Sam Harris on Trump's Executive Order

[icehorse]

To actively pursue immigrants and refugees and learn from them and encourage them or their descendents to return to their places of origin if they feel confortable to do so.

We should learn only from people who's values we respect and admire. I'm not, for example, interesting in learning from misogynists.

I've advocated for this before: if we could agree on a common baseline, like the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, I think your idea would have merit. But without such a baseline agreement, you'll never be able to get trustworthy agreements on loftier goals.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

#3, though is entirely misguided and short sighted, despite and to a large degree because it seems to be a fairly good explanation of how Trump came to power.

It fails to be bold enough to acknowledge that "defending borders" is a counterproductive goal in the first place and much of the reason why we keep repeating the same pointless, wasteful mistakes of global policy. We all need not to learn to defend borders, but to stop regarding them as worth defending at all. Or, for that matter, of taking seriously in any way. Borders are an unwelcome distraction from the true issues at hand, which definitely include defending the secularism that the current POTUS disregards so openly.

Whilst we agree on many things, this concept of yours has always struck me as idealistic to the point of being completely unworkable and destructive.

It's the anti-nationalistic equivalent of scrapping all laws and believing society will be able to self-regulate.

I don't think you believe in unfettered capitalism, which is another similar concept.

How would social welfare programs cope under this model?
How would education systems?
Notice I'm not even talking about social cohesion, where I'm guessing we have very different viewpoints.

When Harris talks about centrist ideas, it is these more idealogically leftist views he is arguing against. It's not a lack of boldness on his part, but a level of realism and pragmatism. He's no shrinking violet.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

DS, whilst I appreciate the good intentions behind his remarks, I find it difficult to swallow. Its perplexing as for me it reads more like this:

"Whilst I campiagned against channcellor Hitler in the election I continue to believe that germany will be a democratic country and that our rights as german citizens are not endangered. I therefore think I should continue to criticise the jewish religion as the ideological root for bolshevism and the necessity of reform of the jewish faith without lapsing into bigotry or ignoring the plight of jewish refugees and business destroyed during kristallnacht. The failure of the "left" social democrats to speak out against the threat of judeao-bolshevism will only empower the nazi party. When social democrats say that only nazis will defend their borders, the people will hire nazis to do so. We must continue to criticise Radical judaism inorder to protect germany from the nazis."

I don't know what to think honestly (as you know my position on the Islam question is evolving) but part of me is just staggered at the audacity of the man. There is a real "dissconnect" from reality here.

I know I'm one of the "usual suspects" for defending Islam on RF but harris just seems to be basing his views on a kind of magical thinking that if he comes up with the right idea and goes on a public speaking tour everything will be ok. what does he even want to do about Islamic fundamentalism? Sell books to ISIS?

The US is a hairs breadth away from fascism. Whilst that is not an ideal time for anyone to think clearly because we don't know how this will unfold or the full implications of the Trump Presidency, his position feels rather...bizzare.

How much of his views on Islam, and specifically radical Islam are you across, apart from what's represented in this thread?

 

[Laika]

How much of his views on Islam, and specifically radical Islam are you across, apart from what's represented in this thread?

No, I am not intimately familiar with Sam Harris' work or specific criticisms of Islam (if thats what your asking). What I understand is that he criticises Islam as either particularly or uniquely barbaric in comparision to other religious faiths based on a literalist reading of the qu'ran as a religious dogma. I have problems with that as it attributes the fault to ideas rather than the universal human capacity for violence as if it were an "error" of reasoning.

 

[Augustus]

It fails to be bold enough to acknowledge that "defending borders" is a counterproductive goal in the first place and much of the reason why we keep repeating the same pointless, wasteful mistakes of global policy. We all need not to learn to defend borders, but to stop regarding them as worth defending at all. Or, for that matter, of taking seriously in any way. Borders are an unwelcome distraction from the true issues at hand, which definitely include defending the secularism that the current POTUS disregards so openly.

How do you even defend secularism in a borderless world?

 

[Kirran]

It seems when he advocates this "new centrism" he just wants to avoid the terms right and left. What actually makes it centrist, I can't really tell - is it neoliberal, economically, for example?. Also, he seems to me to be blaming far too many problems on interreligious differences and not nearly enough on issues elsewhere.

 

[LuisDantas]

DS, whilst I appreciate the good intentions behind his remarks, I find it difficult to swallow. Its perplexing as for me it reads more like this:

For the life of me, I have no idea of how you travelled from the original text to that fantasy.

 

[LuisDantas]

Agreed, and we've had quota systems, and strict entrance standards for decades.

And that may well turn out not to be enough for the current situation.

We do not really need to ask why, but there are plenty of reasons. Many of them relate to letting many millions of people grow wary and unprepared to deal constructively with other communities.

We should learn only from people who's values we respect and admire. I'm not, for example, interesting in learning from misogynists.

We should not learn from the like of elementals of misogyny, I suppose. But we better learn to connect with actual people, if for no other reason to give them reasons to reconsider their views, as well as to give ourselves reminders that they are after all actual people, not faceless statistics to conveniently leave to suffer out of our range of perception.

I've advocated for this before: if we could agree on a common baseline, like the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, I think your idea would have merit. But without such a baseline agreement, you'll never be able to get trustworthy agreements on loftier goals.

The UDR is a goal, not a prerequisite. We must pursue it, not wait for it.

Whilst we agree on many things, this concept of yours has always struck me as idealistic to the point of being completely unworkable and destructive.

Many people seem to agree with you. I can't really say I understand why. It will probably always puzzle me to my endless frustration.

It's the anti-nationalistic equivalent of scrapping all laws and believing society will be able to self-regulate.

It would be, if nations had substance of their own and/or people had not.

I don't think you believe in unfettered capitalism, which is another similar concept.

It this respect it is actually the opposite. Capitalism is as much of an abstract constructo as Nationalism, although it is slightly less destructive when the two of them are directly compared.

How would social welfare programs cope under this model?

More realistically, which would mean a lot of difficult questions and sacrifices at first, but a lot more certainty shortly after.

How would education systems?

Ditto.

Notice I'm not even talking about social cohesion, where I'm guessing we have very different viewpoints.

Social cohesion is however the central challenge. If we are to have societies at all, it must be valued and pursued. Constantly, because it will always drift apart on its own.

It just turns out that nationalism is toxic to it, despite a superficial appearance of being a remedy.

When Harris talks about centrist ideas, it is these more idealogically leftist views he is arguing against. It's not a lack of boldness on his part, but a level of realism and pragmatism. He's no shrinking violet.

If you say so. I just don't see any indications that his views on nationalism are very mature.

No, I am not intimately familiar with Sam Harris' work or specific criticisms of Islam (if thats what your asking). What I understand is that he criticises Islam as either particularly or uniquely barbaric in comparision to other religious faiths based on a literalist reading of the qu'ran as a religious dogma. I have problems with that as it attributes the fault to ideas rather than the universal human capacity for violence as if it were an "error" of reasoning.

I see. That will keep frustrating you for a good while. It will help if you learn a bit more about Islaam. It is quite remarkable when compared with actual religions.

How do you even defend secularism in a borderless world?

Borders make no difference for secularism. For that matter, they do not make much of a positive difference for anything else either.

If you mean to ask "how do you keep military security", "how do you keep the influx of incompatible immigrants manageable" or some suchlike, well, those are entirely diferente questions. They are not "defense" of anything.

It seems when he advocates this "new centrism" he just wants to avoid the terms right and left. What actually makes it centrist, I can't really tell - is it neoliberal, economically, for example?. Also, he seems to me to be blaming far too many problems on interreligious differences and not nearly enough on issues elsewhere.

I don't know if he describes himself as centrist, but given how confusing and questionable that classification has become, that matters little.

For what it is worth, he is consistently warning against excessive trust in the brotherhood instincts of humanity as a force capable of overcoming hatred, and the associates that trust with "liberals" and "the left". While he seems to at the same time think that such an atitude empowers "the right"/fascismo/authoritarians, who lose track of what they are doing because they are in panicky need to do something.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

No, I am not intimately familiar with Sam Harris' work or specific criticisms of Islam (if thats what your asking). What I understand is that he criticises Islam as either particularly or uniquely barbaric in comparision to other religious faiths based on a literalist reading of the qu'ran as a religious dogma. I have problems with that as it attributes the fault to ideas rather than the universal human capacity for violence as if it were an "error" of reasoning.

Basically, he criticizes Islam (as well as Christianity) due to the horrible violence instructed in the Quran/Bible, the repression and oppression that is instructed by both, for the disservices they do to critical thinking, how volatile they are in inspiring the worst in people, and the dangerous ways those religions have manifested, such as giving us people who murder abortion doctors and killing themselves and others for no other reason than their beliefs in these books. His arguments make it painfully obvious why we use as terms "Conservative" or "Fundamentalist." You should definitely read a Letter to a Christian Nation (and it's pretty short) and End of Faith. Really, he isn't picking on Islam as any more-or-less worse than religions like Christianity or the Aztecs, which themselves where utterly barbaric.

 

[idav]

I say he is, but hasn't got the you know what to admit it as Trump has.

What are you saying? I said Sam Harris puts Christianity in the same light Islam and he seems fine with writing a talking all about it.

 

[Laika]

For the life of me, I have no idea of how you travelled from the original text to that fantasy.

It's Fear mainly. I admit I don't know if it's wholly rational but I don't believe in the American exceptionalism where a holocaust "can't happen here". Nor do I believe that liberal democratic systems are immune to the intent to commit genocide or crimes against humanity. America's relationship with African Americans and Native Americans or the use of internment camps in World War II against Japanese Americans should be sufficient to demonstrate the possibility of serious abuses of power even by a democratic government in the United States.

The checks and balances of the American constitutional system are only as strong as the willingness of people to uphold them even as the founding fathers sought to give the people a remedy to tyranny. we have essentially a tyrant in the White House- so whether he will actually be stopped or frustrated in undermining the constitution and the bill of rights is up to the American people.

The First and Second Red Scares (the second being the McCarthy era) lasted quite a long time despite the constitutional checks in place. This is not to mention the alien and sedition acts at the very start of the Republic.

Under those circumstances, I find Sam Harris continued insistence on the right to criticise Islam as assisting a potential dictatorship in spreading a message which feeds the "normalisation" of hostility towards Islam and Muslims. Doing so sets a precedent for questioning the legitimacy of their rights as Americans or prospective Americans. It is not "business as usual" when the U.S. Government has been taken over essentially by white nationalists with only the vaguest grasp of reality.

I will not pretend that this is a liberal view though as I am very explicitly stating the need for self-censorship. Although I do realise what Harris said was measured, it's still very surreal in the current political context.

Basically, he criticizes Islam (as well as Christianity) due to the horrible violence instructed in the Quran/Bible, the repression and oppression that is instructed by both, for the disservices they do to critical thinking, how volatile they are in inspiring the worst in people, and the dangerous ways those religions have manifested, such as giving us people who murder abortion doctors and killing themselves and others for no other reason than their beliefs in these books. His arguments make it painfully obvious why we use as terms "Conservative" or "Fundamentalist." You should definitely read a Letter to a Christian Nation (and it's pretty short) and End of Faith. Really, he isn't picking on Islam as any more-or-less worse than religions like Christianity or the Aztecs, which themselves where utterly barbaric.

Given I'm at a dead end on the whole issue I may have to do that.

 

[Kirran]

There's a strange commonality between how many New Atheist critics of religion, and of the Abrahamic religions in particular, read and interpret a religious scripture and how the modernist fundamentalists within those faiths do it. It is, for example, very prominent in Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

No, I am not intimately familiar with Sam Harris' work or specific criticisms of Islam (if thats what your asking). What I understand is that he criticises Islam as either particularly or uniquely barbaric in comparision to other religious faiths based on a literalist reading of the qu'ran as a religious dogma. I have problems with that as it attributes the fault to ideas rather than the universal human capacity for violence as if it were an "error" of reasoning.

In fact his argument is that we need to encourage liberalism and non-literalism within the Muslim world, and that our enemies are literalists, whilst our allies are moderate Muslims.
One of his more common arguments is that we have some radical Muslims telling us exactly what they think and why, and we (as in the left in the West) will prevaricate, argue that what they say is not accurate, or that it's not religions fault.

If my belief system suggests that I should throw homosexuals from a building, and I throw homosexuals from a building, then my belief system should be condemned. Whilst I don't agree with all his points, commonly, and regularly disagree with some quite adamantly, his argument that we should be mature enough to understand that it is only SOME Muslims who interpret the Quran in a literal and destructive fashion, but that we should not hesitate to denounce THOSE beliefs makes a lot of sense.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

There's a strange commonality between how many New Atheist critics of religion, and of the Abrahamic religions in particular, read and interpret a religious scripture and how the modernist fundamentalists within those faiths do it. It is, for example, very prominent in Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation.

Their argument is with literalist interpretations. Harris in particular argues for a move from dogmatic religion to spirituality instead.

 

[LuisDantas]

It's Fear mainly. I admit I don't know if it's wholly rational but I don't believe in the American exceptionalism where a holocaust "can't happen here".

That, I can relate to. We have reason to have fear, and exceptionalism was never worth of any consideration.

Nor do I believe that liberal democratic systems are immune to the intent to commit genocide or crimes against humanity. America's relationship with African Americans and Native Americans or the use of internment camps in World War II against Japanese Americans should be sufficient to demonstrate the possibility of serious abuses of power even by a democratic government in the United States.

Indeed.

The checks and balances of the American constitutional system are only as strong as the willingness of people to uphold them even as the founding fathers sought to give the people a remedy to tyranny. we have essentially a tyrant in the White House- so whether he will actually be stopped or frustrated in undermining the constitution and the bill of rights is up to the American people.

While I agree, I also find the real problem - and the real solution - to be exist at a much more "street/grassroots" level.

There are always extremists around spewing words of hate and fear. They are only relevant once a society fails to learn better than their drivel.

The First and Second Red Scares (the second being the McCarthy era) lasted quite a long time despite the constitutional checks in place. This is not to mention the alien and sedition acts at the very start of the Republic.

Fear will never leave us as such. It can only be truly dealt with by daring to be bigger than it. That takes a lot of mutual good will, communication and respect.

I don't think there is another way, nor do I feel any particular desire to seek one.

Under those circumstances, I find Sam Harris continued insistence on the right to criticise Islam as assisting a potential dictatorship in spreading a message which feeds the "normalisation" of hostility towards Islam and Muslims.

And that is where I think you are seriously missing the point, as well as the real circunstances.

Doing so sets a precedent for questioning the legitimacy of their rights as Americans or prospective Americans. It is not "business as usual" when the U.S. Government has been taken over essentially by white nationalists with only the vaguest grasp of reality.

Never mind their being Americans or potential Americans. People deserve better, as a matter of principle.

I will not pretend that this is a liberal view though as I am very explicitly stating the need for self-censorship. Although I do realise what Harris said was measured, it's still very surreal in the current political context.

Because the context is rather deeply confused and conflicted, if not all-out sickened.

 

[Kirran]

In fact his argument is that we need to encourage liberalism and non-literalism within the Muslim world, and that our enemies are literalists, whilst our allies are moderate Muslims.
One of his more common arguments is that we have some radical Muslims telling us exactly what they think and why, and we (as in the left in the West) will prevaricate, argue that what they say is not accurate, or that it's not religions fault.

If my belief system suggests that I should throw homosexuals from a building, and I throw homosexuals from a building, then my belief system should be condemned. Whilst I don't agree with all his points, commonly, and regularly disagree with some quite adamantly, his argument that we should be mature enough to understand that it is only SOME Muslims who interpret the Quran in a literal and destructive fashion, but that we should not hesitate to denounce THOSE beliefs makes a lot of sense.

Their argument is with literalist interpretations. Harris in particular argues for a move from dogmatic religion to spirituality instead.

You may have noticed, however, that he is frequently extremely disparaging and dismissive of all non-literalist takes on scripture.

 

[LuisDantas]

There's a strange commonality between how many New Atheist critics of religion, and of the Abrahamic religions in particular, read and interpret a religious scripture and how the modernist fundamentalists within those faiths do it. It is, for example, very prominent in Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation.

I am not seeing it at all.

Maybe you do because you have a higher degree of faith in the ability of random people in warding themselves against fundamentalism than we do. Unfortunately, living in Brazil I have become very disappointed in that regard.

I think you can hardly fault Harris (or for that matter, me) in pointing out that literalism and fundamentalism are serious problems that need clear and unequivocal repudiation. But you will think what you will.

 

[LuisDantas]

You may have noticed, however, that he is frequently extremely disparaging and dismissive of all non-literalist takes on scripture.

I think you are being deeply unfair with him in this regard. It may be useful to take a look at the #7 of the original article (linked to in the OP) and consider the specific authors that he is agreeing and disagreeing with.

 

[Kirran]

I am not seeing it at all.

Maybe you do because you have a higher degree of faith in the ability of random people in warding themselves against fundamentalism than we do. Unfortunately, living in Brazil I have become very disappointed in that regard.

I think you can hardly fault Harris (or for that matter, me) in pointing out that literalism and fundamentalism are serious problems that need clear and unequivocal repudiation. But you will think what you will.

Luis, I am not totally convinced this relates to the point I was making. He assumes the modernist fundamentalist forms of exegesis are the valid ones, with all others being disparaged. He therefore criticises religions based on that paradigm.

 

[Kirran]

I think you are being deeply unfair with him in this regard. It may be useful to take a look at the #7 of the original article (linked to in the OP) and consider the specific authors that he is agreeing and disagreeing with.

Certainly, I sympathise with some of those he supports there. But at least what I have seen of his rhetoric seems to undermine their position through near-mockery. He basically full-on mocks Maajid Nawaz in Islam and the Future of Tolerance, and in no uncertain terms dismisses and derides liberal biblical exegesis in Letter to a Christian Nation.