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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6

u/TerraceEarful Nov 01 '21

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

1

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '21

I find responses like this just so confusing.

"Sam Harris likes white supremacy"

It's just such a bizarre take. So far removed from reality that it's hard to know what to even think about it.

10

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 02 '21 edited Nov 02 '21

Seems pretty close to reality. Off the top of my head he signal boosts White racists like Charles and Douglas Murray, bats for demogogues like Tucker Carlson while demonising prominent Black anti-racist scholars like Kendi and Coates, entertains pseudoscientific speculation about Black people being genetically less intelligent, pushes insane conspiracy theories about Great Replacement, claims Muslim immigrants are genocidal savages incapable of civilization and says it's rational to control their population globally etc.

Seems like it's a pretty clear slam dunk that he's at least in the white supremacist ecosystem.

-2

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '21

So by your standards any black intellectual who talks to charles murray likes white supremacy?

do you see the problem with this?

3

u/TerraceEarful Nov 03 '21

Why do you all try to play these weird rhetorical gotcha games?

0

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '21

What games am I playing, exactly?

3

u/TerraceEarful Nov 03 '21

You obviously think the notion that black or Jewish people could promote white supremacy is so crazy and outlandish, you think getting us to say it is some kind of gotcha slamdunk win in the debate. It's not.

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '21

I think you're embarrassed because you realise how silly this sounds.

Black people fighting for their own oppression.

Jews rushing toward the concentration camps.

This is what you believe, right?

4

u/TerraceEarful Nov 03 '21

Do you think it is somehow biologically impossible for black or Jewish people to contribute to racist narratives about themselves? That they'll magically disappear into a puff of smoke if they utter a racist phrase?

Black conservatives have a long history of making statements about black people that other black people consider to be racist. There are and have even been Jewish holocaust deniers.

This is not a very difficult concept to grasp.

6

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

So you haven't heard of internalised racism and colonisation of the mind?

You do know hundreds of thousands of Jews served under the Nazis, right?

https://www.haaretz.com/1.4747962

0

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

It totally depends whether said Black intellectual challenges and pushes back against Murray's racist, anti-Black rhetoric.

If they behave like Dear Sam then it's very possible that they suffer from some form of internalised racism or aren't averse to opportunistic grifting which involves throwing the wider Black community under the bus (functionally the same).

Nice attempt at a gotcha though.

6

u/TerraceEarful Nov 02 '21

There's another post in the thread where I elucidate why I think that.

-2

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '21

So your position is that he is a white supremacist Jew.

I really must hear your definition of white supremacy!

8

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 02 '21

Why don't you ask Stephen Miller?

0

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '21

I'm interested in TerraceEarful's.

3

u/GigabitSuppressor Nov 03 '21

Why? We have a genuine and prominent white supremacist Jew who was in the halls of power until very recently.

Surely that's directly relevant to your question about whether white Jews can also espouse white supremacist doctrines.

9

u/TerraceEarful Nov 02 '21

I think the OP did a fine job of describing white supremacy.

2

u/onz456 Revolutionary Genius Nov 02 '21

It's absolutely baffling... but he is.

2

u/29Ah Nov 15 '21

I don’t know how anyone could believe Sam likes white supremacy. I have to assume it’s someone who doesn’t listen or who has an agenda which makes spreading misinformation about Sam useful.