Illustration by Roy Scott / Ikon Images In László Krasznahorkai’s 1989 novel, The Melancholy of Resistance, set in a small Hungarian town, it is fear of “the collapse into anarchy”, manipulated by political opportunists, that hastens social breakdown. Something similar is happening in the United States. The feeling of crisis, and of the parlous state of democracy, is pervasive. The Covid-19 pandemic witnessed the enormous militarisation of civil society when one fifth of households bought guns in a single year. Many of those who purchased firearms, including anti-gun Democrats, said they were afraid of civil unrest. Today about half of...