Questions and Answers part 4

We all live with the consequences of the answer other people find acceptable for the questions they have.  Right now the news is full of the story of a terrorist attack on a French magazine.  The acceptable answer to the men who carried out this raid was violence and death to those who had insulted their religion.  This insult was a consequence of the editors acceptable answer to the question "should I publish this material mocking the Islamic faith".  But why would someone ask this question and give this answer?

There are a whole tangle of reasons as to why this would happen.  Modern culture opposition to authority and tradition is one reason.  This is born out of the amazing amount of death and suffering that followed on from the unquestioning obedience to authority which lead to Europe being destroyed by war twice.  But like all answers we accept, it brings with it its own shocking consequences.

  The desire to prove freedom of speech by exercising it in the most shocking ways possible is another.  Sadly this leads to more and more unseemly content as what was shocking to the public 10 years ago gradually becomes the new normal, and more extreme content is needed to prove the point.  And again, what started out as a reasonable, acceptable answer to the question "do I really have freedom of speech?" turns into something that brings death and destruction.

It's hard to see how these two opposing sides can be brought together.  It is often said that the pen is mightier than the sword.  And this is true to a certain extent - winning the minds of the people you are fighting is far easier than killing them all.  But what can be done if there is no communication between the two sides?  If there is no communication, the pen - the spread of ideas - has no effect.  And so we devolve back down to the use of the sword as the only acceptable answer.

This idea has clearly taken root in the minds of the Islamic terroristic organisations.  The root of their power is the acceptable answer of their ideas.  The fruit of their power is in the barrel of a gun and the point of a knife.  So they impose their answer in two ways; firstly the pen - propagating their doctrines as an answer to the evil they see in the world.  Secondly imposing their answer on those who do not accept it.  How to tackle this problem?

Feel free to leave an answer in the comment section - we'll see if there are any acceptable ones!