Abstract
ABSTRACT: This essay argues that the anarchy of Odonian society depends upon the “mediation” afforded by techne . The social organism is a tool that enables Odonians to cultivate reflective relationships on mediation, and hence with each other. Odonian society is a “mediated anarchy.” Shevek’s corrective to the Odonian social organism is to re-center individual existential experience in the use of tools. The essay traces the novel’s roots in debates of determinism and freedom in evolutionary biology and media technologies, borrowing Peter Kropotkin’s anarchist communism. The essay ends with a discussion of the insights Shevek’s philosophy provides into media theory.