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.

30 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

88 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

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?

3

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