I like Sam Harris. Not a particularly entertaining debater (Unlike Hitchens) but the way he debates is suited to guys like Shapiro and Chopra who just spew an endless amount of crap to sound intelligent. Also, helps that I agree with Harris politically on most things.
Peterson, Harris, etc....
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Deepak is more of a mysticism huckster who can't with any degree of credibility be put in the same category as Harris, who generally builds his arguments around some form of reason.
Oh I agree but Deepak Chopra has this gift of pulling out words of his ass in no coherent order without any hint of hesitation that makes him sound intelligent. Unless you're prepared for that style of "debate" it can put you at a loss. Richard Dawkins was so bewildered at the level of bullshit gushing out of Deepak's mouth that I'm almost convinced he suffered a stroke and probably lost a good few years of his life. You can count on Harris remaining unruffled at the best of times.
Big Sam Harris fan myself. Been listening to him for years. I find that he has a very coherent and succinct way of making his points. He's great to listen to and has that rare gift of making you feel smarter. Although, as one poster already said in this thread, he kinda loses me when he gets into spirituality/meditation side of things. Over my head that stuff.
I think it's unfortunate that he has been lumped in with people like Peterson or Dave Rubin. He's much more left leaning than those two for a start, and way more intellectually honest. Particularly more so than Rubin, who's basically a hack who parrots the same shite in order to continue making the money; incredibly disingenuous guy. And as for Peterson? Well, the guy is just an obscurantist. He speaks in riddles and prevaricates often when he's properly challenged on his views. In fact, the one criticism i have of Harris is the fact that he had the guy on his podcast twice. The first time was a fecking car crash and he should have left it there.
I think it's unfortunate that he has been lumped in with people like Peterson or Dave Rubin. He's much more left leaning than those two for a start, and way more intellectually honest. Particularly more so than Rubin, who's basically a hack who parrots the same shite in order to continue making the money; incredibly disingenuous guy. And as for Peterson? Well, the guy is just an obscurantist. He speaks in riddles and prevaricates often when he's properly challenged on his views. In fact, the one criticism i have of Harris is the fact that he had the guy on his podcast twice. The first time was a fecking car crash and he should have left it there.
I don't want to get into the labels, especially classical liberal since I'm not sure what that means.*
About the Koch brothers (Charles and David): they are oil billionaires who do a LOT of political activities. They are among the biggest Republican donors, and are involved with Ted Cruz and Mike Pence very heavily. Their main cause is less government - so they fund poiticians and campaigns against universal healthcare (they spent a lot against Obamacare too), for privatising education, and cutting or eliminating environmental regulations. In their home state, they funded Sam Brownback, who pretty much brought income taxes near-zero, but it didn't work out too well.
They also put a lot of money into universities and their own think-tanks, including big funding for global warming denial. Many economics departments in universities are heavily funded by them, and they have a program that helps put economics students who love the free market on the path to professorship. Apart from pouring billions into actual elections, they are even pouring money into college election races, to get fewer left-wing people in college student leadership!
To be fair to them, they fund a lot of other stuff too, random research positions in universities, some museums, etc. Unlike some other Republican donors (Sheldon Adelson) war is not their thing, and unlike others (Mercers) they don't seem to be xenophobic.
I don't like them, and Bernie doesn't either, he has a short link with a summary of their worst positions.
If you have a *long* time to read, this is the article that first made them famous.
As I said, I don't like that label (classical liberal) in particular since it's so confusing, but IMO the Koch brothers are right-wing, and they fund Rubin and hire most of his guests for him so the show probably would reflect that.
*I think I've Peterson use it, and he's not really a liberal, he is quite conservative/traditionalist in his views about women. Sam Harris OTOH does have more liberal views for sure. I think it's a convenient label that helps you keep everyone happy.
Thank you, brilliant post with sources to back it up.
I've skimmed through some of the articles & read your post. Seems like the kind of people on the opposite end of what I'd like to see around the top of a society. And I'd agree, they seem more right-wing than what I'd see as liberal. Very educational, thanks again for the effort.
No, that's very mild for Deepak. Look at the below exchange. Mind you, Dawkins himself can be obtuse at times but I share his frustration. When I hear Deepak speak I feel like punching him in the nuts. He really fecking annoys me.
Harris was great around the time he was feuding with Reza Aslan. The two genuinely hated one another at the time.
Oh god yeah. Still hate each other to this day. I think Harris actually calls him a sociopath. Aslan is a supremely dishonest individual, tbf. Even worse, he's actually aware of his dishonesty as opposed to being genuinely ignorant, but plows forward anyway. Similar to Glenn Greenwald actually.
Just watched a Rubin appearance on Rogan's podcast where he's complaining about Cenk being obsessed with going toe to toe with Harris during the entire Aslan saga. Hilarious stuff.
I remember watching the 3 hour debate between Harris and Cenk on youtube. It was awful. Cenk just completely misconstrued everything Harris said and straw manned him at every opportunity. It's so bloody infuriating to watch. If you have a problem with some of Sam's views, then address it in an honest way. People like Cenk and others of his ilk are just incapable of doing so.
One thing i admire about Sam is his ability to remain calm throughout most of the debate. All the years of meditation really paid off for him
Live debating is largely just a dick waving contest.
An ability for quick witted retorts doesn't make you more likely to offer worthwhile contributions to serious topics.
An ability for quick witted retorts doesn't make you more likely to offer worthwhile contributions to serious topics.
It's good to know Sam Harris's meditation has improved his audiences appreciation of him condoning the genocide and mass murder of Muslim's around the world.
Mods Note - this was sarcasm, I was previously banned for making generalisations about certain Muslims. But Sam Harris makes a living off far worse generalisations that I'd never dream of making while justifying horrific acts against them.
Harris who said when Trump won 'oh we shouldn't have given a voice to black lives matter'. Sam Harris thinks black people shouldn't protest when they're friends and family are murdered in case white people vote for someone he doesn't want.
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Not entire sure what your point is here ?
It's more of a query of which of those bigoted positions that Sam takes appeals to his supporters the most. Are they more bigoted against one group over the other? Or is it equal?
Ok mate...
What bigoted positions ? He seems mostly interested in taking on bad ideas, like religion and all.
Looks like a lot of quote mining from Glenn Greenwald. They famously don't like eachother. Harris is well known for calling out bad ideas so its not a surprise that religion apologists are annoyed over his views.
In any case, Sam has debunked these criticisms here
https://samharris.org/response-to-controversy/
and here where he publishes his emails with Greenwald.
https://samharris.org/dear-fellow-liberal2/
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I didn't know that quoting someone to explain why his views are bad was a devious tactic. You asked why he's a bigot. The article shows that he supports torture, ignores the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed by western foreign policy to paint Muslims as unthinking savages when they oppose US intervention, implies that Muslims aren't civilised humans, and that they will kill everyone on the planet.
Selectively quoting someone out of context can be very misleading, even more so when one is attempting spin a narrative of racism against someone.
Can you explain the context for believing 1.2bn people are uncivilised and incapable of sustaining peaceful civilisation?
I'd have to see the original text and context it was said in to get a sense of what he is saying.
Yeah, Harris & Hitchens skewed heavily right when it came to real world solutions for their anti-theist outlooks. It's one of the things I always found uncomfortable about their roundtable smugfests (along with Hitch's angry dad misogyny) But then the problem with philosophy in general is that's its all critique and hypothetics posed from a safe distance, and rarely engages in the dirty, grey, ground level business of solutions and their consequences. It's essentially the political version of film criticism. And however witty and insightful you may find Mark Kermode, he's never had to actually make a film...
So while I'm definitely not a fan of Harris's particularly aggressive brand of anti-Islamism, it's more the method and intensity I oppose, rather than the secular ideals behind them. He's right to say Islam poses the greatest threat of the modern Abrahamic faiths. But not because "dems Muslims R all evil, Grrrr", obviously, but simply due to it being the least socially and theistically evolved of the powerful major World religions. Because it was written 600 years after the Bible, as a kind of 5th draft plot fixing fan edit, is unquestionable-by-design as the apparent literal word of God, and is currently responsible for the majority of the modern World's remaining Theocratic regimes. These are all problematic things that shouldn't be taboo to discuss, critique or attack. Particularly for liberals. And that's before we even enter the thorny realm of 21st Century Terrorism.
Sure, the ills of modern Islamism may not have a patch on the long and violent legacy of Christianity, which is definitely the kind of cultural context Harris gleefully ignores. But at the same time, so what? What does this kind of placid Whattaboutism achieve in the battle for a better, smarter, fairer modern world? Should every potential ideology be allowed a crazy, violent period of "difficult adolescence" just because Christianity got one?
One of the reasons smart, largely left leaning philosophical polemicists like Harris & Hitchens (who despite his later Hawkishness, was an actual Communist at one point, lets not forget) have been succeeded by infinitely dumber, right leaning Indie film villains like Shapiro and Peterson, is because the old liberal ideals of speaking rational truth to (often Religious) power, and punching up at the great Christian dominancy, have been replaced by the new liberal ideals of protecting minorities - even otherwise powerful and conservative religious ones - from harm at all cost. And in the well meaning crossfire, we've conceded one of our most sacred weapons, and cowed a lot of potential allies in fear of being insensitive.
So while I'm definitely not a fan of Harris's particularly aggressive brand of anti-Islamism, it's more the method and intensity I oppose, rather than the secular ideals behind them. He's right to say Islam poses the greatest threat of the modern Abrahamic faiths. But not because "dems Muslims R all evil, Grrrr", obviously, but simply due to it being the least socially and theistically evolved of the powerful major World religions. Because it was written 600 years after the Bible, as a kind of 5th draft plot fixing fan edit, is unquestionable-by-design as the apparent literal word of God, and is currently responsible for the majority of the modern World's remaining Theocratic regimes. These are all problematic things that shouldn't be taboo to discuss, critique or attack. Particularly for liberals. And that's before we even enter the thorny realm of 21st Century Terrorism.
Sure, the ills of modern Islamism may not have a patch on the long and violent legacy of Christianity, which is definitely the kind of cultural context Harris gleefully ignores. But at the same time, so what? What does this kind of placid Whattaboutism achieve in the battle for a better, smarter, fairer modern world? Should every potential ideology be allowed a crazy, violent period of "difficult adolescence" just because Christianity got one?
One of the reasons smart, largely left leaning philosophical polemicists like Harris & Hitchens (who despite his later Hawkishness, was an actual Communist at one point, lets not forget) have been succeeded by infinitely dumber, right leaning Indie film villains like Shapiro and Peterson, is because the old liberal ideals of speaking rational truth to (often Religious) power, and punching up at the great Christian dominancy, have been replaced by the new liberal ideals of protecting minorities - even otherwise powerful and conservative religious ones - from harm at all cost. And in the well meaning crossfire, we've conceded one of our most sacred weapons, and cowed a lot of potential allies in fear of being insensitive.
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I honestly don't care about the historical baggage of either religion, what bothers me more is that he ignores the history and current political reality of the Middle East as well. If you're asserting that a certain group of people is uniquely dangerous, and say nothing about another group which has ruled, controlled, and invaded the former for the last 2 centuries, that's a huge gap in analysis. Would al-Qaeda exist if the USSR hadn't invaded Afghanistan? Would al-Qaeda have existed if the CIA didn't finance all the mujahideen groups? More provocatively: would al-Qaeda have got the necessary internal acceptance for 9/11 if US troops weren't in Saudi Arabia? What would Iran look like if the US and UK didn't conspire to remove its popular secular leader? Would ISIS have existed if the US hadn't invaded Iraq? Would Indonesia be different if the US hadn't financed a genocidal army there? Sykes-Picot. The Balfour declaration.
Obviously I can't claim to know the answers to these questions. But Harris focuses on religion as the main reason for animosity between Muslims and the west, while encouraging more of these interventions. Older western actions are ignored and newer ones are rational responses to uncivilised people. It paints a compelling picture - the savage oriental, who cares only for his tribal identity, and is willing to end the world for it. Versus the rational westerner who bombs these people with extreme restraint, only to civilise them.
It's not only that. The retorts on most of his arguments aren't even based on refuting the argument but just make everything he writes seem like it's racist and Islamophobic. How about discussing if he actually has a point or not and not attacking him with snide, sarcastic remarks that assume to much meaning behind his words and don't stay honest to what he actually said.
The major flaw in your argument is that Islamic terrorism isn't just confined to western targets. China has suffered attacks up in the north west province where the Uighurs are located. As far as I'm aware China has no recent history of invading, or bombing, any Arab countries, & yet they are seen as a legitimate target. Let's not forget also that most victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims, most just collateral damage in the ongoing war between Shia & Sunni's. A war that started well before the nasty westerners stuck their noses into middle east affairs.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/01/the-islamic-state-pledged-to-attack-china-next-heres-why/
Brilliantly put. Exactly how I feel but could never have expressed the same in such a concise manner.
That's a very good post. I've a lot of time for Sam Harris but - like anyone who is forced to repeatedly defend their ideas - he's got a little too entrenched in some of his views. Nonetheless, his argument is essentially sound and the accusations of being a racist are well over the top. As usual, I want to blame social media for the way he's now seen as an enemy of left-leaning liberals. Constant online bickering removes all nuance and everyone has to take a side. Which leaves no room for the centre. It's Greenwald or Shapiro, take your pick. A shitty state of affairs, if you ask me.
If you think Greenwald and Shapiro are the same then you might need a re think.
I don’t think they’re the same at all. Quite the opposite.
I mean the same as in - Greenwald is just the left wing version(Greenwald is more of a liberal) of someone like Shapiro or vice versa.
My point was in the context of the the discussion about Islamophobia that preceded it. I'd say that their opinions on this issue represent the two (most popular) extremes fairly well.
Shapiro view on foreign are actually far closer to Mr Logic(Harris)
and Greenwald views are hardly extreme.
And none of this opinions are extreme anyway, Shapiro views are literally the history of Western foreign policy and Greenwald views are historical pretty standard liberal/left(The only reason I would ague to why Greenwald views seems extreme is because the ''centre'' has been dragged so far to the right).
Meh. To me they're both exactly the same in that they don't allow any room for nuance, or middle ground when this issue is being discussed. The problem is either 100% down to Western foreign policy or 100% down to the flaws of an inflexible and inherently violent religion. Neither of them would concede that the other makes any reasonable points when, in reality, they both do (irrespective of your opinion on their broader views in general; I think Shapiro is a prat fwiw)