Order is the planning of

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

and organizing of

resource Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their ...

s, as well as of society. Although order is rarely discussed as a virtue in contemporary society, order is in fact central to improving efficiency, and is at the heart of

time management Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. It involves of various demands upon a person relating to work, ...

strategies such as David Allen's ''

Getting Things Done ''Getting Things Done'' (GTD) is a personal productivity system developed by David Allen and published in a book of the same name. GTD is described as a time management system. Allen states "there is an inverse relationship between things on yo ...

''.

Emergence

The valorisation of order in the early stages of commercialization and industrialisation was linked by R. H. Tawney to Puritan concerns for system and method in 17th-century England. The same period saw English prose developing the qualities

Matthew Arnold Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, lit ...

described as "regularity, uniformity, precision, balance". "Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time" is a saying attributed to

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

in 1730, while he was 20 years old. It was part of his 13

virtue Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards ...

s. A darker view of the early modern internalisation of order and discipline was taken by Michel Foucault in ''The Order of Things'' and ''Discipline and Punish''; but for

Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

love of order both in nature and in the harmonious psyche of the natural man was one of the tap-roots of moral conscience.

Romantic reaction

The Romantic reaction against reason, industry and the sober virtues, led to a downgrading of order as well. In art, spontaneity took precedence over method and craft; in life, the Bohemian call of wildness and disorder eclipsed the appeal of ordered sobriety – as with the cultivated disorganization of the 1960s hippie. "Latter-day attempts such as those of Deidre McCloskey to reclaim the bourgeois virtues like order may be met in some quarters only by laughter."

Sociology

Sociologists, while noting that praise of order is generally associated with a conservative stance – one that can be traced back through

Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...

and

Richard Hooker Richard Hooker (25 March 1554 – 2 November 1600) was an English priest in the Church of England and an influential theologian.The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church by F. L. Cross (Editor), E. A. Livingstone (Editor) Oxford University ...

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

- point out that many taken-for-granted aspects of

social order The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order ...

(such as which side of the road to drive on) produce substantial and equitable advantages for individuals at very little personal cost. Conversely, breakdowns in

public order In criminology, public-order crime is defined by Siegel (2004) as "crime which involves acts that interfere with the operations of society and the ability of people to function efficiently", i.e., it is behaviour that has been labelled criminal ...

reveal everyone's daily dependence upon the smooth functioning of the wider society. Durkheim saw anomie as the existential reaction to the ordered disorder of modern society.

Psychology

Jungians considered orderliness (along with restraint and responsibility) as one of the virtues attributable to the

senex The wise old man (also called senex, sage or sophos) is an archetype as described by Carl Jung, as well as a classic literary figure, and may be seen as a stock character. The wise old man can be a profound philosopher distinguished for wisdom ...

or old man - as opposed to the spontaneous openness of the puer or eternal youth. Freud saw the positive traits of orderliness and conscientiousness as rooted in

anal eroticism Anal eroticism, in psychoanalysis, is sensuous pleasure derived from anal sensations. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, hypothesized that the anal stage of childhood psychosexual development was marked by the predominance of anal erot ...

20th-century examples

Freud himself was a highly organised personality, ordering his life – at work and play – with the regularity of a timetable.

William Osler Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, (; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of phys ...

was another highly successful physician who built his life on a highly organised basis.

Culture

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

wrote of the "blessed rage for order" in ''Ideas of Order'' (1936).Wallace Stevens, ''Collected Poems'' (1984) p. 130

References

External links

{{Wiktionary, order Virtue