![\"charlie\"](\"https:\/\/openclipart.org\/image\/300px\/svg_to_png\/211566\/jesuischarlie.png\")
<\/a>I had an older\u00a0professor in Bible college who was responsible for teaching survey courses through the Old Testament. You don\u2019t have to be a seminary veteran to imagine where such classes usually reside on the \u201cMost Thrilling Lectures\u201d chart. My professor knew this, and so enjoyed bringing his sleepy classes back to\u00a0life with one-liners. My favorite was one that he apparently used every year: \u201cMost Bible college students don\u2019t give a damn about reading the Bible. You know how I know this? Because right now,\u00a0most of this class is more offended at the word I just used than what I said about them.\u201d<\/p>\n
I love that line, and here\u2019s one reason (among several): It illustrates the reliably true principle that when given the choice whether\u00a0to take offense at the truly offensive or at the meaninglessly offensive, people tend to choose the latter. My professor\u2019s barb came from experience with students who, while careful to voice objection to every salty word or off-color story, never thought to protest or argue\u00a0generalizations like that one. What those students chose to take offense at demonstrated what they valued, and in that case, it wasn\u2019t the right thing.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Ross Douthat published a brief commentary <\/a>on the Charlie Hebdo<\/em> murders.\u00a0Douthat considered some principles about the logic and propriety of religious blasphemy in a democratic society and concluded that media criticism of Charlie Hebdo<\/em> for inflammatory content misses the point:<\/p>\n In this sense, many of the Western voices criticizing the editors of Hebdo have had things exactly backward\u2026they\u2019ve criticized the paper for provoking violence by being needlessly offensive and \u201cinflammatory\u201d (Jay Carney\u2019s phrase), when the reality is that it\u2019s precisely the violence that\u00a0justifies<\/em> the inflammatory content. In a different context, a context where the cartoons and other provocations only inspired\u00a0angry press releases and furious blog comments, I might sympathize with the FT\u2019s Tony Barber when he writes that publications like Hebdo \u201cpurport to strike a blow for freedom when they provoke Muslims, but are actually just being stupid.\u201d \u2026But if publishing something might get you slaughtered and you publish it anyway, by definition you are<\/em> striking a blow for freedom, and that\u2019s precisely the context when you need your fellow citizens to set aside their squeamishness and rise to your defense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I think Douthat is (once again) on point here. Let\u2019s imagine that on Tuesday morning I was familiar with Charlie Hebdo<\/em> (I wasn\u2019t) and disapproved of their crude caricatures and mockery. If you asked me, I would probably say that such content is bad taste and\u00a0strangles the climate of mutual respect that is crucial for pluralistic societies. What I wouldn\u2019t have said on Tuesday is that the magazine is recklessly endangering the lives of its employees. That possibility would have never occurred to me, at least realistically, because France, like the United States, has a free press, and countries with a free press do not instinctively brace for terrorism and mass homicide whenever a publication\u00a0offends someone. Terrorism is terror precisely because it is unforeseeable and incompatible with how we think about life with freedom.<\/p>\n Assuming I\u2019m reading Douthat correctly, he is insisting that this instinct of nonviolence, this assumption that a free press will not be met with domestic terrorism, is as important to preserve for liberty as the free press itself. It is one thing to have been offended at Charlie Hebdo\u2019s<\/em> cartoons (as many reasonable people probably were\/are); it is quite another to imply that the magazine, and France for that matter, should\u00a0have known that blasphemy + offense\u00a0\u2014> murder. The moment that a civilization accepts that logic, freedom has taken a step towards the door. If the presence of irreverent establishments like Charlie Hebdo<\/em> strengthens a culture\u2019s conviction that\u00a0thought is\u00a0absolutely free and violent reactions to it\u00a0are not only illegal but alien to the social contract, then those establishments must be publicly affirmed.<\/p>\n In a brief Twitter exchange with Douthat, my friend Matthew Anderson expressed doubts that a Christian could say from conviction that religious blasphemy is ever \u201cnecessary,\u201d since it\u2019s not something a Christian could ever in good conscience actually do.<\/p>\n @DouthatNYT<\/a> @michaelbd<\/a> I think this puts the dilemma very clearly, Ross. It also makes me think that your \"needs to be said\" line simply\u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 Matthew Lee Anderson (@mattleeanderson) January 8, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n