In my Marxist days, I would have been penning articles about the bourgeois hypocrisy of leaders such as Hollande, Cameron and Merkel marching piously in Paris in defence of political correctness. I would have pointed out that the crass, obscene and unfunny cartoons of Charlie Hebdo posed no threat to the established order, despite the professed '68 Marxism of the authors, as the establishment never believed in any of the propositions lampooned in the first place.
In the spirit of the new diversity, the fact that apparently we are now "all Charlie", let me outline three excitingly innovative views of the recent events in Paris. Naturally, these accounts are designed both to be true and to offend.
1. The Physicist's view
Various atoms and molecules in the Paris area recently continued to conform to the predictions of the Standard Model of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. As expected.
2. The Psychopath's view
Various biological machines in the Paris area with conflicting goals came into conflict. Some of the machines were destroyed.
3. The Jihadi's view
[Censored].
Do you think I'm crazy?
---
Sigh: one is not meant to explain one's work .. but: (1) is meant to get you thinking about the nature of 'free will' in all this; (2) is meant to highlight the methodological 'dispassionate' approach of rational science vs. emotionalism-altruism-empathy in human affairs. As for (3), I think we've had enough secularists floundering to represent to the world at large a community which organises itself (in contradistinction to a society ordered by abstract principles and the law) as an 'honour culture'.
