Timothy Stanley

I Am Not Charlie Hebdo

January 9, 2015 timothywstanley@me.com

Healthy societies, in other words, don’t suppress speech, but they do grant different standing to different sorts of people. Wise and considerate scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard with bemused semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of opprobrium and disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have to earn it through their conduct. The massacre at Charlie Hebdo should be an occasion to end speech codes. And it should remind us to be legally tolerant toward offensive voices, even as we are socially discriminating.

David Brooks, "I Am Not Charlie Hebdo" - http://nyti.ms/1yHtC90

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