At Charlie Hebdo, blasphemy and freedom of speech are considered venerable, sacred and powerful. For Charlie, there is no difference between good and evil or truth and error. They are all the same.
For the Muslim terrorists, morality also has no meaning. Any act that advances their goal can be done, no matter the consequences.
Consistent with leftist liberal maxims, Charlie attempts to destroy all symbols. Nothing but their opinion is sacred; it is the new absolute. Now Charlie has turned into a symbol–the very thing they mocked and leftists do not find this humorous.
Arthur Goldhammer from Harvard’s Center for European Studies sums things up like this, “It’s an anarchic populist obscenity that aims to cut down anything that would erect itself as venerable, sacred, powerful, etc.… It is a humor that is at heart blasphemous rather than political, and it is a tradition of blasphemy from which it derives.”1 Goldhammer’s correctly assesses the paper’s aim as an egalitarian, anarchical and blasphemous assault against symbols.
Why symbols? A symbol represents an ideal in the metaphysical realm, which is much higher than something’s mere physical value. In destroying the symbolic value, one damages its highest representation. By lampooning something sacred such as the Holy Chair of St. Peter, admiration, respect and fidelity to the Pope is diminished. By blaspheming the sacred, Charlie succeeds in wearing away at this institution of Divine authority, which is the basis of all authority.
In the wake of the horrific Muslim aggression against Charlie Hebdo, the public is faced with a simplistic view of events presented by major news outlets promoting the narrative that one must either agree with the right to blaspheme or Islamic aggression. Both positions miss the underlying issue, which is the systematic destruction of the ideals that gave birth to Christian Civilization. To reduce the event at Charlie Hebdo to a choice of two positions is like having to agree with either the NAZIs or Communist Russia during World War II. They are both wrong.
Islamic terrorism is horrific and cannot be justified, but neither can Charlie Hebdo’s incessant assault on the remnants of Christian civilization.