Lmao what? Did you just say that feudalism is a form of anarchy?
If the term were so widely used in such a manner by historians and by experts, surely there's at least one dictionary where you can find a single definition to back you up?
Dictionary.com:
-A state of society without government or law.
-Political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control.
-Lack of obedience to an authority; insubordination.
-Confusion and disorder.
Merriam-Webster:
-Absence of government.
-A state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority.
-A utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government.
-Absence or denial of any authority or established order.
-Absence of order.
Oxford Learner's Dictionary (regular one is behind a paywall):
-A situation in a country, an organization, etc. in which there is no government, order or control.
Cambridge Dictionary:
-A situation in which there is no organization and control, especially in society, because there is no effective government.
-A lack of organization and control in a society or group, esp. because either there is no government or it has no power.
I mean, I could keep going, but hopefully by now the point is clear.
Anarchy means a lack of order or government. Nothing more, nothing less.
Nope, feudalism is not a form of anarchy; it still has a centralised state, just a weak one. I don't know how you could look at a society that can have a literal king and say that there is no state there. I'm struggling to imagine that you're actually interested in this topic of conversation in good faith given your antics in response to an extremely simple request to change a single word (would you react the same way if the game used the colloquial, propagandised and informal definition for any other political ideology?), but I'll give it a shot.
Dictionaries are a terrible source for this; if we're discussing historians and experts, they're not consulting Dictionary.com for their definition of political philosophies. If we want to discuss the position of historians and experts, lets consult academic articles written by those experts. If you feel strongly about dictionaries, however, the 'regular one' you refer to when you're discussing Oxford Learner's Dictionary has the following two definitions:
- a state of disorder due to absence or
non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.
- the organization of society on the basis of voluntary cooperation, without political institutions or
hierarchical government;
anarchism.
The second of which neatly refers to the concept we're discussing of a governance body without hierarchy - a stateless society that nonetheless is focused on cooperation, but voluntarily and not by force.
If we go back to some of the most famous writers involved in the foundation of the modern-day theory, we can see Kropotkin wrote in The Conquest of Bread:
Proudhon worked out his idea of Anarchism, and Mutualism, without State interference.
In taking “Anarchy” for our ideal of political organization we are only giving expression to another marked tendency of human progress. Whenever European societies have developed up to a certain point they have shaken off the yoke of authority and substituted a system founded roughly more or less on the principles of individual liberty.
Things are arranged more easily and more satisfactorily without the intervention of the State.
(bolding mine)
It's very clear this is discussing a society without hierarchy or a state, including reference to Proudhon, one of the first writers connected to modern-day anarchism saying the same thing. It's not that there is no order; it's not there there is no governing happening, it's that there is no hierarchical government - the governing that is happening is done by and for the people who live in that area. I don't fully disagree with your definition of "anarchy means a lack of order of government" - by the vast majority of definitions of the government people will give you, that is true, though the lack of order is simply incorrect; I just do not think it supports your argument that the philosophy of anarchy is well-represented by the way it has been used in the Civ series. A final example of the historical usage makes clear what I am saying, written by Errico Malatesta (simply titled Anarchy), who is one of the most well-regarded members of the anarchist tradition:
Anarchists, including this writer, have used the word State, and still do, to mean the sum total of the political, legislative, judiciary, military and financial institutions through which the management of their own affairs, the control over their personal behaviour, the responsibility for their personal safety, are taken away from the people and entrusted to others who, by usurpation or delegation, are vested with the powers to make the laws for everything and everybody, and to oblige the people to observe them, if need be, by the use of collective force.
In this sense the word State means government, or to put it another way, it is the impersonal abstract expression of that state of affairs, personified by government: and therefore the terms abolition of the State, Society without the State, etc., describe exactly the concept which anarchists seek to express, of the destruction of all political order based on authority, and the creation of a society of free and equal members based on a harmony of interests and the voluntary participation of everybody in carrying out social responsibilities.
Anarchism is an ideology interested in the removal of the state, and not an ideology dedicated to removing any semblence of order, shared obligations towards the community, or other things represented in both Civilization and the way you're using the term.
My repeated use of the term State here is a by-product of referencing older anarchist texts; modern-day anarchism has involved writers like Murray Bookchin defining it in a slightly more broad way, such as his summary of previous work in his book The Ecology of Freedom:
My book Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971) pioneered this vision. Composed of essays dating from 1964, it addressed itself more to hierarchy than class, to domination rather than exploitation, to liberatory institutions rather than the mere abolition of the State, to freedom rather than justice, and pleasure rather than happiness.
Despite this broadening of the term, the fundamental principle of the concept is the same - it is an ideology that pushes for a world without hierarchies, where people work together voluntarily to look after all.
If one wants a modern definition, a collection of thoughts by experts in the field, then there's The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought, published a few years ago, which defines anarchism as:
Anarchy is a social condition free not of rules but of rulers—and so especially, but not only, of states. Anarchism is the project of doing without rulers
In fact, they even explicitly address the misconception that is the topic of this discussion:
The popular identification of anarchy with chaos makes sophisticated interpretations of the topic—interpretations that see anarchy as kind of social order rather than as an alternative to it— especially interesting
As to your point raised in your most recent post which I just saw, that anarchy is not the goal of anarchism, that is just self-evidently incorrect; for one, look at the quotes above and you will find that anarchists and those writing on it are constantly using the word anarchy to refer to their goals. Secondly, it definitionally cannot be true; anarchism is the political ideology that advocates for anarchism, it is nonsensical to say that "the vast majority of people who call themselves anarchists don't actually want anarchy". All of this is to say that I find if frustrating, as someone who obviously has read a decent amount of anarchist literature and finds the ideology interesting, that the term is used in its propagandized manner in Civilization; it is not a huge deal, but I would rather the term be changed to something more reflecting the concept they're modelling in the game. I think most people would feel the same for an ideology they have spent time investigating; if Communism were simply "Evil Dictator Kills People For Fun", or Capitalism were simply "Evil Businessman Kills People For Fun" people would be frustrated by the usage of the term, but anarchy being "Evil Collective Ruins Society For Fun" being critiqued gets this level of pushback - it's frustrating to see. I'm going to stop writing now, as this is already a very long post, but this highlights the flaws of dictionaries when applied to something as complicated as an ideology, in my opinion - they're simple and reductive definitions performed to simplify a complicated topic down to a sentence or two, typically written by people without significant expertise in the topic. Unironically, wikipedia is likely to give a better summary of most political ideologies than dictionary.com will.
it doesn't even square for cultural victory.
