Order

Order may refer to:

• Order as the basis of every creative civilisation, because it disciplines man’s anarchistic animal nature through its political and cultural harmonies.
  • Order is unacceptable if it’s not disciplinary, educative, selective — if it’s purely repressive in service to a frozen elite. Any notion of order needs, though, to be treated with caution, for it can be stimulating or enervating, a source of vigour or of sclerosis. There is no order without a project, without enthusiasm, without a movement. Order is not simply repressive (the American syndrome), but a form of support, an attraction, a disciplined constitution of a common ideal. An authentic order is found in the community of homogeneous, self-disciplined people, animated by the spirit of Aristotelian philia, friendship, and spontaneous solidarity. Order and harmony go together. In the European tradition, order isn’t a static state, but the organisation of a shared becoming.
• Order as a group of people united in a formal way such as a fraternal society or a community under a religious rule especially one requiring members to take solemn vows
• Order as a badge or medal of such a society, also a civil or military decoration