It is, on occassion, necessary to propose a new
* word. Today I offer you Disnarchy -- as in
Disney anarchy, the Disneyfied concept of an anarchic state. And what does this term imply? That anarchy will somehow be a pleasant, hunky-dory, even jovial situation. That the state of governmentlessness is one wherein the people not only get along swell, but occasionally break out into collective, spontaneous (yet seemingly thoroughly-choreographed)
song and dance numbers. That living without government would be like living in a Disney village where everything good continues to function just as it does now, but everything bad or discomforting or unpleasant is banished to the pages of history.
I exaggerate. Still, as much as I sympathize with the desire of anarchists to be free of the yoke of government interference in their lives, I am not so rosy-eyed as to imagine that anarchy will equate with collegiality and peacefulness. An anarchic life will be a hard one. It will be a life of individual
toil to meet individual
needs, or at most those of many small and cohesive groups each looking out most of all for their own. That is fine, indeed that is quite possibly for the best, for such a life brings into sharp focus the distinction between needs and simply wants. But existence in such a state by itself does not quell the human instinct towards violence and domination. Such things as
serial killers and
child molesters are not products of our modern way of life, but are simply magnified by it. In a world of true anarchy, such creatures will still prowl, but more invisibly so given the slackening of the bonds imposed by a governing structure.
None of this is intended to indict the dream of shedding the burdens of a modernity wherein
bureaucrats and
businessmen conspire to mould every facet of our lives to suit their narrative and increase their own wealth. It is, instead, simply a caution that 'better times' and 'harder times' are not necessarily opposing directions, but that the drive to live in times where living itself is harder might well make up for the recapture of freedom, and so make these harder times the better ones. And so, a dream of living easy and free is no reason to support anarchy, for there is no marriage of that governing ideal with the lifestyle sought. Living hard and free? Now that's a cause for anarchy.
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*Confession: I initially had thought this actually was a word already, wedding the prefix dis- (as in disengage, discourage, disembowel) to anarchy. I really, really thought there'd be such a thing. So now there is.