David Remnick’s, The Defiance of Salman Rushdie – The New Yorker, February 6, 2023 – is a masterful piece on the cowardly attack on the famed author of the Satanic Verses. The profile essay covers Rushdie’s humble beginnings and his defiant choice of living an open life in the face of a Fatwa for decades, and the fateful moments where his courage to live came head-on with the cowardice of a weakminded ideolog — almost costing him his life.

The attack is a reminder that free speech is not a motto but a way of life. We cannot allow laziness to hide behind offended feelings. We must sharpen our intellect for battling bad ideas.