Religion
Related: About this forumIs Sam Harris Really A White Supremacist?
BY ANDREW AGHAPOUR AND MICHAEL SCHULSON
MARCH 18, 2016
By profession, Sam Harris is a brawler. The New Atheist writer has ongoing feuds with Salon, AlterNet, The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald, and plenty of religious leaders. Whether Harris is a brawler because he loves to fight, or because conflict is the cost of truth-telling, we will not adjudicate, other than to say that all of this scrapping looks like good business. The man is a magnet for controversy, in a media economy where controversy sells.
Harris latest throwdown is with Omer Aziz, a law student at Yale and contributor to Salon. In December, Aziz published a scathing review of Harris latest book, Islam and the Future of Tolerance (co-written with Maajid Nawaz). Harris then invited Aziz onto his podcast, but only on the condition that Aziz follow a bizarre and rigid set of rules.
Aziz accepted, and they spoke for four hours, but then Harris refused to air the resulting conversation. Harris claimed that the conversation was boring. Aziz accused Harris of protecting himself, because what he said in those four hours was as extreme and belligerent and ignorant as anything he has ever written. Harris eventually relented, releasing the podcast on his website with a snarky title.
In an essay published on Salon last week, Aziz accuses Harris of hypocrisy, cowardice, and suppressing free speech. Then he implies that Harris is a white supremacist.
http://religiondispatches.org/is-sam-harris-really-a-white-supremacist/
https://www.salon.com/2016/03/07/my_secret_debate_with_sam_harris_a_revealing_4_hour_dialogue_on_islam_racism_free_speech_hypocrisy/
https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-best-podcast-ever
MisterP
(23,730 posts)cpwm17
(3,829 posts)His extreme views on American Exceptionalism and his indifference to non-white lives murdered in US wars make him one.
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)Sam Harris can be criticized for many things, but these strawmen are so boring and predictable now. All they do is attack Harris for things he doesn't say and then fall back on religious privilege to compare criticism of religion to white supremacy.
The wording is also so damn childish, the "latest throw down"...
The whole blogosphere referenced is a cesspool for any sort of serious discussion.
And when it comes to what people actually believe, people continue to leave religion in droves in the US, and none of these rants addresses why. And they never will, it's more about "points scored" than serious discussion.
rug
(82,333 posts)Does that include this Group?
MellowDem
(5,018 posts)articles with click bait titles and little substance or care for discussion.
rug
(82,333 posts)MellowDem
(5,018 posts)There's nothing to disagree with here, just attacks on strawmen.
Hell, the authors can't even be bothered to straight up say Harris is a white supremacist to disagree with in the first place.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)1) I don't know if Harris is a white supremacist or not.
2) Racial prejudice and white supremacy are two different things. There is a difference between hating/fearing once or more races and believing white people are the master race.
3) Arabs are white people.
rug
(82,333 posts)2) You don't have to be a Nazi to promote European values. His words promote Western culture and demote nonEuropean cultures, particularly those with strong religious cultures.
3) The British Empire did not use the term "white man's burden" to refer to Africa or China alone nut to, notably, India and its Mideast colonies and proctectorates.