I'm divided on France. On one hand the old secularist in me from +10 yrs ago cartoons will cry out about freedom of speech. On the other hand it is hard for me to look at the West today and not see a society that is socially ill precisely because nothing is held sacred...

So much of what got us in this mess, was directly caused by the gradual removal of God & Christianity from the centre of our civilization.
We've secularized, atomized and deluded ourselves into believing that free market liberalism and hyper individualism are what built our civ.

We've seen people make a living off insulting the divine, we've commodified rebellion & teen angst and we've numbed ourselves into thinking jokes insulting people's mothers can be light hearted.

Meanwhile in the name of the sacred free market, we've invited many different cultures to live in the West, cultures that hold onto their values and haven't adopted the same mental cancers we pride ourselves in, then act shocked as cultures clash.

The issue here is not with a French teacher or Charlie Hebdo. in their worldview, they did nothing wrong. They definitely didn't deserve to die, but we have to ask ourselves what got us to this point.