My thoughts on Sam Harris
I have been listening to Sam Harris a lot. His Making Sense podcast during my commutes. His public appearances and panel discussions on YouTube while working out. I haven’t gotten around to reading his books yet though, which I would as soon as I finish reading all the unread books I have in my shelf.
People will recognize Sam as an author, orator, neuroscientist and a relentless advocate against organized religion. By his own admission, he is a liberal. To me, Sam is a voice of reason. For all his beliefs, he will most certainly fall on the left in the political spectrum. But that doesn’t stop him from calling out the left’s blatant hypocrisy, propensity to exaggerate and trigger happy behaviour. Although he is on the left, he performs a lot of, in his own words, “housekeeping” of sorts. He mentions his thoughts and opinions during an episode on his podcast and explains it in detail in the next. This to me is where Sam is a little different compared to Christopher Hitchens, who I equally adore. I have never seen or heard Christopher explain his opinions he made earlier. Perhaps, Sam is doing this because, and I believe this is true, often times he is misconstrued, even by those he speaks on behalf of, which can be extremely daunting and terribly frustrating. Sam picks up on the backlash on social media, of which Christopher was never part of (maybe he was gone before the proliferation of social media and if he had been around, he would have absolutely killed it like he did on all the stages he took).
Sam calls things what he thinks it is. And I agree with his viewpoint all the time. In one of his podcast, Sam called Christopher Hitchens a bully. Now there is no denying how much love and adoration Sam has for Christopher. I also believe Christopher liked Sam equally as much too. But when Sam called Christopher a bully, I have to admit it threw me off guard. But after a few seconds I jolted back to the realization that Sam is not incorrect. Christopher, for all his prowess, was indeed a bully. He would take down his opponents, belittle their opposing arguments with absolute, clinical disdain (his fans have a dedicated term for it, Hitchslap). My initial shock to Sam calling Christopher a bully was overcome with acceptance. He was right.
I am going to defend Sam’s decision to explain his opinions. How would you feel if you went on a popular show on national television to promote your book and an actor (in this case Ben Affleck) point blank accuses you of being a racist? Sam mentioned in an interview with Dave Rubin that he continued the discussion back stage with Ben along with Bill Maher where he told Ben that by calling him a racist he had alienated half of the crowd by giving them a reason to hate him.
There’s only so much of being misunderstood you can take. Sam need not have to suffer for all his detractors lack of brain cells.
I do feel for him thought.
Sam is fighting a hard and a lone battle. He has no allies left. Christopher is gone. Richard Dawkins is not to be seen anywhere lately (I miss him on panel shows and wish he had a podcast of his own).
I am a liberal. I have written about it here before. But I also consider myself to be open-minded, self-critical, reasonable, rational and logical. I look for facts rather than the truth. Because truth can be subjective. Sam does the same I think. Like me, he can’t stand when the left piles on the right by twisting facts and pushing their version of the truth. Like me, he is worried that unless the left cleans up their act, the US, and the world at large, will have to endure another 4 years of Trump.
What is jarring for me is how blind-sighted some are on the left. Their obsession to defeat Trump has stripped them off all their ability to question and criticize their own actions. Unfortunately, all these slips is playing straight into the hands of Trump and his supporters.
I also think that precocious woke newbies like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are screaming too loud but falling to make any sense. AOC is a prime example of misunderstanding her becoming a Congresswoman at such an young age to having given the free reign to spray all her opinions all at once and expect people to rally behind it immediately. She has her foot on everything. To her, I would say, slow down please. Perhaps you can start with your constituency. Make a difference there first before trying to change the country.
Back to Sam Harris now with a closing remark. If Democrats want to see Trump out of the White House, they should listen to Sam. Failing which will be at their own peril I am afraid.
