Immolation of Jordanian pilot aims to drag us back to barbarism

Perhaps it doesn't matter if you look. The latest atrocity from the Islamic State, the immolation of a captured Jordanian pilot, caught on camera and distributed to an almost universally horrified planet, will do its basic work regardless of whether anyone watches it. This is about triggering the imagination, compelling us to think and see the world through an iron-age filter. There is no subtle message, perhaps no message at all, in its horrific cruelty. Its purpose is simply to make us more tr...