Four hundred years ago, the bard saw it coming and saw where it would lead. This is Ulysses’ speech from “Troilus and Cressida” on the order in the universe and what will happen if we embrace disorder instead :
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre 88
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order:
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, 108
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string, 112
And, hark! what discord follows. . .
. . . . . . . . .
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong—
Between whose endless jar justice resides— 120