George Will Loves to Argue About America: The octogenarian columnist has a lot to say about happiness and history in the United States.

• Author: Gillespie, Nick
• Position: American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020

AFTER 80 YEARS of life and roughly 6,000 newspaper columns, you might think George Will would be tired of arguing. But "arguing about the nature of the country is as American as frozen apple pie with a slice of processed cheese," the Washington Post columnist says. "So let's argue."

Facts, of course, are important for arguing, and Will prides himself on the number of facts that fill his opinion writing. He frequently visits the deep well of history to make a point. Problems arise, though, in cases where at least one side gets the facts wrong, as with The New York Times' 1619 Project, or has no facts at all to support its position, as with Donald Trump's claims about the 2020 election.

Will's newest book is American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020 (Hachette Books), a collection of columns that covers everything from the Great Recession through what he calls the crybaby presidency of Donald Trump. Of special interest are his columns drawing complicated lessons from the World War II era, when the country triumphed over authoritarianism and genocide abroad even as it practiced racial apartheid at home.

Will's love of America is unabashedly patriotic, but it's never jingoistic or untroubled by tough historical truths. For almost everything happening today, he thinks, there is a historical parallel to learn from, whether it's election conspiracy theories or President Joe Biden's legislative efforts to dramatically expand the role of the government in American life.

In September, Will spoke with Reason's Nick Gillespie via Zoom about happiness, totalitarianism, conspiracy theories, and the importance of learning from history.

Reason: Let's talk about this concept of the "unruly torrent." What do you mean by that, and why is that a kind of controlling image for this passel of interesting columns that you've collected?

Will: Well, it's unruly in the sense that it is a torrent. That is, most of reality is not governed. Most of the time that's a very good thing. It's been well said that the essence of the Bible reduced to one sentence is, "God created man and woman and promptly lost control of events."

Those of us with a libertarian streak--some streaks broader than others, but mine is broad enough--believe that things being out of control is exactly what we want. We want a spontaneous order: up-from-the-bottom creativity rather than down-from-the-top command structures. However, events can be unruly and turbulent and dangerous as well as constructive. And I think we're seeing the dangerous side in the last period that my book covers.

Do you think there is something inherent in the American DNA where we cannot stay happy? There's that great scene in Key Largo, the Humphrey Bogart movie, where Rocco, the bad guy played by Edward G. Robinson, is basically asked, "What do you want?" And he says, "I want more. I want more." It seems as if, among our insatiable appetites, we're never very happy for very long.

Yeah. That's what someone called the joyless pursuit of joy. I'll match your pop culture reference with one of my own. Long ago there was a radio show called Fibber McGee and Molly. And Molly would say to her husband Fibber, "If it makes you happy to be unhappy, then be unhappy."

There's a certain kind of American who's not happy unless he or she is furious these days. Indignant, set upon, aggrieved. It's worse than usual.

It's totally bipartisan, too. Or not bipartisan, but across the political and ideological space.

Absolutely. Donald Trump sort of perfected and became the avatar of crybaby conservatism. "Everyone's picking on me: the media, Hollywood, academia, etc."

Pity the billionaire. Right?

Exactly. And the left today feels set upon by big corporations and money--other than George Soros' money and politics and all that stuff. So whining is the national anthem these days.

One of the themes of your columns is that politics obviously is important, but it cannot be most of what we're doing or how we address most of our problems. It's just not up to the task.

Yes. And that is totalizing politics. If the personal is political, everything is politics. And that's the definition of totalitarianism.

A mistake people commonly make about totalitarian societies is they say, "In a totalitarian society, you're not allowed to participate in politics." No, no. In a totalitarian society, you can't not participate in politics.

I remember when I first entered East...