Your full-page portrait of Somalia, the wildest land on the planet, touched me more than I would have expected (“A State of Utter Failure,” December 17, 2005). No government. No central bank. Few schools. Few institutions of any kind. And many brigands, pirates, warlords. Many marauding armies. What touched me most is the resilience of the Somalis, who manage to make a living in spite of it all. In fact, there is something quite attractive about a state so, as it were, natural. There is something beguiling about anarchy so complete. Not only does it remind us of the dark ages after the collapse of the Roman empire, but it also offers a palpable model of how things are likely to be if and when the world as we know it collapses again. Enthralling resilience will be the mark of that new world, too. And that makes it almost appealing.