Learn English – A term for a situation when something illegal, unjust, immoral and socially unacceptable becomes a standard pattern of an individual’s behavior

colloquial-languageidiomsword-request

When I was a teen, in a summer camp we enjoyed a sort of game that we played during so-called naptime after the midday meal. Split into pairs, the boys decided who would be horses and who horsemen, then the latter, blindfolded and having a pillow in their hands, mounted their companions and the fight in an absolutely indiscriminate way began. Actually, there were no established rules of that game, just chaotic pillow fight and a lot of fun.

Someone suggested calling it "беспредел" (bespredel), which hit the bull's eye, being a Russian choice word, prison lingo though, for the situation when something not only illegal but also utterly unjust, immoral, socially unacceptable becomes a standard pattern of individual behavior. And it is the English word for the Russian one I'm trying to find, so far fruitlessly. Any suggestions, especially of something informal, slangy will be highly appreciated.

P.S. Trying to clarify my request, I think I should add that technically, the Russian word беспредел is formed by the prefix бес- meaning without and the root -предел- meaning limit, margin. When we talk broadly about беспредел, we mean unlimited and barely if any controlled wrongdoing in different scopes of application. For example, in law it may appear as the travesty of justice, in the army as vicious hazing of young soldiers by older ones, in governance as red tape and bribery, in policing as unjustified cruelty and neglecting the law, and so on. In my example with the game, its name was chosen because of the absence of any rules: you have a pillow and heads to beat with it, what comes next is a total беспредел on the level of the game—one for himself and against everyone else. So lawlessness it may be but only partially because what illegal is done by беспредел is the lower, unseen part of the iceberg which top may look just alright.

Best Answer

Some words you could consider are mayhem and anarchy:

mayhem

  1. a state of rowdy disorder:
    Antagonisms between the various factions at the meeting finally boiled over, and mayhem ensued.

    (Dictionary.com)

anarchy

  1. A state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.
    ‘he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy’ (OLD)

Mayhem seems self-explanatory. I would say anarchy could fit if you played the game without the camp counselors'/directors' permission, or "when they weren't looking".

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