Here, in The New Criterion:
'As for the herds of “Je Suis Charlie” marchers in Paris and elsewhere, it is worth noting how very few actual “Charlies” there were. It is one thing to carry a placard. It is another to take a stand by, for example, publishing a caricature of Mohammed.'
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You see, by Roger Kimball's standard, unless I myself engage in a certain form of speech of which he approves, nay requires, I am an enemy of the West and all it stands for. It's not enough that I subscribe to the principle that one has a right to say or publish anything. Unless I actively read it and publish it myself I am not worthy. Kimball's world has no room in it for people who censor themselves out of religious and moral principle, who believe that without such principles there can be no civilization to begin with. Instead I must become a pornographer, I must become a blasphemer, I must join The Party.
Totalitarian ideology never looked so familiar.
