The Angry American

Is an angry society an unhealthy one? So we're often told. Feeling angry? Well, then, say those earnest experts who seek to soothe our roiled spirits, calm down. Take a pill. Try yoga. In The New York Times the op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof begs us to "hold the vitriol," which, he worries, "discourages public service." And yet where would America be without its anger? Perhaps still under Colonial rule, if those rowdy upstarts had never tossed British tea into Boston Harbor.

Perhaps still mired in a slave-based economy, if not for the prodding of yes, vitriolic abolitionists. Okay—I'm exaggerating to underscore a point. But the point is worth considering: the presence of anger can indicate a society's moral and political well-being, and its absence can be a worrisome sign of complacency. Indeed, the democratic idea rests on the proposition that the well-placed anger of the citizenry can be an ...