Wow. Want me to carry that chip for a while? Looks like your shoulder could use some rest.

The writer of this piece wasn’t suggesting to keep certain details out of the media to protect Islam, or to shield us from unpleasantness. You kinda missed the point there. It’s so other extremists can’t glorify their horrific acts and prop them up as heroes/martyrs.

You ask what’s bad about a narrative. The story of humankind is a narrative.

Except, it’s more like a bundle of narratives, and the narrative differs depending on who you ask or which history book you read.

Narratives can be manipulated and used to manipulate people. The people you’re raging against have a narrative too, and it’s quite similar to yours. You buy into a narrative that all of Islam wants to exterminate us. They buy into a narrative that the West wants to exterminate Islam. Ironically, you’re both feeding each other’s narrative.

You see this as us vs. them. Tribe vs. Tribe. Non-muslim vs. muslim. The rest of us see this as everyone against religious extremists. Again, different narratives.

But hey, the extremists agree with you. They share your viewpoint. Maybe think about what that says about you.