It is frightening and dangerous when bricks replace words as the currency of politics. Riots like the ones that have been taking place in the United Kingdom are damaging to a country’s self-esteem, especially when they reveal racial and communal antagonisms that we like to think we have transcended.
Riots are also, alas, exhilarating both for those who get sucked into the action, and for too many commentators and social-media users following every fresh blow to decency and order with morbid fascination.
But above all, serious riots tend to be consequential. And it is one of liberal democracy’s dirty little secrets that they do sometimes change things for the better.