The terrorist attacks in Paris in January 2015 claimed to spring from a religious duty: taking revenge for besmirching God’s honor. They were, therefore, murders for the sake of the sacred. The concept of sacredness is older than religion, older than all the gods. Sacredness is, above all, pure fascination for might that knows neither reason nor humanity. The might in which Simone Weil saw the share of the inhuman in all men. The might that brings men to their knees before a god to whom they enslave themselves, and for whose honor they will put their brethren in bondage.

While all religions, including Christianity, have worshipped that Almighty God – often at the price of the most blatant distortions of their original message – even its most respected scholars acknowledge that Islam gives a prominent place to might and to religion’s triumph through it.

Civilizations, and particularly European civilization, have managed to counteract that might/force with what Etienne Barilier calls light– ranging from the light of humanist, universalist thought to that of artistic and intellectual creation. After the attacks in Paris, some commentators ventured to say that the killers’ allegiance to a murderous ideal was understandable because contemporary society was consumerist, materialist and shallow – that without beliefs, it had nothing better to offer them. This essay shows us that our society – or more accurately, our culture, philosophy and art – does have something to offer: an idea of humanity that takes shape in all of our intellectual creations as well as in our works of art; one that has cost fortunes in intellectual courage and in courage, pure and simple.

An essay about might, the human ability to dehumanize men.