‘A Peculiarly French And Savage Tradition’: Adam Gopnik On Charlie Hebdo And The Fine Art Of Blasphemy

“There is a huge space between an insult and a threat, and it isn’t actually that hard to tell one from the other. … Mocking your prophet is not at all like threatening your person. Blasphemy is ridicule directed at an ideology; hate speech encourages violence directed at individuals. … Blasphemy is just the fanatic’s name for criticism.”