Takes one to know one.
I wish Sam Harris wasn’t a white supremacist because I like some of his shit. :/
He’s also transphobic. The age of assholes includes Sam Harris.
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I mean he’s defended JK Rowling, and argues that we shouldn’t use inclusive language. So yeah, he’s a transphobe.
And sure if you deliberately both-sides every argument, you can pretend there’s nothing useful being said, and ignore both! Very convenient that!
He’s not against the use of inclusive language, rather he’s against compelled speech. There’s no law ordering us all to use he/she/it or else but when the matter becomes “inclusive” then it is basically mandated or face consequences and somehow people are okay with that? Insane.
Firstly, that was not what I was referring to, when I mentioned that he’s against inclusive language. I was referring to inclusive and accurate language in medical settings.
But secondly, nobody is compelling speech. Not any more than anyone is compelled to refer to someone by their name. You can call anybody anything you like. Other people might just think you’re being an asshole, if you choose to refer to someone in deliberately disrespectful ways.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences of that speech.
Doctors have to 100% respect their patient’s wishes but treatment has to be delivered in a biological sense. There’s no good reason to not point out to a patient that this or that treatment is the best course of action based on their biological make up, even if that may hurt or even offend some people. There’s no way a patient could make informed decisions about their own health otherwise. If the doctors don’t do that then they become liable for the wrong diagnoses or treatments they prescribe.
I mostly agree with the second half of your comment though. What I disagree is that people seem to be very quick to stereotype anything that doesn’t fit the narrative as supremacist and the likes. That’s not constructive at all to say the least. If we want change we need to promote change in a good and positive sense because otherwise will mean shutting that communication’s door with a lot of people.
I’ve heard something that made sense and went like: “I’ve never seen a racist person stop being racist for being called a racist”. Yes real racists must be punished for doing what they do but we can’t generalise and call everybody a racist for things they’re mostly ignorant about. They need to be informed and invited to follow a better path.
Doctors have to 100% respect their patient’s wishes but treatment has to be delivered in a biological sense. There’s no good reason to not point out to a patient that this or that treatment is the best course of action based on their biological make up, even if that may hurt or even offend some people. There’s no way a patient could make informed decisions about their own health otherwise. If the doctors don’t do that then they become liable for the wrong diagnoses or treatments they prescribe.
You do not know what I am talking about. Please stop making wild assumptions about what I mean. You are making up nonsense narratives to argue against.
Nobody is saying doctors shouldn’t treat people in line with their current biology. Which by the way, for trans people is more complicated than just treatment based on sex at birth.
Trans people want inclusive and accurate terminology to be used. Talking about prostate cancer? Refer to “people with prostates”. That is accurate and inclusive.
People like Sam Harris say we shouldn’t do that, and only ever say “men” or “women” even if that is both less accurate and invalidating towards trans people.
The rest of your comment has little to do with what I said before. So I’m not going to go chasing after it. I give people the benefit of the doubt, but I’m also not going to waste time trying to convince a person who doesn’t want to be convinced to be less bigoted. Convincing the racist to be less racist often isn’t the goal.
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If one is defending her, rather virulent, transphobia, I’d argue it does constitute “doing a transphobia” actually.
Virulent? She’s got the most basic opinions of your average American moderate. You don’t know what virulent looks like, and if you want to know just browse ovarit for a bit.
The average US moderate does not give a toss about transgender people. Meanwhile JK Rowling has made ranting about this tiny minority a huge part of her personal brand. She tweets constantly about transgender people. So the idea that her opinions are that of an average US moderate are laughable, to say the least.
JKR thinks she’s fighting Death Eaters, fictionalised fascists, for goodness sakes.
And JKR regularly moves to support people like Kellie-Jay Keen, who straight up says the more extreme parts out loud. For example Keen suggests that US men should use women’s toilets and threaten any women they think might be trans with a gun. JKR has gone so far as to offer monetary support for Keen, so she can file SLAP suits against people criticising her online.
So yes. Virulent.
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No, no we definitely know. If you defend unrepentant transphobes you yourself are a transphobe and should go fuck yourself.
Izzard who is, famously, not trans.
Well, the important thing is that you have learned how to ignore that particular bigotry entirely. Well done!
He isn’t a white supremacist…
He’s not the biggest fan of Muslims.
Isn’t it just religious fundamentalist in general?
He’s not the biggest fan of extremists and so ain’t I.
He really dislikes the brown ones.
Sauce or is lies.
Not in the most common sense but his views and attitude towards anything not white and christian are extremely similar to white supremacists.
https://religiondispatches.org/is-sam-harris-really-a-white-supremacist/
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But his criticism of Christianity is tame in comparison. He consistently misintrepest Islam and frames it in a way that makes it seem something special about Islam what is conductive to terrorism. He constantly ignores christian and Jewish terrorism in favour of highlighting Islamic terrorism. The article cites many examples of this.
White supremacy takes many forms, being a tool of a system of discrimination and singling Islam as especially cruel is part of that.
Edit after the whole discussion below: this is the article I failed miserably to link. New to lemmy an links and I failed like a noob redditor.
https://religiondispatches.org/is-sam-harris-really-a-white-supremacist/
The guy below is right to call me out for lack of evidence.
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Same here. Supremacist? Is that really the correct use for the term? Ludicrous claim… People have no understanding of meaning anymore and throw around words as if to “make the most damage” is always the objective.
I did a response further up, but if you want here is an amazing article by one of Voxes editors that goes into full detail about how Sam Harris defended and amplified the extremely white supremacists idea that black people have lower IQs than white people. And how after being challenged as such he run away like a coward.
It’s not that I don’t like him, it’s that he is a racist asshole that thinks white people are superior.
I’m not sure what else you call someone who promotes the idea that black people have lower IQ’s than white people, and that it’s on a genetic level that this is true.
It was when he started spouting this idea that I stopped listening to his podcast personally.
I could look past the anti Muslim stuff because, at the end of the day, he was still targeting an ideology, not a race (although it is kind of a dogwhistley one, I’m also anti religion so I was willing to look past it.)
But I’m curious as to how you can defend the belief that black people are genetically inferior to white people, and how you can see it as anything but white supremacy. Unless you just didn’t know he was about this, which is understandable. I was shocked personally when he started talking about it on his show years ago because it didn’t seem like his MO.
I don’t know where you seem to think I would go to race=religion, Sam Harris constantly makes that assumption when he talks about Islam. Conflating issues in the Arab world as issues of the whole Islamic world.
I quoted a full article at the start of this conversation from a non profit that explains this equivalence that you are more than welcome to read. In there he goes into way more details about what it means.
Edit post comment:
https://religiondispatches.org/is-sam-harris-really-a-white-supremacist/
That was the article I failed to quote on my first comment, sorry for that. It’s a good explanation from 2016 on how his rethoric around Islam supports and promotes white supremacists ideas. Sorry for that, thanks for calling me out on the lack of evidence.
But you wanted more evidence, let’s go:
He’s is an avid defender of the ideas of white supremacy with race and IQ, going out of his way to defend the bell curve and it’s disingenuous at best, blatantly racist at worst writer. He has used his post cast many times to defend the white supremacists view that back people are genetically lower IQ than whites.
For further reading, one of Voxes editors did an amazing piece about this here. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/27/15695060/sam-harris-charles-murray-race-iq-forbidden-knowledge-podcast-bell-curve The article goes into amazing detail and quotes quite a few scientists and their research that contradict the bell curve and it’s white supremacists ideas. Sam refuses to interview anyone that questions his views on the subject.
For a more thorough and explicitly explanation of why the bell curve is not only racists but bad science checking out Shaun’s “the bell curve” video on YouTube is a great place to start.
Furthermore the whole “defending jk Rowling because she has only given an opinion” is more of the topical far right, white supremacists playbook where you dimish what jk Rowling has said and done. From writing books where the main villan is a transgender man to supporting, promoting and donating to far right, transphobic, anti-abortion and white supremacists organizations. His take on the subject is trash, and he is always amplifying the voices of those like Rowling that promote transphobia.
An excellent article you can read about how bad and far right his talking points are is this one: https://aninjusticemag.com/sam-harris-j-k-rowling-and-the-cesspool-of-anti-trans-activism-3e2753e5b6da
There are many definitions of white supremacy, the one most people agree on is the enshrinement of white culture and people as somewhat better than other cultures. Sam Harris is constantly diminished the crimes of Christianity and pointing to Islam, he willfully ignores science to promote racists ideas about race and intelligence and he equates the fight of people to achieve equal rights as going to far.
He isn’t going around saying kill all blacks but he is consistently parroting white supremacists and far right views that only serve as an introduction to horrific ideas. While he is constantly talking about both sides whenever someone challenges any of his ideas he runs like a coward in order to have his public avoid listening to the other side of the story.
I hope this helps in qualifying him as the shit person he is.
Conflating white supremacy with islamaphobia isn’t a mistake, it’s a correlation.
I think it’s okay to separate the work from the author in this case. As you say, he’s made some really neat stuff that stands on its own merits.
And given that he is essentially a professional contrarian it isn’t surprising that he’s had some misses as well.
Wait what? I literally only use his meditation app and it’s changed my life. What’s the vibe here?
He did a podcast years ago when I used to listen to his stuff where he had a black guy who believed white people were superior and Sam agreed with him, using him as proof that it can’t be racist because a black guy believed it. Sam many times in it described himself as a white supremacist, but you could tell by his tone that he believed it meant something different for him, because Sam is nothing if not egotistical. It also seemed to be done in protest against, idk, the blowback that people get when pursuing knowledge that could be seen as racist? Anyway it was stupid as all fuck and it was the last one I listened to.
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What else do you call someone who promotes the idea that black people are inherently dumber than white people on a genetic level? Like… I don’t understand how you can be more blatantly white supremacist than that.
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All that golden girls money, wasted… sam harris is not your friend, people.
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Fuck this fuck with fucks
