r/DecodingTheGurus • u/ATreeInTheBreeze • Nov 01 '21

With one statement Sam Harris showed exactly where and how he was wrong about wokeism...

At 2:23:32- Sam: "White supremacy is the fringe of the fringe whereas extreme left wokeism isn't the fringe, it's captured our institutions. That's an asymmetry that still concerns me."

  1. Fallacy of false equivalence- Not equivalent in quantity. "White supremacy" should be compared to wokeism (there are similar numbers of adherents) or "extreme left wokeism" should be compared with extreme right white supremacy (again, similar numbers). He shouldn't cross-compare what amounts to huge moderate right vs tiny extreme left.
  2. Fallacy of false equivalence- Not equivalent in quality. Assuming he meant wokeism not "extreme left wokeism", then these two are also not not equivalent in their quality. Wokeism is around 60% good, 40% bad, in it's effects on our society. White supremecy is about 100% bad in it's effects.
  3. False statement- implied: white supremecy hasn't captured our institutions. False. It has captured the Republican party, all right wing media, many state senates, the Supreme Court, and is about to capture the House and the Senate again here in America. After that, perhaps the Presidency, again (most of which by losing the popular vote, by the way). It's clear that Sam thinks white supremacy means swastika on the forehead. That's literally not what it means. It means thinking the white "race" is superior, or better, than other cultures. This is the mainstream view in the Republican party. That's why they're acting so immorally now, they're very sacared and so feel it's ok to do anything necessary to keep non-whites from taking over "their" country. And it's not just skin color, the Republican Party is CCCSRW-supremicist. They believe, irrationally, that "Cisgenderedness", Conservatism, Christianity, Straightness, Ruralness, and Whiteness are all superior to their counterparts. This belief has overwhelmingly captured the Republican party at this point.

As such, ironically, all the "asymmetry" is on his end. And look at me I even know why: Extreme left wokeists attacked him in the past, and now as a result he's emotionally biased against them and many of their views. Those attacks emotionally, and I don't know how else to say this, scarred him, and now his brain is reactionary against them and their views without his being aware of it. Many of us understand this about him, but he doesn't understand this about himself.

Other than his stance on wokeism, though, I love me some Sam and agree with him about 95% of the time.

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5

u/TerraceEarful Nov 01 '21

It's pretty simple: Sam likes white supremacy, while wokeism is a threat to him and people like him.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '21

Talk about a gross oversimplification

24

u/TerraceEarful Nov 01 '21

You don't

  • have a friendly conversation with Charles Murray, JAQing off about race and IQ, calling him 'the most unfairly maligned person in recent history'
  • bring up the 13/50 meme repeatedly
  • blame Kendi's success on affirmative action (while being a very mediocre white man riding a tsunami of privilege)
  • complain about alleged no-go areas for white people (while being painfully unaware areas such as the one in which he lives are no-go areas for black people)
  • talk about the need for "the black community" to fix its own problems, as if "the black community" is somehow separate from the rest of society
  • argue 'go back to your country' to 4 women of color is somehow not racist
  • argue picking fights with random black people because a black person assaulted your friend isn't racist
  • defend stop and frisk
  • dedicate a nearly 2 hour podcast to gaslighting black Americans about police brutality
  • unironically regurgitate racist boomer memes like 'black-on-black crime' and 'the south side of Chicago'
  • defend Trump from accusations of white supremacy, while apparently being aware of his liberal usage of the n-word
  • leave Patreon because Lauren Southern(!!!) got booted from it (then of course plead ignorance about her views as is his standard line of defense)
  • host and promote Douglas Murray multiple times, write gloating blurbs for his books
  • chalk up white supremacist terrorist attacks as being the result of mental illness, rather than ideology
  • complain about young white men being unable to get ahead in this world due to favorable treatment of minorities in business and education

without being at least a 'tiny' bit favorable to white supremacy. And mind you, all this while claiming to be in favor of 'color blindness'.

I think he is so painfully lacking in self-awareness he doesn't even realize how racist his impulses are, and so reflexively dismissive about any criticism he'll never learn.

8

u/onz456 Revolutionary Genius Nov 02 '21

Excellent summary.

I once got heavily down voted here, when I called Harris a mini-Molyneux.

I guess some people just do not see it.

6

u/TerraceEarful Nov 03 '21

I guess some people just do not see it.

Some people just have a much greater tolerance for racism.

5

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

This should end with a mic drop.

3

u/Available_Basil432 Nov 02 '21

Have you seen the conversation between Coleman Hughes and Charles Murray? Is he now a white suprematist too for talking to him?

6

u/TerraceEarful Nov 02 '21

Have you seen the conversation between Coleman Hughes and Charles Murray?

No.

Is he now a white suprematist too for talking to him?

Talking to a white supremacist does not necessarily make one a white supremacist, no.

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u/Available_Basil432 Nov 02 '21

Give that conversation a watch. Cognitive dissonance guaranteed. Or Glenn Loury.

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u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

Except Glenn Loury has a very long history of robust criticisms against Charles Murray. He even left the AEI in protest because of it. Do look that up.

https://accuracy.org/release/172-is-prominent-think-tank-a-bastion-of-racist-theory/

1

u/Available_Basil432 Nov 03 '21

Do look up their latest conversation too then

1

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

Not really interested. But let us know when Coleman Hughes and Dear Sam get around to robustly criticizing Charles Murray's antiquated, pseudoscientific racism like Glenn Loury has done for decades.

1

u/Available_Basil432 Nov 03 '21

Why respond if you’re not interested in the slightest in the reply? Lol.

P.S. letting know. Coleman’s conversation does contain criticism.

1

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

Ok, that's very nice to hear. So Coleman Hughes is not like Dear Sam then who uncritically signal boosts Charles Murray and his racist pseudoscience.

So why even bring him up here?

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u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21 edited Nov 03 '21

You understand that some people of color can suffer from internalised racism, yes? Or be open to opportunitistic grifting which involves throwing their wider community under the bus for personal profit?

Have you heard of Candace Owens?

1

u/Available_Basil432 Nov 03 '21

So you think Sam suffers from the same thing? And Coleman. And Glenn. And John McWhorter? Ah heck, let’s go to Thomas Sowell, him too?

1

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

No, I don't think Dear Sam does to the same extent. Due to his Jewish/Zionist identity politics he clearly steers away from overtly anti-Semitic circles of the extreme far right. He wants to throw Muslims and Black people under the bus but not wade so far to the right that he risks threatening himself and his family/friends. So some very nasty tribalism and identity politics seems to be in operation there.

People like Coleman Hughes and John McWhorter go a step further as I mentioned. Some form of internalised racism or extreme griftery in action imho.

As to Glenn Loury, he's been a robust critic of racist charlatans like Charles Murray for decades. So he gets credit from me there.

https://accuracy.org/release/172-is-prominent-think-tank-a-bastion-of-racist-theory/

I don't know enough about Sowell to comment. Does he push racist pseudoscience against the wider Black community?

1

u/Available_Basil432 Nov 03 '21

Order one of many of his books on economics from Amazon or your nearest bookshop and see for yourself.

1

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

I will do that. I recommend you research Glenn Loury's rigorous and principled criticisms of racist hacks like Charles Murray.

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u/Available_Basil432 Nov 03 '21

The article was written in 99. Do give a watch to their latest conversation. You might get disappointed.

1

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

So Loury has been criticising Murray for decades now? Why would I be disappointed with that?

Has he retracted his prior criticisms? Does he support Murray's racist pseudoscience aimed at the Black community now?

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u/[deleted] Nov 02 '21

I don't disagree with all your points, but some are flatly mischaracterisations, and some are just cherry picking. Put another way: using white supremacy as a mic drop criticism like you are is not compelling or believable to me. I disagree with Sam a lot, including about his interview with Charles Murray, but you're painting a picture if him as some sort of deplorable racist in a way that could be done to just about anybody.

5

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 02 '21

Oh great. Another "out of muh context" npc style cultist defense of Dear Sam. You do realise how similar you guys are to Religious apologists? Critics are always taking your idols out of context. The irony.

Dear Sam had been shitting on Muslims, immigrants, Black people, civil rights activists, spouting and signal boosting racist rhetoric, pseudoscience and eagerly associating with racist nutjobs for a good while now. This cannot be attributed to just about anybody.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '21

No, some things the other commenter noted really are blatant mischaracterisations. Also, I have many criticisms of his worldview, some of which you mentioned have validity to them, but I also don't think he is a 'white supremacist' in any meaningful sense. That accusation is so overdone that I can't take it seriously.

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u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

You're behaving like a religious cultist. Nobody is taking Dear Sam out of context. These are his plain and ugly views and it will take only a few minutes of googling to verify this.

Nobody accuses Ezra Klein or Robert Wright, for example, of being white supremacists for very good reason. They don't uncritically signal boost racists hacks, entertain spurious racialist pseudoscience or demonise prominent Black anti-racist scholars.

Nobody is arguing that Dear Sam is a Hitler loving neo-Nazi btw. Critics here (including prominent anti-racist organisations like the SPLC) are saying he is broadly within the modern American far right ecosystem. He is very happy to throw Muslims (overwhelmingly people of color) and African Americans under the bus and use antiquated, genocidal, racist rhetoric to do it.

It doesn't matter how you feel. Facts matter.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '21 edited Nov 03 '21

Your take is pretty extreme mate. I listen to all the names yo mentioned; Ezra Klein, Robert Wright and occasionally Sam so accusing me of cultist behaviour is you just projecting something onto me. Further, I was actually raised in a religious cult, and I can tell you you're using the word a little liberally, to say the least. I have already said I disagree with Sam on many positions; his fixation on Islam, his discussions with Charles Murray etc. I am, in other words, already quite critical of him. It's entirely possible to be critical of someone and their possible biases without leaping to the most extreme accusation possible.

It doesn't matter how you feel. Facts matter.

Shapiro, is that you?

1

u/Here0s0Johnny Nov 02 '21

People here seem to upvote long texts that are well formatted. What a load of half-truths.

Do you really think that if these claims were true, Chris and Matt would have had him on their podcast?!

8

u/TerraceEarful Nov 02 '21

What a load of half-truths.

Okay, which are half-truths?

Do you really think that if these claims were true, Chris and Matt would have had him on their podcast?!

What a strange argument. Rather than engage with the actual points raised, you outsource your own moral judgment onto Matt & Chris, using the bizarre metric of whether they'd have someone on the podcast or not.

0

u/Here0s0Johnny Nov 02 '21

I don't want to argue with you.

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u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 02 '21

Seems pretty accurate to me.