Obv the massacre at Charlie Hebdo is weighing heavily on me. A couple of thoughts:
- Trying to parse this as “well, satire is OK but they were really really offensive” is bound to fail and the worst kind of victim-blaming.
- There’s an irony here that this attack was clearly at attack at one of the pillars of the West’s Enlightenment values, the freedom of speech. The debate that must spring from this couldn’t be more clear: is political Islam compatible with the core civilizational value of freedom of speech?
- I know that today, I am much more confirmed as a freedom of speech absolutist than ever. In the past I have tried to parse and balance the freedom of speech with other values, thinking there must be an oh-so-Canadian middle way. I’m not so sure about that today. The freedom of speech *is* the freedom to offend, and to blaspheme, and even to hate. And the only reasonable answer to speech one disdains is more speech. Not to silence the other speakers, or writers, or cartoonists. Never to silence them.
#jesuischarlie
