & Wrecking Ball Politics
During the first Trump administration, my reading tastes took a decisive dark turn. Instead of the lyrical literary novels I was usually drawn to, I went on a Viking binge.
It started with Bernard Cromwell’s The Saxon Stories, upon which the acclaimed BBC series “The Last Kingdom” is based. It continued with Judson Roberts’ The Strongbow Saga, and Giles Kristian’s Raven Trilogy.
The question puzzling me then was why I was turning toward such violent reads? What was it that drew me to them and kept me reading? Why this love of chaos?
I eventually found at least a partial answer in one of Kristian’s books, when the young Viking Raven muses on his own “love of chaos.” During a life-threatening moment when absolute silence was needed to keep death from descending and destroying his crew, part of him wanted to cry out and “turn that still night into seething madness.” Part of him wanted to “break through the thick ice of that mute terror, for even chaos would be better than waiting, than expecting the fire to reach out of the night and eat your flesh.”
Perhaps we’ve all felt a bit of that “love of chaos” at some time in our lives. Felt in the face of some extreme danger a wild giddy urge—to run the car off the edge of a dark winding road, to step off the edge of the cliff into the wild-blue thrill of free-fall. Perhaps all extreme sport enthusiasts harbor a bit of this in their hearts when attempting their death-defying stunts. The mad desire to push past the edge of all reason into a wild unknown.
Maybe my turn toward these violent reads was a dormant “love of chaos,” the urge to experience, if only vicariously, that death-defying thrill. To travel with these warriors into a dark unknown as they risk death and destruction in a daring quest for gold and glory. To risk all to see what great gain may stand on the other side. Or not.
I can’t help seeing this “love of chaos” playing out on the political stage today in the “wrecking-ball” mentality of Trump’s cabinet picks, and in those who voted for him. Their impatience with restraint, nuance, diplomacy, rule of law, and what they see as political correctness. The wild urge to rip it apart, burn it all down, and see what rises out of the ashes. They see Trump as wielding the wrecking ball that will destroy the status quo in the wild hope that out of such chaos will come gold and glory.
In certain seemingly hopeless situations, throwing caution to the wind has a strong appeal. The desperate hope is that chaos itself will become the cauldron out of which a new, better world will emerge.
This urge toward chaos has strong a strong corollary in nature, in the violent upheavals that impose a new order: The shifting Teutonic plates that broke apart to create the continents and seas that sustain life today. The glaciers that ripped away vast chunks of earth to carve out spectacular canyons and riverbeds. The wild-fire that brings so much destruction, yet germinates new seeds for future forests. The list goes on.
Out of chaos the dancing star is born. So sang the poet.
Perhaps this love of chaos is etched into our DNA. We can’t escape it, but we can try to understand it, in ourselves and others.
I’m hoping our better angels will prevail in the end, that by the time the 2026 and 2028 elections roll around those who voted for Trump will have tired of the chaos. But in the meantime, it’s important to try to understand what gives rise to these desperate tendencies. To not make the mistake of thinking we are above it all, that only the others, the so-called “deplorables,” have such dark urges.
Hate, racism, xenophobia, terrorism–-if we look deep enough into our own hearts and minds we will find the seeds of each, whether lying dormant or on fertile ground. We have to see this, and understand it in ourselves, before we can understand it in others. And learn to rein it in.
Young Raven learned to rein in his urge toward chaos that dark and deadly night, and he and his companions lived to fight again for gold and glory. Learning when to let our wilder urges move us forward, and when to rein them in is what will move all of us closer to our own common goals, whether they be of gold and glory, or peace and prosperity in a kinder world.
Thank you for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.
Have you ever been on a Viking binge? How about a Breaking Bad or Sopranos binge?
Why has humanity been drawn to these so-called strong men throughout the ages? Is it fascination with power? Or a love of chaos?
Perhaps it’s desperation. Or fear. Or a morbid sense of curiosity.
If we tear it all apart, what will come next? How will this story end?
Great piece, Deborah. I enjoy chaos in art—for example, the chaotic beauty of Danica Lundy's paintings, where every square centimeter has something etched into it. Or the chaos of free-form experimental jazz like Sun Ra Arkestra. Both are examples of creative minds exploring deep into their questioning of what they wish to say and express. They are taking creative risks and laying it out there for all of us to see that there are no bad ideas in art; it is the execution of the expressive release of that idea that every artist strives to perfect.
But when it comes to chaos that causes real-world harm and damage, that is the chaos that I wish humans were more willing to stand up and stop. Silence is complicit, and that includes the voting booth. What is done is done. It is now out of our control. That said, I hope people do not remain silent when the chaos does start to trickle and eventually rain down on us all.
It would not be straining the bounds of credibility to suggest that the 'Vikings' did more to change the identity of Northern Europe than the Roman Conquest. When news began emerge of a Viking raid on the monastic community on Lindisfarne, in 793 AD, the chief reaction was astonishment. No body believed that such a raid could have been mounted from the sea and nobody believed that anyone would dare to desecrate a Christian community. With the Vikings, all bets were off. The rules had changed. Forever.
The danger in the present case is to see statehood as a recognisable geographical polity or the domain of a dictator. In other words, Trump is not America and America is not Trump. Trump is an idea. The Vikings were not a geographical polity either, they were an idea - one that permeated Northern Europe and beyond. In a world that is virtually without boundaries, sovereignty is no longer a local issue. It's gone global. Sovereignty currently rests with a global elite who have decided, against the common will of their people, to ignore genuine concerns about immigration, morality and security.
Trump is no more of a fixed individual entity than the Vikings. Trump is an idea, encased, for the moment, in an individual. But he is a metonym for a particular movement; like Boudicca, like Rosa Parks, like Admiral Nelson, like Churchill, like George Washington; one that is sweeping the globe. Trump is born out of denial. A denial to recognise the failure of governments to deal with the threat of mass uncontrolled or illegal immigration and its impact on society. There is also the issue of societal decadence and the hegemony of a nihilist, self-serving elite.
Vikings, as some have said, are not so much a recognisable race as a job description. 'Job Description' has also been used to describe the Constitution of the US - 'a job description by the American people that lays out the goals and responsibilities of the newly formed government' (bridgew.edu) The tectonic plates are indeed on the move. There is a job to be done. Chaos will ensue. Trump has a shelf life, but the profound global changes that are now recognisable by almost everybody will be felt for centuries.