Untitled - // And sometimes it is necessary to feel horrified or upset especially in education.... I do not know if this was one of them because we have not been given enough information... but sometimes it is.... learning about the world is not always a pleasant or harmonious experience... and I do not agree that horror and distress over images is all that strange to western culture. //
The inference I take from your apparent approach - and do correct me if I am wrong - is that offence and distress are just a part of life, which is fair enough, and that causing them to cultures other than our own is OK, which is not fair enough.
At what point does anyone say - I don't understand your culture and religion, they are not the same as mine, therefore it doesn't matter if you are offended or upset by something, because I don't feel it personally so it doesn't count.
Of course, that's fine if you hold the whip hand - as in living in a nominally Christian culture with laws and behaviours based accordingly, and let's be clear, that is the situation here, but what if every culture acted in that way?
To my mind, simply allowing upset and distress to occur because it doesn't affect the majority, does not make it right or appropriate.
Surely the answer in building a more tolerant and encompassing world, is that we move towards appreciating and understanding our differences, not simply flag waiving and spouting effectively - our gaff, our rules.
That's not how tolerance works, and it's not how a civilized society should work either.
Not appreciating a difference is one thing, treading all over it because it is a difference - is another.
Since it is utter extremes of religious intolerance that leads to terrorism, it's not a path that I think we should even be looking down, far less marching down it with such self-righteous conviction.