While I have heard of Mr. Harris, I am not familiar with his work other that what I can gleam from your piece here. Thus, my comments may be off target. However, the argument against faith for not being logical is itself devoid of logic. Hence the terms “The Faith” and “The Faithful”. Then, he goes on and puts his faith not in Faith but in Science, rather the pronouncements of certain scientists and MDs. Not very logical, in my view. But then to claim victory over a faith for pointing out it is a faith is a real hoot.
What he does not realize, is that he too is a very religious being. His religion just has a name that disguises itself from its practitioners; SCIENCE. His faith in his trusted clerics is no different from that held by the faithful of the traditional religions. As do the followers of traditional religions, he calls out nonbelievers as heretics, though by different names.
That's absolutely correct. Harris seems unaware that he has fallen into the same dogmatic abyss that he warns us of. Dismissing counter arguments to the orthodoxy because they are contrarian is no different than religious dogma.
Your comment reminds me of the Jung quote, "consider it wiser to acknowledge the idea of God consciously, for, if we do not, something else is made God, usually something quite inappropriate and stupid such as only an "enlightened" intellect could hatch forth"
I have never heard/read that but agree. Sure seems to be true. I know that all those I know who are hard core leftists, whether they know they are or not, are no less devoted to their religion than the religious are but do not realize it.
Looking at his podcast on Youtube, he spent the past 3.5 years justifying the official "convid science" from the government and Big Pharma. Which is treated as the Truth and anybody contradicting to it (like RFK Jr) is a heretic... oops, "spreading misinformation". A religion, indeed. Did he also religiously perform the rituals of isolation, masking and injecting products made by pharmaceutical gods?
What a great lesson in critical thinking. Thanks the breakdown was very informative.
I had to stop and pause when I read the 3 questions, what type of world would we be in if more people stopped and not only asked these questions but deeply contemplated them
“Why do you believe that?”
“Why should we?”
“Who are your teachers and on what grounds do you let them dictate how you think about your own experience?”
Those three questions are natural questions that arise in a person's mind of average intelligence when they hear someone tell them stuff. No big deal. But the problem is these questions or the urge to ask these questions and not give up until one get's satisfactory answers is subverted when the object of these questions is one of great acclaim, authority or status. Like the state, hallowed institutions, religious and scientific leaders. It was easy for Madhava's parents to ask these questions because they were addressing ordinary believers of a strange (to them) religion. The challenge is asking this when acclaimed and high status figures like Sam Harris is telling you shite.
So the game goes on as it has for ages. Just a few with the right combination of stuff can manage this - intelligence, intellectual honesty, courage, humility, the value they place on Truth (and so how much they are willing to sacrifice and the price they are willing to pay for finding it and accepting it), personal lived experience and temperamant. Even then it would be a struggle in certain situations depending of the person - that is if they have the humility to recognize it is sometimes a struggle and one needs to struggle in the first place.
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
Another fantastic article, Dr. I’m fascinated by the lockstep disrespect for RFK, Jr., it’s so odd. Do these people actually listen to what he says? Why don’t they face him and prove him wrong? He always welcomes the opposite opinion and will admit he’s wrong if anyone can prove him wrong. Sam Harris might have a big IQ, but so do the literal thousands on the Great Barrington Declaration. Fauci called them “fringe”. RFK does his homework, there’s a reason he wins cases, and a reason he’s a solid candidate for president. I’ve never voted for a democrat, but I’ve learned over these last 3 years the truth is more important than the party affiliation, and the truth is what we should seek, always. So far Vivek and RFK show promise and intelligence we have not seen in a long time.
I think there is a 4th possibility for Sam's behavior, (or maybe it's an expansion to number 3) and it's based on the model of how humans come to their positions, provided by social scientist Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind (https://righteousmind.com/). Essentially, Haidt argues that we come to our decisions about right and wrong not through our cognitive minds and reasoning, but intuitively, beneath conscious awareness. Take the issue of abortion--in Haidt's model, people intuitively decide whether they support it or not. We have this in common with other creatures, by the way.. Haidt says that what sets humans apart, our vaunted language and cognitive functions, evolved in large part because of our need to explain our actions to others, (something other animals don't need to do.) So, to recap, we decide instantly, intuitively, what side of an issue we feel comfortable with, whatever that means, then we task the cognitive function to come up with reasons to justify it. Ergo, the old saying from another Jonathan, Swift this time--"Reasoning will never make a man correct an opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired." applies. In this instance, it may be that Harris just simply doesn't want, intuitively, to investigate Kennedy's perspective, and so his intuition has tasked his reasoning to throw whatever reasons and excuses it can throw against the wall to see what might stick. I think this same phenomenon is also relevant to trying to change people's minds about official narratives about many things, from Covid to 9/11. No matter how many degrees people have or even how intelligent in general, if Haidt is right, our intuition rules our cognition. Otherwise rational people will come up with all kinds of bullshit reasons not to acknowledge actual scientific evidence and actual logical reasoning if their intuition warns them, beware, here be dragons.
I completely agree that this DOES sound like a plausible explanation for Harris’ non-arguments... but aren’t we all giving him way too much credit to begin with? Isn’t the fourth option that he’s just shilling..? He got his marching orders and now we have to hear another baseless diatribe against public enemy #1? This seems obvious and these attacks and non-arguments are ubiquitous, not just about RFK... breaking down his thoughts and punching holes in the logic only to dismiss it as pseudo-intellectualism seems totally unnecessary... these people know they’re spewing bullshit, they’re doing it on purpose. Smart people don’t do that out of ignorance. So option three should not be “catering to his audience” but “catering to the party line/dogmatic lockstep consensus”. Which I guess precludes the need to legitimize Harris and his platform/“logic” in the first place by ripping it to shreds in this article. What’s that?? A prominent intellectual voice is hoping to avoid scrutiny on his ad hominem takedown of the latest bogeyman? Shocker. His arguments don’t make sense because, duh... Sam Harris is a smart charming college sophomore with worlds of potential that nobody has figured out is just plain lazy and intellectually dishonest, who “totally forgot to do that assignment from a month ago but it’s fine because I’ll whip something up and it’ll be better than it would have been if I had done the legwork because I’m me and my professor (audience) accepts my musings uncritically...”
Neat.
Okay so fine... Sam Harris is a Dummy posing as Smarty. But he said what he said not because he’s lazy, which he is, but because he is dishonest, contemptuous and guileful.
Though it’s a well thought out approach, I tend to disagree. At least with the word ‘intuitive’. In my 7 decades of observing humanity, I suspect humans act more through instinct rather than intuition for the most part. Wildlife will create a path through the wilderness that has the least resistance and so do humans. Little critical thinking is done as to whether beliefs/opinions are, in fact, sound and based on empirical evidence. We are, in large part, creatures of habit, resisting change. Our unique ability to access cognitive functions is often unused. My opinion only, of course.
In my view, any person who worships the establishment and the "science" is not worth taking seriously. I have also read a couple of his books on religious beliefs and he had some good points, but it is really not too hard to take apart religious texts. It is about belief ultimately and not logic or rationality. People like Harris have religious style faith in the "science," experts and the establishment. This faith is no better justified than the religions that he criticizes.
Jul 19, 2023·edited Jul 19, 2023Liked by Madhava Setty
I know very little about Sam Harris, but I do know alot about self-hypnosis and how people delude themselves. See https://www.hughwillbourn.com/book or Amazon. Thank you for your work, Dr Setty.
Just nipped over to your site & ordered your book. Great testimonials. Thank you for your consideration of this topic, it interests me greatly & I anticipate reading it! 🙏🏽🙌🏽💚
Thanks for the link just visited your website, ordered the book and watched your interview with Dominic Frisby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaIA5vQWb0g, brilliant stuff, had to stop the video so many times I was blown away by the insights.
Hi Andrew - Thank you very much! Thank you for ordering and thank you also for commenting. It is a lonely business writing and feedback is greatly cherished! Let me know how you get on with the book - contact details are at the end of the book. H
Interesting discussion in the interview Andrew N posted.
As I was listening, I got curious and so wondered about your innerstanding what the activity of understand means. I thought about this at around 16.45 in the discussion, when you say that understanding is an activity and when we do it we understand etc (I paraphrase), which to me is a tautology.
'Understand' is an interesting word and I think we should all think about its deeper meaning and use in society.
This is a most thoughtful question. I have not yet listened to Hugh's interview, but I would like to explore this further.
First I would like to offer something tangential, which is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. To me it is best described metaphorically: knowledge is about being familiar with all of the dots, and wisdom is seeing how they connect.
In that sense, wisdom is related to my definition of "understanding". It offers a way of explaining how and why things are connected. It also offers a way of hypothesizing the existence of another "dot" that has yet to be proven to exist.
In medicine, when we say we "understand" how a drug works, we are basically saying that we have identified which molecules in our body are interacting and how the introduction of the new molecule (drug) will affect those interactions.
This interpretation of "understanding" in this context is particularly interesting to me. One of the oldest classes of drugs is inhaled anesthetics. The first demonstration of ether took place over 175 years ago. We still do not "understand" (in western medicine) how ether or any other drug in this class works.
Our limited "understanding" of anesthesia hints at the deficits in the western paradigm of physiology, that life can be explained entirely through the interaction of molecules with other molecules. While the paradigm suffices in most instances, I intuit that anesthetic gases is a gateway between the physical and the metaphysical. This is one of the central ideas I explore in my book.
Hi Yulia. I try to show the difference between understanding and knowledge. The latter is data. The former is to see more clearly - to see more detail, more about, more before and after and all around so we grasp context and significance and consequences. It is a potentially limitless exercise. Easier perhaps to grasp in the book: you can find it on my website https://www.hughwillbourn.com/book or, if you are not in the UK , on Amazon.
Sam lost credibility with me a while back but I watched some of this video when it came out and it just reinforced the idea that my time is better spent elsewhere than listening to Harris mumble on.
I actually think figuring out Sam Harris is pretty simple. As someone who has made his fame and name by eschewing religion, his entire identity is wrapped up in the rational world. The scientific institutions are his gods now, not to be questioned. What he demonstrates is the intrinsic need for humans to have an unshakeable belief in something bigger than themselves.....a non-wavering, unquestioning devotion to something. Sam Harris has supplanted God with ‘Science’ and in doing so refutes the entire premise that made him famous in the first place.
Well done! Your writing here has clearly, concisely and logically shown true critical thinking. As we age, it’s far too easy to fall into rigid parameter habits, particularly if we have an audience we are invested in, as he does. Bravo!
Absolutely love the following excerpt from your article. 100% agree.
"But rather than diving into scripture for guidance, my intuition tells me that the best teacher is whatever is transpiring in my life right now. Why not pay attention to it before listening to what anyone else has to say about it?"
Ding. Ding. Ding. If I were a boxing referee, I'd count to ten, grab your arm and parade you around the ring. Great analysis. Sam Harris is a fallible human being and not immune to the onerous tribal thinking going on today among the hotshots of personalities. Who knows why Sam has a bug up his patootie about RFKJr. He might be totally blind to his own political partiality on some subconscious level, and truly believe the people he believes are the more expert of the experts. That is how deep our divides have become.
I hear what you say about trying to separate the man from his ideas to avoid personal attack (which is what Sam is doing to RFK by discrediting him as a whack job) so it's good to keep in mind that ideas are fluid and can change over time. They should develop as we learn more and more....and how do we learn more? By discussing our ideas! Maybe if Sam wasn't so quick to dismiss RFK out of hand, he'd learn something, or at the very least have more facts than feelings to counter RFK?
Yes. Things are always fluid, especially around complex issues. I find Harris’s tone puzzling. The acrimony used is akin to putting a lot of chips on the table. He thinks he’s got good cards.
However when you argue for censorship you’re pretty much all in. If he’s eventually proven wrong he will never be able to get back in the game. Very surprising to see this strategy from a critical thinker who’s been playing for so long.
My frustration level with "intellectuals" who are above debating these topics is through the roof. This is how we fully lose our democracy. Thank you for drawing attention to this.
I like the term 'ad hominem' to describe the type of argument Harris is engaging. This mode is employed by too many people today, notably fact checkers and public officials.
I have not been aware of Sam Harris until fairly recently. My intuition tells me that while he may have started on the right path early on, he has become a narcissistic product of mass adoration and self congratulation. I will listen to what he has to say (won’t demand that he is unworthy of a platform), as well as RFK, Jr. and other candidates, but I will use my intuition to glean my truth from their words. Thank you for such an insightful article!
Exactly! I nearly blew a gasket just reading this article. I’d go full-out postal listening to Harris try to debunk RFK. I’d love to see them debate, though.
While I have heard of Mr. Harris, I am not familiar with his work other that what I can gleam from your piece here. Thus, my comments may be off target. However, the argument against faith for not being logical is itself devoid of logic. Hence the terms “The Faith” and “The Faithful”. Then, he goes on and puts his faith not in Faith but in Science, rather the pronouncements of certain scientists and MDs. Not very logical, in my view. But then to claim victory over a faith for pointing out it is a faith is a real hoot.
What he does not realize, is that he too is a very religious being. His religion just has a name that disguises itself from its practitioners; SCIENCE. His faith in his trusted clerics is no different from that held by the faithful of the traditional religions. As do the followers of traditional religions, he calls out nonbelievers as heretics, though by different names.
That's absolutely correct. Harris seems unaware that he has fallen into the same dogmatic abyss that he warns us of. Dismissing counter arguments to the orthodoxy because they are contrarian is no different than religious dogma.
Your comment reminds me of the Jung quote, "consider it wiser to acknowledge the idea of God consciously, for, if we do not, something else is made God, usually something quite inappropriate and stupid such as only an "enlightened" intellect could hatch forth"
I have never heard/read that but agree. Sure seems to be true. I know that all those I know who are hard core leftists, whether they know they are or not, are no less devoted to their religion than the religious are but do not realize it.
Great analysis.
Looking at his podcast on Youtube, he spent the past 3.5 years justifying the official "convid science" from the government and Big Pharma. Which is treated as the Truth and anybody contradicting to it (like RFK Jr) is a heretic... oops, "spreading misinformation". A religion, indeed. Did he also religiously perform the rituals of isolation, masking and injecting products made by pharmaceutical gods?
What a great lesson in critical thinking. Thanks the breakdown was very informative.
I had to stop and pause when I read the 3 questions, what type of world would we be in if more people stopped and not only asked these questions but deeply contemplated them
“Why do you believe that?”
“Why should we?”
“Who are your teachers and on what grounds do you let them dictate how you think about your own experience?”
Those three questions are natural questions that arise in a person's mind of average intelligence when they hear someone tell them stuff. No big deal. But the problem is these questions or the urge to ask these questions and not give up until one get's satisfactory answers is subverted when the object of these questions is one of great acclaim, authority or status. Like the state, hallowed institutions, religious and scientific leaders. It was easy for Madhava's parents to ask these questions because they were addressing ordinary believers of a strange (to them) religion. The challenge is asking this when acclaimed and high status figures like Sam Harris is telling you shite.
So the game goes on as it has for ages. Just a few with the right combination of stuff can manage this - intelligence, intellectual honesty, courage, humility, the value they place on Truth (and so how much they are willing to sacrifice and the price they are willing to pay for finding it and accepting it), personal lived experience and temperamant. Even then it would be a struggle in certain situations depending of the person - that is if they have the humility to recognize it is sometimes a struggle and one needs to struggle in the first place.
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
― George Orwell
Another fantastic article, Dr. I’m fascinated by the lockstep disrespect for RFK, Jr., it’s so odd. Do these people actually listen to what he says? Why don’t they face him and prove him wrong? He always welcomes the opposite opinion and will admit he’s wrong if anyone can prove him wrong. Sam Harris might have a big IQ, but so do the literal thousands on the Great Barrington Declaration. Fauci called them “fringe”. RFK does his homework, there’s a reason he wins cases, and a reason he’s a solid candidate for president. I’ve never voted for a democrat, but I’ve learned over these last 3 years the truth is more important than the party affiliation, and the truth is what we should seek, always. So far Vivek and RFK show promise and intelligence we have not seen in a long time.
RIght. If RFKjr is such a quack, why didn’t anyone review his Fauci book and rip it a new one? It should’ve been easy.
I think there is a 4th possibility for Sam's behavior, (or maybe it's an expansion to number 3) and it's based on the model of how humans come to their positions, provided by social scientist Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind (https://righteousmind.com/). Essentially, Haidt argues that we come to our decisions about right and wrong not through our cognitive minds and reasoning, but intuitively, beneath conscious awareness. Take the issue of abortion--in Haidt's model, people intuitively decide whether they support it or not. We have this in common with other creatures, by the way.. Haidt says that what sets humans apart, our vaunted language and cognitive functions, evolved in large part because of our need to explain our actions to others, (something other animals don't need to do.) So, to recap, we decide instantly, intuitively, what side of an issue we feel comfortable with, whatever that means, then we task the cognitive function to come up with reasons to justify it. Ergo, the old saying from another Jonathan, Swift this time--"Reasoning will never make a man correct an opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired." applies. In this instance, it may be that Harris just simply doesn't want, intuitively, to investigate Kennedy's perspective, and so his intuition has tasked his reasoning to throw whatever reasons and excuses it can throw against the wall to see what might stick. I think this same phenomenon is also relevant to trying to change people's minds about official narratives about many things, from Covid to 9/11. No matter how many degrees people have or even how intelligent in general, if Haidt is right, our intuition rules our cognition. Otherwise rational people will come up with all kinds of bullshit reasons not to acknowledge actual scientific evidence and actual logical reasoning if their intuition warns them, beware, here be dragons.
Indeed. If Sam is coming to a conclusion instantaneously it is antithetical to critical thinking.
😹
I completely agree that this DOES sound like a plausible explanation for Harris’ non-arguments... but aren’t we all giving him way too much credit to begin with? Isn’t the fourth option that he’s just shilling..? He got his marching orders and now we have to hear another baseless diatribe against public enemy #1? This seems obvious and these attacks and non-arguments are ubiquitous, not just about RFK... breaking down his thoughts and punching holes in the logic only to dismiss it as pseudo-intellectualism seems totally unnecessary... these people know they’re spewing bullshit, they’re doing it on purpose. Smart people don’t do that out of ignorance. So option three should not be “catering to his audience” but “catering to the party line/dogmatic lockstep consensus”. Which I guess precludes the need to legitimize Harris and his platform/“logic” in the first place by ripping it to shreds in this article. What’s that?? A prominent intellectual voice is hoping to avoid scrutiny on his ad hominem takedown of the latest bogeyman? Shocker. His arguments don’t make sense because, duh... Sam Harris is a smart charming college sophomore with worlds of potential that nobody has figured out is just plain lazy and intellectually dishonest, who “totally forgot to do that assignment from a month ago but it’s fine because I’ll whip something up and it’ll be better than it would have been if I had done the legwork because I’m me and my professor (audience) accepts my musings uncritically...”
Neat.
Okay so fine... Sam Harris is a Dummy posing as Smarty. But he said what he said not because he’s lazy, which he is, but because he is dishonest, contemptuous and guileful.
"Isn’t the fourth option that he’s just shilling..?" I agree, that's definitely a possibility too!
Hear! Hear!
Though it’s a well thought out approach, I tend to disagree. At least with the word ‘intuitive’. In my 7 decades of observing humanity, I suspect humans act more through instinct rather than intuition for the most part. Wildlife will create a path through the wilderness that has the least resistance and so do humans. Little critical thinking is done as to whether beliefs/opinions are, in fact, sound and based on empirical evidence. We are, in large part, creatures of habit, resisting change. Our unique ability to access cognitive functions is often unused. My opinion only, of course.
In my view, any person who worships the establishment and the "science" is not worth taking seriously. I have also read a couple of his books on religious beliefs and he had some good points, but it is really not too hard to take apart religious texts. It is about belief ultimately and not logic or rationality. People like Harris have religious style faith in the "science," experts and the establishment. This faith is no better justified than the religions that he criticizes.
I believe Harris considers himself godlike. Therefore, no silly religion is necessary for him; he just needs a mirror and comments on his podcasts.
I know very little about Sam Harris, but I do know alot about self-hypnosis and how people delude themselves. See https://www.hughwillbourn.com/book or Amazon. Thank you for your work, Dr Setty.
Just nipped over to your site & ordered your book. Great testimonials. Thank you for your consideration of this topic, it interests me greatly & I anticipate reading it! 🙏🏽🙌🏽💚
Thank you - let me know what you think. :) h
Thanks for the link just visited your website, ordered the book and watched your interview with Dominic Frisby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaIA5vQWb0g, brilliant stuff, had to stop the video so many times I was blown away by the insights.
Hi Andrew - Thank you very much! Thank you for ordering and thank you also for commenting. It is a lonely business writing and feedback is greatly cherished! Let me know how you get on with the book - contact details are at the end of the book. H
Interesting discussion in the interview Andrew N posted.
As I was listening, I got curious and so wondered about your innerstanding what the activity of understand means. I thought about this at around 16.45 in the discussion, when you say that understanding is an activity and when we do it we understand etc (I paraphrase), which to me is a tautology.
'Understand' is an interesting word and I think we should all think about its deeper meaning and use in society.
This is a most thoughtful question. I have not yet listened to Hugh's interview, but I would like to explore this further.
First I would like to offer something tangential, which is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. To me it is best described metaphorically: knowledge is about being familiar with all of the dots, and wisdom is seeing how they connect.
In that sense, wisdom is related to my definition of "understanding". It offers a way of explaining how and why things are connected. It also offers a way of hypothesizing the existence of another "dot" that has yet to be proven to exist.
In medicine, when we say we "understand" how a drug works, we are basically saying that we have identified which molecules in our body are interacting and how the introduction of the new molecule (drug) will affect those interactions.
This interpretation of "understanding" in this context is particularly interesting to me. One of the oldest classes of drugs is inhaled anesthetics. The first demonstration of ether took place over 175 years ago. We still do not "understand" (in western medicine) how ether or any other drug in this class works.
Our limited "understanding" of anesthesia hints at the deficits in the western paradigm of physiology, that life can be explained entirely through the interaction of molecules with other molecules. While the paradigm suffices in most instances, I intuit that anesthetic gases is a gateway between the physical and the metaphysical. This is one of the central ideas I explore in my book.
Hi Yulia. I try to show the difference between understanding and knowledge. The latter is data. The former is to see more clearly - to see more detail, more about, more before and after and all around so we grasp context and significance and consequences. It is a potentially limitless exercise. Easier perhaps to grasp in the book: you can find it on my website https://www.hughwillbourn.com/book or, if you are not in the UK , on Amazon.
I get what you do.
I was hoping to make you (and others) reflect on the deeper (or real or perhaps just different) meaning of the word 'understand'.
Sam lost credibility with me a while back but I watched some of this video when it came out and it just reinforced the idea that my time is better spent elsewhere than listening to Harris mumble on.
I actually think figuring out Sam Harris is pretty simple. As someone who has made his fame and name by eschewing religion, his entire identity is wrapped up in the rational world. The scientific institutions are his gods now, not to be questioned. What he demonstrates is the intrinsic need for humans to have an unshakeable belief in something bigger than themselves.....a non-wavering, unquestioning devotion to something. Sam Harris has supplanted God with ‘Science’ and in doing so refutes the entire premise that made him famous in the first place.
Sam Harris came to fame debating religion. Has he had any successful debates on other topics? He’s overrated as an intellectual thinker.
Plus he’s utterly tribal. He’s adjacent to Hollywood elite. That’s an extremely powerful motivator to think only in one direction.
I second this
Well done! Your writing here has clearly, concisely and logically shown true critical thinking. As we age, it’s far too easy to fall into rigid parameter habits, particularly if we have an audience we are invested in, as he does. Bravo!
Absolutely love the following excerpt from your article. 100% agree.
"But rather than diving into scripture for guidance, my intuition tells me that the best teacher is whatever is transpiring in my life right now. Why not pay attention to it before listening to what anyone else has to say about it?"
Ding. Ding. Ding. If I were a boxing referee, I'd count to ten, grab your arm and parade you around the ring. Great analysis. Sam Harris is a fallible human being and not immune to the onerous tribal thinking going on today among the hotshots of personalities. Who knows why Sam has a bug up his patootie about RFKJr. He might be totally blind to his own political partiality on some subconscious level, and truly believe the people he believes are the more expert of the experts. That is how deep our divides have become.
I hear what you say about trying to separate the man from his ideas to avoid personal attack (which is what Sam is doing to RFK by discrediting him as a whack job) so it's good to keep in mind that ideas are fluid and can change over time. They should develop as we learn more and more....and how do we learn more? By discussing our ideas! Maybe if Sam wasn't so quick to dismiss RFK out of hand, he'd learn something, or at the very least have more facts than feelings to counter RFK?
Yes. Things are always fluid, especially around complex issues. I find Harris’s tone puzzling. The acrimony used is akin to putting a lot of chips on the table. He thinks he’s got good cards.
However when you argue for censorship you’re pretty much all in. If he’s eventually proven wrong he will never be able to get back in the game. Very surprising to see this strategy from a critical thinker who’s been playing for so long.
Great simile!
My frustration level with "intellectuals" who are above debating these topics is through the roof. This is how we fully lose our democracy. Thank you for drawing attention to this.
I hope you have Sam’s email address. This essay needs, no, MUST go to him. Excellent work, Dr. Setty. Thank you.
I posted it on his YouTube channel. Let's see if it gets to his eyes...
Fingers and everything you got two of crossed!
I like the term 'ad hominem' to describe the type of argument Harris is engaging. This mode is employed by too many people today, notably fact checkers and public officials.
People resort to logical fallacies when they can’t make a rational argument.
I have not been aware of Sam Harris until fairly recently. My intuition tells me that while he may have started on the right path early on, he has become a narcissistic product of mass adoration and self congratulation. I will listen to what he has to say (won’t demand that he is unworthy of a platform), as well as RFK, Jr. and other candidates, but I will use my intuition to glean my truth from their words. Thank you for such an insightful article!
Yes! Listen to all arguments. Don't discount your intuition! It's the only possible way through this.
Thank you for writing this so I don’t have to listen to the podcast! 😉
Exactly! I nearly blew a gasket just reading this article. I’d go full-out postal listening to Harris try to debunk RFK. I’d love to see them debate, though.
I think Harris would be the one to blow a gasket in that case!