It is obviously deeply disheartening to see arson and looting in Ferguson, Mo. in response to the news that the grand jury sifting through masses of evidence in the shooting of Michael Brown did not indict Officer Darren Wilson. But it’s likely there would have been something very much like this even if Wilson had been indicted. The general excuse for those who are setting the fires and looting the stores is that they are in a state of rage. But if that is so, why would the outrage have been any less if the indictment had been handed down? Such an indictment would have essentially confirmed the presumption that Wilson had shot Brown in cold blood, and that Wilson had felt he could do so because he was a cop. That is the problem with coming up for such excuses for monstrous and uncivilized behavior; they are designed to explain away nihilistic criminality.