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[RustyNails]

My secret debate with Sam Harris: A revealing 4-hour dialogue on Islam, racism & free-speech hypocrisy

This is a long article but well worth the read. To preface, a Salon writer wrote a critique of Harris' book. Harris subsequently "invited" the writer to his podcast. Shenanigans ensued. And this is how it unfolded (exercepts, please read the full article if you got time)

The piece got Harris’s attention, and he publicly reached out to me on Twitter to invite me on his podcast to “discuss these issues.” Although some of his followers mocked the invitation, I gladly accepted, and we set a date and time for our debate.

That’s when things got interesting, because it turned out that Harris did not want a traditional debate or even an open discussion. As he wrote in one email:

I’d like you to just read [your piece], line by line, and I’ll stop you at various points so that we can discuss specific issues.

The Salon writer protested this format 3 times.

This was a bizarre and rather creepy way to structure our conversation. Think of how awkward it would be to read your writing in front of a critic who had empowered himself to stop, critique, and rebuke you whenever he wanted, with thousands of people listening. Even the strongest piece of writing cannot withstand a line-by-line cross-examination because such an exercise puts the writer in the witness box and therefore on the permanent defensive. If Harris’s rules were followed, our discussion would be more like an undignified show-trial than a frank conversation. Is there a single journalist who has ever participated in, much less proposed, this sort of guerrilla attack?

It should be obvious as to why no one has ever preferred to publicly stand trial if the ostensible intention was to have an honest debate. True, there was the caveat that I could say anything to his listeners unedited, but in classic Harris from, there was the additional and contradictory caveat-to-the-caveat that the entire discussion might be purged. In light of his preemptively imposed restrictions, I requested the right to make my own recording of our conversation and suggested that instead of reciting all 2,800 words of an essay easily retrievable online, Harris should pick the most objectionable parts of the piece and we should structure a conversation around these paragraphs to keep the discussion moving.

Once again, Harris flatly refused

Finally, the Salon writer agreed to Harris' terms.

Journalist and attorney friends of mine were stunned at Harris’s brazen stacking of the deck. For someone who spends so much time sermonizing about free inquiry, here was Harris deliberately stifling debate, and in a rather disturbing manner at that.

But I would not give Harris the unmerited pleasure of boasting about the writer who criticized him in print and then ducked a real exchange, as I suspected he would if I turned down his invitation. Rejecting his offer would have contradicted both my personality and my principles: I had been bred on a Socratic diet of books and dialectic—refusing an invitation to discuss important issues and investigate their premises, interrogate their histories, and illuminate their contradictions would have been anathema, even given an invitation as demeaning and one-sided as this one.

So I accepted his offer and every onerous condition that came with it. Once again, all the terms were set by him: I would have to read the essay word for word, he could stop me whenever he wanted, I could not record the talk, and Harris reserved the right not to air it if it was “boring”—a standard to be defined only by him, and only after the fact.

And with that, the debate finally took place and it was four hours long with lots of digression and tangents. They couldn't go past third paragraph. In any case,

What was fascinating about this experiment was how quickly we departed from the rules and had a free-flowing exchange. After a few personality clashes—Harris repeatedly began his points with “let me educate you on this” before I reproached him for his rudeness; I was his guest, after all—the discussion took on its own logic, swerving as if up a treacherous mountain, speeding forward towards either enlightenment or oblivion. Ideas were exchanged. Veiled insults were delivered. Bathroom breaks were taken.

Though the discussion did not plunge into the depths of history and politics that would help explain the modern problem of terrorism, I have to give credit to my prosecutor-turned-host: It was still an enjoyable encounter. Fisticuffs one moment and symposium the next, it was impossible not to walk away from the debate thinking that listeners would find it appealing, and perhaps even entertaining.

And then one week later, Harris emails the Salon writer and tella him he will not air the debate and a "better luck next time" at the end.

The self-righteous salutation at the end was the richest part of this otherwise self-serving note. Exactly who was Sam Harris protecting in this flagrant and sanctimonious act of expurgation? Certainly not me. Certainly not his listeners. He was protecting himself, because what he said in those four hours was as extreme and belligerent and ignorant as anything he has ever written.

The next part is an entire discussion of the "debate" that took place, in these broad points.

From this now-suppressed discussion there emerge four distinct themes that, taken independently or collectively, ought to disqualify Harris’s claims to being a serious thinker and philosopher. Let me stipulate these charges in the prosecutorial-style which Harris evidently likes:

1. He is a hypocrite who lectures others about the principle of free speech while violating this same principle when it suits his needs.

2. He dehumanizes Muslims to such an extreme degree that it verges upon bloodlust.

3. He supports aggressively (perhaps regressively) militaristic policies towards the Middle East and Muslim world at-large that put him in the fringe of the Republican Party.

4.He has passed himself off as a learned thinker despite being both ignorant of and incurious about the very issues on which he opines.

Summary:

For all of its shortcomings, this unpublished debate was not a waste of time. It illuminated one thing for certain: that Harris and his brigade of reactionary pseudo-liberals are not at all interested in the questions they raise. It is about power for them, and maintaining a belief in their own superiority. No debate will rob Harris and his ilk of such a satisfying elixir, that they are civilized, while those people over there, in their ghettos and their mosques, they are barbaric, they are criminals, they are animals. Why escape Plato’s cave if you are the one holding the chains?

Better luck next time indeed, Sam.

 

[Mr Cola]

Worth posting Sams side aswell, he gave an explanation on two podcasts as to why their discussion was not posted and of course he has a different slant to it.

 

[Foffy]

I recall Sam said he felt the whole podcast attempt was a void and didn't want to make people lose time listening to it, as it apparently goes nowhere productive.

I guess this piece might force his hand. Also, I guess Sam wanted a "format" for a podcast to try and have the audience follow it, so even if his shepherding of it seems suspect, I believe that was his intention. He's kind of had to respond to massive detours in usual recorded conversations with people. I recall some joked about him losing his meditative condition with the podcast he did with Secular Talk.

 

[Maxim726X]

I recall Sam said he felt the whole podcast attempt was a void and didn't want to make people lose time listening to it, as it apparently goes nowhere productive.

I guess this piece might force his hand. Also, I guess Sam wanted a "format" for a podcast to try and have the audience follow it, so even if his shepherding of it seems suspect, I believe that was his intention. He's kind of had to respond to massive detours in usual recorded conversations with people. I recall some joked about him losing his meditative condition with the podcast he did with Secular Talk.

Yes, that's what he said.

I'm a bit skeptical because he recently posted a 'discussion' with Maryam Namazie which was extremely difficult to listen to... Honestly, I hope he posts it because I'm not so sure I buy his reasoning right now.

 

[BocoDragon]

Harris obviously wanted to correct misinformation in the original article, point by point. It may have been misguided but I can see the intent.

Now this story, on the other hand, the use of these words "bizzare", "creepy", "about power and maintaining an air of superiority"....? I see right through this writing style.

"Harris was a big mean old meanie".

 

[pigeon]

I recall Sam said he felt the whole podcast attempt was a void and didn't want to make people lose time listening to it, as it apparently goes nowhere productive.

I guess this piece might force his hand. Also, I guess Sam wanted a "format" for a podcast to try and have the audience follow it, so even if his shepherding of it seems suspect, I believe that was his intention. He's kind of had to respond to massive detours in usual recorded conversations with people. I recall some joked about him losing his meditative condition with the podcast he did with Secular Talk.

Harris has a tendency to try to control the terms of the debate to his advantage, though (c.f. the Noam Chomsky discussion).

 

[partyphone]

Harris has been a super shitty racist/bigot recently so I'm not inclined to believe anything he says about the encounter. I still want to read what he has to say, though.

 

[aeolist]

freeze peachers behaving this way is always the best

i don't think he has any obligation to release the podcast audio but if he's the kind of person who complains about "no platforming" then he deserves to have his nose rubbed in it

 

[thelooseteeth]

Sam Harris is boring.

 

[Arkeband]

I don't buy it, sounds like this Salon writer's incredibly desperate for page views and was annoyed that he spent days working up to something that would give him lots of publicity and then Harris buried it.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Self-appointed intellectuals quarreling should be something you pay to see in a dingy warehouse somewhere so you can place bets and drunkenly jeer.

 

[The Technomancer]

I recall Sam said he felt the whole podcast attempt was a void and didn't want to make people lose time listening to it, as it apparently goes nowhere productive.

I guess this piece might force his hand. Also, I guess Sam wanted a "format" for a podcast to try and have the audience follow it, so even if his shepherding of it seems suspect, I believe that was his intention. He's kind of had to respond to massive detours in usual recorded conversations with people. I recall some joked about him losing his meditative condition with the podcast he did with Secular Talk.

If its a proper debate I'm skeptical of one of the two participants judging if it was "productive", that smacks of "I wanted to win, and instead we just argued a bunch"

I mean, that's actually the point of a debate from the perspective of a participant, to "win", I wouldn't expect someone to think elsewise, let me be clear. But like, be upfront about that?

 

[Foffy]

Harris has a tendency to try to control the terms of the debate to his advantage, though (c.f. the Noam Chomsky discussion).

And that didn't work in his favor there, because Chomsky is at the very least is the peak of the mountain when it comes to intellectuals.

Though I'm not sure what Harris gains in trying to have such control here. Racism and especially religion are, in the words of Harris himself, "the motherload of bad ideas." There should be very little to want to control than merely calling out their absurdity or danger if they're taken seriously.

I could somewhat understand if he does it to curtail the idea he's a bigot who hates religious people, as that's what it gets turned into, but that message is always brought up no matter what he does. I'm sure people pulled that card on him for even the Waking Up book he did.

 

[ElFly]

Should have accepted Harris conditions but only if he/she could tape and release the discussion too.

 

[Rentahamster]

Harris might as well release the audio. Let the listeners make up their own minds whether or not it's a "waste of time".

 

[aeolist]

Should have accepted Harris conditions but only if he/she could tape and release the discussion too.

they tried, harris wouldn't agree

 

[cackhyena]

I don't buy it, sounds like this Salon writer's incredibly desperate for page views and was annoyed that he spent days working up to something that would give him lots of publicity and then Harris buried it.

Yup

 

[ElFly]

I don't buy it, sounds like this Salon writer's incredibly desperate for page views and was annoyed that he spent days working up to something that would give him lots of publicity and then Harris buried it.

Harris also wanted to do it on his terms, so he was prepared to enjoy the free publicity of wtfpwning someone who wrote a critical article on him.

 

[Maxim726X]

Harris has been a super shitty racist/bigot recently so I'm not inclined to believe anything he says about the encounter. I still want to read what he has to say, though.

I see this criticism of him often.

And it couldn't be further from the truth. What in particular makes you believe this?

 

[aeolist]

lol he tried to justify the crusades in the book:

Remember, he tells readers, the Crusades “were primarily a response to 300 years of jihad” — the emphasis here is his. The Crusades were a “reaction,” he laments, and in any event, holy war was a “late, peripheral” development within Christianity. This ought to be news to the flayed bodies and burned heretics and massacred dissidents put to death by Christianity's sword. Muslim empires were authoritarian, as were Christian empires. Muslim clerics gave fatwas declaring jihad, and Pope Urban II gave his own decree explicitly calling on Christian subjects to take up arms and reclaim the Holy Land from the Mohemmadans. Why Sam Harris feels the need to take sides in the fanatical squabbles of our barbaric ancestors eludes me.

what a tool

 

[Pineapple]

I don't buy it, sounds like this Salon writer's incredibly desperate for page views and was annoyed that he spent days working up to something that would give him lots of publicity and then Harris buried it.

These were my first thoughts as well.

 

[aeolist]

I see this criticism of him often.

And it couldn't be further from the truth. What in particular makes you believe this?

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/in-defense-of-profiling

 

[Maxim726X]

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/in-defense-of-profiling

No... No, profiling is not inherently racist. This is something that he has to explain seemingly every week.

It is merely one of the factors that decides whether or not someone is a higher risk than someone else.

 

[aeolist]

No... No, profiling is not inherently racist. This is something that he has to explain seemingly every week.

It is merely one of the factors that decides whether or not someone is a higher risk than someone else.

We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.

that's fucking racist

 

[Kinyou]

lol he tried to justify the crusades in the book:



what a tool

Reading the full context of that quote it doesn't seem to me at all about justifying the crusades, but about that they're not something that is inherent to Christianity itself, unlike (according to him) a Jihad and Islam.

 

[stufte]

that's fucking racist

muslim is not a race? you want to call it islamophobic? go for it, but it's not racism.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

Harris is an asshole, and pretty much always has been, for as long as I've been aware of him. Unsurprising to me that he'd try to engineer a favorable outcome for himself and then balk when things don't go his way regardless.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

muslim is not a race?

It's definitely not.

 

[Simply Sarah]

No... No, profiling is not inherently racist. This is something that he has to explain seemingly every week.

It is merely one of the factors that decides whether or not someone is a higher risk than someone else.

Err...the kind of profiling he's talking about is most certainly inherently racist. It only cares about how someone looks/their background (i.e. it cares only about perceived race) rather than trying to determine what actual risk factors exist and how recognize them. Yes, he gives lip service to actually looking at risk factors in the update, but that's only to deflect people pointing out how bullshit the original piece is. It's the ideal way to other the people that are supposedly a bigger threat, frustrating them and, uh, probably making it more likely that they'll actually become a real threat in the future.

In broader areas this kind of profiling is even worse. It's also the law of the land. It's where blacks (and some lower class seeming folks of other skin tons, including white) are preemptively treated as criminals and middle class and above whites are much more likely to be initially seen as less threatening. And, funny enough, this tends to just skew crime statistics which encourages more of it which skews the statistics more which...do you get my point?

It's racism dressed up in a thin veneer of rationality.

Edit: And just because you say "Well, it's all Muslims and not just brown skinned folk!" doesn't make it any fucking better.

 

[Aikidoka]

muslim is not a race?

The only indicator that someone would use to judge if a person is "conceivably Muslim" would be brown skin color.


It's a shame that the desire for having public speakers that are against religion had to be filled with sexist and racist bigots.

 

[BocoDragon]

It's kind of unfortunate that Harris had to die on the mountain of profiling because... Law enforcement does it anyway. It's just political correctness not to say it outright.

 

[aeolist]

Reading the full context of that quote it doesn't seem to me at all about justifying the crusades, but about that they're not something that is inherent to Christianity itself, unlike (according to him) a Jihad and Islam.

christianity has a history of mass executions of heretics and violent conversion. just because it doesn't have a scary sounding arabic name doesn't make it better than jihad.

muslim is not a race? you want to call it islamophobic? go for it, but it's not racism.

anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim

please, tell me he doesn't mean "brown people" here

 

[aeolist]

beyond being really racist he's also just an idiot

His latest attempt at contrarianism was his endorsement of a theocrat over a rationalist. “Given a choice between Noam Chomsky and Ben Carson, in terms of the totality of their understanding of what's happening now in the world, I'd vote for Ben Carson every time,” Harris said. Never mind that Carson thinks Obamacare is worse than slavery, that the Big Bang is a fairytale, that abortion should be illegal even in cases of incest, or the fact that he compared ISIS's resilience to the grandeur of the American revolutionaries. Never mind that Noam Chomsky is a skeptic and atheist, and said that “the best outcome would be if ISIS were destroyed by local forces.” Endorsing an imbecilic Christian extremist over Noam Chomsky to make a broader point that is itself factually inaccurate is the kind of simplistic comparison only the ignorant think is intelligent.

 

[Maxim726X]

that's fucking racist

What he's saying is this, in a nutshell:

- Security has limited resources. Resources that should not be used needlessly (for example, he argues that an Amish woman should be viewed as less of a threat than a Muslim woman). He is not saying that all Muslims are Jihadists, but he is saying that all Jihadists are Muslims.
- He argues that religious affiliation is merely one of the criteria that should be used when assessing threat. Obviously there are other (and certainly more important) factors that should be used when determining who requires further investigation and who doesn't. For example, recent travel destinations, known ties with either an extremist or extremist organization, etc.

Obviously, using just religion as a filtering mechanism would be extremely inefficient. However it should absolutely be used as one way of narrowing the pool of potential Jihadists. I don't really see how anyone could logically argue the opposite.

 

[stufte]

please, tell me he doesn't mean "brown people" here

from the article you linked:

1. When I speak of profiling “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,” I am not narrowly focused on people with dark skin. In fact, I included myself in the description of the type of person I think should be profiled (twice). To say that ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, dress, traveling companions, behavior in the terminal, and other outward appearances offer no indication of a person’s beliefs or terrorist potential is either quite crazy or totally dishonest. It is the charm of political correctness that it blends these sins against reasonableness so seamlessly. We are paying a very high price for this obscurantism—and the price could grow much higher in an instant. We have limited resources, and every moment spent searching a woman like the one pictured above, or the children seen in the linked videos, is a moment in which someone or something else goes unobserved.

I don't agree with him, but I also don't think he's being racist.

 

[jtb]

Harris is an asshole and Salon is an embarrassing click-bait generator. I can only imagine the utter vacuum of nothingness we could have gotten had we actually gotten this "debate," be it as a conversation or as the line-by-line takedown.

from the article you linked:



I don't agree with him, but I also don't think he's being racist.

so what does that look like? profile everyone? at which point, definitionally, it would not be profiling?

 

[Simply Sarah]

It's kind of unfortunate that Harris had to die on the mountain of profiling because... Law enforcement does it anyway. It's just political correctness not to say it outright.

...that's not what political correctness means. Political correctness does not mean "I'm a willful fucking racist and everyone knows I'm a willful fucking racist, but I'm going to pretend otherwise because willful racists tend to be looked down upon." Also profiling by race is an utterly terrible and lazy way to assess threat.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

The only indicator that someone would use to judge if a person is "conceivably Muslim" would be brown skin color.


It's a shame that the desire for having public speakers that are against religion had to be filled with sexist and racist bigots.

However, it seems that when one speaks candidly about the problem of Islam misunderstandings easily multiply. So I’d like to clarify a couple of points here:

1. When I speak of profiling “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,” I am not narrowly focused on people with dark skin. In fact, I included myself in the description of the type of person I think should be profiled (twice). To say that ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, dress, traveling companions, behavior in the terminal, and other outward appearances offer no indication of a person’s beliefs or terrorist potential is either quite crazy or totally dishonest. It is the charm of political correctness that it blends these sins against reasonableness so seamlessly. We are paying a very high price for this obscurantism—and the price could grow much higher in an instant. We have limited resources, and every moment spent searching a woman like the one pictured above, or the children seen in the linked videos, is a moment in which someone or something else goes unobserved.

Sam Harris is white af and he includes himself among those who would be profiled. In his own words he's saying his stance on profiling isn't merely on the basis of skin color.

 

[injurai]

Profiling is one of the few cases where I think a slippery slope argument is well deserved. It needn't be intrinsically islamophobic, but in practice it ends up putting people through grief needlessly.

If you want to catch an Islamacist, you will have higher chances profiling people who are likely to be Islamic. But in practice, not only does it not do much in favoring of identifying terrorists. It needlessly puts those of a particular background through the wringer.

So arguing that while profiling doesn't necessitate racism, it leads to racism because there is no way to avoid the unnecessary ruffling of people, nor the unwarranted ostracism of people on account of a demographic that they belong to.

I don't think Sam Harris is an Islamophobe. Exploring the question of whether profiling is justified or not is an interesting ethical exercise. I think there are ideal forms of profiling, but the are unrealistic to implement. Thus pragmatically, and realistically it leads to islamophobia and racism. It is a slippery slope that we have no realistic handle on to prevent. I don't think many people appreciate the nuance of Sam Harris. People are too politically charged to entertain the conversation that Sam Harris employs.

 

[Maxim726X]

Sam Harris is white af and he includes himself among those who would be profiled. In his own words he's saying his stance on profiling isn't merely on the basis of skin color.

No matter how many times he says it, he is always met with that reply. I honestly don't understand it.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

He set up a debate that, by its very nature, would serve as a de facto interrogation of someone, on the turf of the very person the person being interrogated originally criticized, and flatly denied every single request to even slightly modulate the format to make the conversation fairer. This is just flat-out shameful.

 

[Kinyou]

christianity has a history of mass executions of heretics and violent conversion. just because it doesn't have a scary sounding arabic name doesn't make it better than jihad.

It has nothing to do with the name. His argument is that it isn't actually backed by Jesus teachings and thus has a less deep connection to the real religion. And fine, that is something that can still be argued about, but I find the original point of the author an unnecessary misinterpretation of the argument he was making.

 

[Henkka]

Yeah, this doesn't sound biased or one-sided at all.

 

[Aikidoka]

Sam Harris is white af and he includes himself among those who would be profiled. In his own words he's saying his stance on profiling isn't merely on the basis of skin color.

so what does that look like? profile everyone? at which point, definitionally, it would not be profiling?

.
Him including himself in Muslim profiling is just fucking intellectually dishonest and laughable that he would even try it.

 

[pigeon]

It's kind of unfortunate that Harris had to die on the mountain of profiling because... Law enforcement does it anyway. It's just political correctness not to say it outright.

I mean, that's because they are not supposed to do it because it's racist. I agree that law enforcement is frequently appallingly racist, but I'm not sure that is a good argument for profiling.

 

[aeolist]

No matter how many times he says it, he is always met with that reply. I honestly don't understand it.

because he knows exactly what he's doing when he's defending profiling and torture and his "reasonable" clarifications are poor camouflage for it

 

[Maxim726X]

because he knows exactly what he's doing when he's defending profiling and torture and his "reasonable" clarifications are poor camouflage for it

We're not discussing torture, which I don't necessarily agree with him on because all of the available research says it has a poor record of success.

We're discussing profiling, which in theory is at least based on some statistical validity. Particularly when discussing airport security or the like.

 

[aeolist]

It has nothing to do with the name. His argument is that it isn't actually backed by Jesus teachings and thus has a less deep connection to the real religion. And fine, that is something that can still be argued about, but I find the original point of the author an unnecessary misinterpretation of the argument he was making.

making that distinction means less than nothing when popes call for the conquest and murder of muslim peoples

the point is that he defended the crusades as a response to muslims being worse and it's bullshit

 

[Heavy's Sandvich]

No... No, profiling is not inherently racist. This is something that he has to explain seemingly every week.

It is merely one of the factors that decides whether or not someone is a higher risk than someone else.

presume you're in favour of stop and frisk/stop and search of young black males then?

Not racist, just addressing higher risk?

Grow up.

 

[Casimir]

What he's saying is this, in a nutshell:

- Security has limited resources. Resources that should not be used needlessly (for example, he argues that an Amish woman should be viewed as less of a threat than a Muslim woman). He is not saying that all Muslims are Jihadists, but he is saying that all Jihadists are Muslims.
- He argues that religious affiliation is merely one of the criteria that should be used when assessing threat. Obviously there are other (and certainly more important) factors that should be used when determining who requires further investigation and who doesn't. For example, recent travel destinations, known ties with either an extremist or extremist organization, etc.

Obviously, using just religion as a filtering mechanism would be extremely inefficient. However it should absolutely be used as one way of narrowing the pool of potential Jihadists. I don't really see how anyone could logically argue the opposite.

.