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Legal Commentary

: Althouse

"They will not pass. Obscurantism and the violence that goes with it will not win. They won?t divide us."

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Said French President Emmanuel Macron ? at the crime scene ? quoted in "Teacher in Paris suburb decapitated, allegedly after showing cartoons of prophet Muhammad in class" (WaPo).

What exactly is "Obscurantism"? Wikipedia says:

Obscurantism and Obscurationism describe the practice of deliberately presenting information in an imprecise, abstruse manner designed to limit further inquiry and understanding. There are two historical and intellectual denotations of Obscurantism: (1) the deliberate restriction of knowledge?opposition to disseminating knowledge; and (2) deliberate obscurity?a recondite literary or artistic style, characterized by deliberate vagueness.

The term obscurantism derives from the title of the 16th-century satire Epistolć Obscurorum Virorum (Letters of Obscure Men, 1515?19), that was based upon the intellectual dispute between the German humanist Johann Reuchlin and the monk Johannes Pfefferkorn of the Dominican Order, about whether or not all Jewish books should be burned as un-Christian heresy. Earlier, in 1509, the monk Pfefferkorn had obtained permission from Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1486?1519), to burn all copies of the Talmud (Jewish law and Jewish ethics) known to be in the Holy Roman Empire (AD 926?1806); the Letters of Obscure Men satirized the Dominican arguments for burning "un-Christian" works.

In the 18th century, Enlightenment philosophers applied the term obscurantist to any enemy of intellectual enlightenment and the liberal diffusion of knowledge. In the 19th century, in distinguishing the varieties of obscurantism found in metaphysics and theology from the "more subtle" obscurantism of the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and of modern philosophical skepticism, Friedrich Nietzsche said: "The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence."

"The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence."

Think of this teacher! Who was he? What was his name?! It's not in the Washington Post article, but here, here's a later-published article in The Guardian: "Teacher decapitated in Paris named as Samuel Paty, 47."

Samuel Paty, 47, who taught history and geography at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, north-west of the French capital, was attacked on Friday evening by an 18-year-old man who was shot dead by police shortly afterwards.

Earlier this month, Paty had reportedly shown a class of teenage pupils a caricature from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo during a moral and civic education class discussion about freedom of speech, sparking a furious response from a number of parents who had demanded his resignation.

Before presenting the caricature, the teacher reportedly invited Muslim students to leave the classroom if they wished. Afterwards, the father of a 13-year-old girl who did not leave the class posted a video on YouTube claiming the teacher had shown a ?photo of a naked man? claiming he was the ?Muslim prophet?.

The father called on other parents to join him in a collective action against the teacher, whom he described as a ?voyou? (thug). In order to calm the situation, the school organised a meeting between the headteacher, the teacher and an official from the education authority.

The 18-year-old killer, who was born in Moscow and was reported to be from Chechnya, attacked Paty as he left the school, beheading him with a large kitchen cleaver. He then took a photo of his victim and posted it, with a message to French president Emmanuel Macron signed ?Abdullah the servant of Allah?, on social media.

Witnesses said the killer shouted ?Allahu Akbar?, then ran off chased by police. He was shot dead after refusing to surrender....

A court in Paris is currently trying 14 people in connection with the January 2015 killings at Charlie Hebdo... The hashtag #JeSuisProf (I?m a teacher) was spreading on social media on Saturday. It is reminiscent of #JeSuisCharlie, which emerged as a global wave of support for the journalists and staff of Charlie Hebdo....

To all British and Irish teachers : this man was our colleague . Let?s show solidarity . Any one of us could be next #jesuisprofesseur #jesuisprof #FreeSpeech pic.twitter.com/KhgRkRxOId
— I?m inconsistent (@PLoyalties) October 17, 2020