I’ve seen numerous comments on social media addressing the selective outrage and grief of those who have expressed feelings about the terrorist attacks in Paris. Some of those posts point out that it’s not just Parisians suffering from terrorism, or that Islamic terrorists don’t represent all Muslims. Arguable points.
Other posts accuse those who mourn the events in Paris of hypocrisy, racism, religious intolerance, and a host of other failings. The latter posters try to shame and guilt-trip us into taking down our pictures of the Eiffel Tower and French flag watermarks on profile pictures.
To the latter I say: Go sit on your collective thumb and rotate.
Paris was attacked because Paris is a symbol. Paris is one of the European cities that gave birth to The Renaissance and The Enlightenment—it was an incubator of philosophical, scientific, political and artistic advances as Europe ascending from 800 years of the Dark Ages. In France, The Enlightenment emphasized individual liberty and religious tolerance, in opposition to the principles of religious dogma and rule by God-ordained monarchies. There was a fundamental shift toward the the embrace of empiricism, scientific rigor, humanism, artistic freedom, and questioning of religious orthodoxy. Paris remains a center of intellectual and artistic freedom—the very stuff that religious zealots hate. The reason it was targeted.
I’m sorry about terrorism born of religious fanaticism everywhere it exists, but when Shia are killing Sunni all across the Middle East, it represents two factions of religious fanaticism and intolerance turning the places where they abide into miserable hell-holes. Yes, it’s appalling that a Russian jetliner was blown up over Egypt. Yes, it’s awful when bombs go off in Beirut and Baghdad. Yes, the mass kidnapping of girls in Nigeria is horrific. But those are not direct attacks on the way of life that I cherish and want preserved for my kids and grandkids.
The terrorist attack in Paris represents a direct assault on the secular values that gave rise to modern France—as stated clearly by ISIS, who regard those values as godless, decadent, and obscene. The founders of the United States were largely children of The Enlightenment, and our historical and cultural ties with France, our oldest friend, run deep.
The rampage in Paris—unlike the blowing up of a Russian jetliner, awful as that was—is an attack by religious zealots on everything that I hold dear within the realm of ideas, as it was intended to be. I’m not going to apologize for its impact on me.
Editor’s note: Steve and his wife have a trip to Paris booked for this coming spring, and they’re not canceling.