For centuries philosophers have grappled with the question of how society should be organized. The overarching issues involve the maintenance of order and the distribution of political power. While the answers to these knotty problems varied greatly from Plato to Burke, there was a belief that these concerns were essential lineaments in social organization. Even many of the 19th-century anarchists conceded as much.

However, in the late 60’s youthful adherents of a new social order suspended rational judgment. They wanted a secular nirvana without the imposition of order and power. While the political legacy of the late 60’s and early 70’s is arguably insignificant, Denmark allowed its disenchanted free spirits to establish the “Free State of Christiana,” to serve as an example of the logic of that overheated period.

At the outset, this community in the heart of Copenhagen was based on certain well-understood principles: peace, tolerance, no hard drugs, no weapons, and no cars. This was to be a “separate state” unaffected by what transpired outside its gates and unreliant on the Danish police force. With 16 years of unfettered experience under its belt, it is apparent that Christiana is a slum with all the attendant problems of any marginal urban area. Drug addiction, alcoholism, disease, violence, crime, and racism are rife. The hawking of drugs is done openly in a bazaar called Pusher Street, one of Europe’s great drug malls. Racial incidents occur regularly, often with antagonists using guns. The community’s lake—once bucolic—has been converted into an open sewer in defiance of the avowed belief in environmental purity.

By any standard, including those used by youthful adherents, Christiana is the result of a failed vision. Henrik Gottlieb, treasurer of the residents’ council, contends that the community is a “social garbage can.” About 100 of the original settlers have banded into regional councils grudgingly applying rules on a community that claimed it didn’t need any. Rent, which was strictly forbidden, has surfaced in the form of under-the-table payments for desirable flats. Some of the remaining gentle folk wish to extend the ban on heroin and cocaine to hashish and marijuana, even though there isn’t an enforcement mechanism. Many residents also claim there is a need for regular police patrols.

In every respect, Christiana is a Hobbesian world in which mankind revisits the state of nature. The freedom sought by these New Age idealists has become license and crime; the desire for a society free of rules has led to self-indulgence and a call for restraint; the removal of the police has fostered private revenge. Here is a microcosm of a community unbound by law or conscience, metamorphosized into a living hell.

Living without external rules or internal inhibitions, the citizens of the Free State of Christiana fell prey to barbarism and sinful temptations. That this should be the case is hardly new under the sun. However, for a time it was believed that human perfectibility could be achieved through the elimination of controls, conventions, and norms. The denizens of Christiana have learned to their despair that salvation isn’t reached through dopeinduced euphoria. There isn’t an airlift to Eden, only a bumpy ride on the highway of life.

Nonetheless, avatars of the new age suggest that while Christiana failed, it is a failure of personalities, not structure. They point to the white power groups, vagrants, and drug addicts who gravitated to the community. But they will not (perhaps cannot) accept that their conception was hopelessly flawed. In some respects this condition is reminiscent of the aging hippie who blames his confusion and poverty on a bad marriage, bad dope, and an insensitive government.

There is something pathetic about these citizens of Christiana. They got what they wanted. Their dream of a self-styled community based on their fantasies was realized. I am reminded of Nietzsche’s claim that what one strives for in youth is achieved with abundance in old age. The anarchists got their anarchy and all the social despair that goes with it. The orthodox libertarians got their freedom and license as well. The Marxists got the free exchange of goods and commodities, only to discover that markets are needed for sensible and equitable distribution of the fruits of production.

Rarely do we have a chance to observe the consequences of a social experiment. Christiana represents this kind of opportunity. Unfortunately, news media coverage has focused on the idiosyncrasies in this experiment and the unique character of Denmark, instead of on the assumptions on which this community was organized. Perhaps that is as it should be. Many people associated with the media are products of the same Weltanschauung that produced Christiana. Their illusions—like those of youthful idealists in Denmark—die hard.