3/24/2023 0 Comments Words ending in archyWords carry both literal and contextual meanings, and in this instance context is everything. "Anarchy" clearly doesn't just mean "no government" per se. The Greeks were familiar with government, and have a separate word, which literally means no-government: "acracy". A society organised horizontally instead of vertically, wherever possible and practical. Because that's what individual autonomy really is, the absence of an imposed or coercive authority structure. Anarchism is a political theory of how to eliminate command structures from society. Literally it means "no rulers".Īnarchy represents personal sovereignty and the autonomy of the individual. Contextually it means "an-ARCHy": "no command structure". This is the same root used in words such as "hierARCHYy", "monARCH", and "oligARCHY". The word anarchy isn't spelled "anarchos" though, which would literally mean "no chiefs", instead it's derived separately from the root "arch" meaning "structure. What it doesn't literally translate to is "state" or "government": the word for that is "cracy". The literal translation of "archos" is "chief", which depending on the context can be interpreted as "boss", "ruler", "King", "commander" etc. The prefix "an" is derivatives of the prefix "a", with the "n" appended for phonetical reasons, the same as we say "an apple" instead of "a apple", because it rolls off the tongue more easily, sounding less stilted. Contextually this can be taken to mean "no", "without", "against", or "in the absence of". The Greek prefix "a" literally applies the meaning "not".
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