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Law and Anarchy...If laws cannot respond to every social need, obviously individuals must have some remit to adapt their behavior. This can be accommodated by ensuring that laws only address egregious transgressions, leaving individuals to negotiate most of their interactions independently. Unfortunately, this leaves the privileged with the advantage. One approach to this reality is to vote with our feet: spend a fair amount of time analyzing the behavior of the privileged, and associate with those appearing most reasonable in their conduct. Unfortunately, few of us have the privilege of association sufficient to form reliable opinions. The other response is anarchy. There is a deep philosophical tradition associated with anarchy as a policy. It is rooted in the simple axiom that creativity and problem solving require change. Anarchy fails when rapid change overwhelms the capacity of our associates to support our conduct. If everyone does what seems right on the spur of the moment, our efforts lose coherency, and we cannot be assured even of seeing the simplest actions through to completion. If the grocery workers decide to strike because management took the afternoon off to go golfing, can we guarantee our children dinner? European Fascism was in part a reaction to this kind of experience. But much good can result from principled anarchy. In general, our great artists and social evangelists subscribe to these methods. |
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