@mal3volent - I haven't watched those videos yet but I will give them a watch, thanks for sharing.
@Mjäll - biased in favor of misled tacticizing? In what direction am I biased? Against Sam Harris? Towards Islam? Tacticizing? I think this is a stretched interpretation of anything I said.
Well yeah, that's essentially my point except that I disagree showing nuance in a significant geopolitical event is "beyond his scope," or that we should excuse this lack of nuance as being "out of his own intellectual brand." It is understandable yes, but I don't find it so easy to excuse.
Of course, Israel is in the right "against primitive fanatics and retarded enablers," but for the most part when people criticize Israeli foreign policy they are referring to one of countless examples of extreme overreach, brutality, and violation of internationally recognized laws regarding the conduct of war. Do Islamic extremists care about rules of war? Of course not. Does that mean we should turn a blind eye to repeated violations by a supposedly Western-aligned, heavily militarized nation? Categorically not.
I will say to both of you (and anyone else who might be reading, of course) I have listened to Sam Harris for a long time, used to pay the yearly subscription to Making Sense, and still do listen to the majority of his podcasts, despite my misgivings about his approach to both Israel and Islam, so I believe I have a fairly good understanding of the nuances of his position. I really have very little disagreement with him on the vast majority of his takes.
I don't even necessarily disagree particularly strongly, in a vacuum, with anything he actually says about the idiocy of Islam and the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism - my issue is primarily with his choice of focus. Again, in a world where there are 1.9 billion Muslims, for better or worse (maybe worse), I don't think he's changing anyone's mind with his current approach, he's just preaching to the choir, and alienating anyone who might otherwise benefit from listening to him. I mean, this is his choice, fine, he can talk about what he likes, in the way he likes, but in a world where explicitly divisive rhetoric is coming from all directions I think there's an argument for taking extra care not to stoke the fires of tribalism.
I am aware of Sam's perspective on Islamophobia and how it doesn't really exist, or perhaps more correctly, has been weaponized and applied way too broadly and inappropriately, I think this is somewhat true, although the same can be said about antisemitism, which I can't recall Sam ever talking about. However the situation in Palestine is a perfect example, in my view, of Sam's bias - he is just unable to recognize that Israel too, is guilty of some moral crimes, because of his bias against Islam.
This is a difficult thing to quantify and to an extent I recognize that this entire argument is somewhat about the paradox of tolerant societies versus totalitarian theocracies and dictatorships, that it's possible to be so tolerant that we unwittingly permit the rise of backwards and dangerous ideas (of course this has already happened, even if not yet to a significantly socially destabilizing extent with Islam in the same way as it has with alt-right ideologies). I'll concede it's possible that I'm wrong and that what's needed is the kind of approach that Sam has, I just find it intuitively difficult to accept that this is the case given that I myself, a long time listener and fan of Sam Harris without any love for or attachment to Islam, find his approach to this topic frustrating and veering dangerously close to explicitly divisive tribalist rhetoric in some cases.
If I wanted to be nicer about it and not rattle anyone who sees nothing wrong with anything he's ever said I could have just said that some of what he says is "needlessly exaggerated" rather than "Trumpian" which perhaps is itself a controversy-magnet type of term to use. I read over what I originally said though and while I was vague in some areas and clear about my frustrations I don't believe anything I said was misleading. Again - my issues with the specific video posted in the OP were specifically related to:
- his comments on pro-Sharia law Muslims in the UK, which are just not correct.
- his comments on The Palestine Situation and everything surrounding this, including, importantly, his inability to criticize Israel.
...both of which I think show his blindness towards his own bias that he never addresses. This bias may well have grown out of some perfectly sensible ideas, it doesn't mean it isn't a bias or that no-one should ever call him out on it. I'll say also that just because he is a lucid speaker, and on the vast majority of topics a very lucid thinker doesn't mean that he can never misjudge anything, and it is my opinion that he has misjudged his nuance on the topics I have mentioned.
Obviously if I had the option I'd still choose Sam Harris to decide how human society should be organized over whatever random Muslim cleric, that's not in question, and I'd encourage anyone to read The Moral Landscape or probably any other book Sam has written before they read the Quran, that's also not in question. My expressed opinion on the aforementioned topics should not cast any doubt on that, but the very fact that there is nuance to these issues means there is room for differences of opinion, it doesn't mean I myself am biased
against Sam Harris or in favor of Islam and I think that implication is frankly absurd.
I am biased against anything that might stoke the fires of tribalism - that's it.