For today’s episode, we’re thrilled to share the most recent episode of our friend Sam Harris’s podcast, Making Sense. Moral confusion is plaguing this moment like never before. It’s everywhere: from college campuses to congress. Sam, better than almost anyone, is able to speak to that confusion, with facts, nuance and moral clarity. Importantly, he doesn’t just visit this topic with the narrow lens of this particular war between Hamas and Israel, but with a bird’s eye view of history. But according to Sam, it’s not the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that matters so much right now, but rather the history—and enduring global problem—of jihadism. And that’s what this episode is about.
Isn't this the guy who claimed the Trump was such an existential threat to democracy that the media was justified in lies, deceptions and omissions? It seems to me that that kind of behavior by the media is exactly the thing that undermines democracy. He also had some pretty "interesting" ideas about vaccine mandates. Why would I take him seriously now?
Instead of watching click-baitey Twitter or Instagram clips of the guy, listen to his full episodes where those were pulled from. I think you'd appreciate his position more.
*Awaits incoming comments from the regulars here telling me about my TDS*
Susan, you are 100% correct on the items you mentioned. Harris did seem to loss it a bit during Trump/Covid times. But his moral clarity is spot on here. Regardless of the messenger, what he says here and has been saying since 9/11 is worthy of a listen.
Susan - I am glad you did listen. I used to listen to Sam’s meditation app, Waking Up and to his podcast, Making Sense. I read some of his books, including the short one he refers to on Islam. I cancelled the app and the podcast about a year ago because of a few things: his position on the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story; his position on suppressing speech on Covid - both of these “for the greater good”. And, on his podcast, I felt he had begun to use his guests as a way to disseminate his own dogma. It was just too much and I couldn’t spend that much time on it anymore. So, I approached this one with some trepidation, but gave it a listen anyway. He still a kind of unshakeable moral certainty that makes me a bit uncomfortable. There seems to be very little room for doubt in Sam’s world. But this one seems to me to be spot on and worth a listen. So, I am glad you gave it a listen too. The incredible power of bad idea is all around us and is truly scary.
Wow...EXACTLY the same with me. Used his meditation app, listened to his podcasts etc. The TDS, Covid stances made me question him until I couldn't take it anymore and bailed.
The other thing I had a hard time with was his embrace of the Effective Altruism movement. He had a hard time figuring out the whole Sam Bankman Fried debacle, I think in part because they were aligned on EA
I say without gloating, welcome to the Republican Party. This is what Trump said when he banned travel from 8 countries that produce the most Jihadis. Of course, then Sam and the staff who would later build the Free Press, called him a bigot. And not just a bigot, but one so awful that they accepted despite evidence to the contrary that Trump colluded with Russia and said there were good neo-Nazis at Charlottesville. He was so evil that he was dehumanized by the Left and no amount of reprobation was sufficient. The visceral hatred and approval of anything that could harm Trump looks a lot like the marrow-deep hatred of Jews by Hamas minus the paragliders. Hamas is different in scale, but not in in style. When Harris and TFP says they would vote for a Republican which unreservedly supports Israel over someone who downplays the threat from radical Islam for political power and funded Hamas and Hizbollah through Iran, I will welcome them much more enthusiastically.
Jerusalem is the capitol of Israel, chosen by David 3000 years ago, where the Temple of the Living God was built (where the Al Aqsa Mosque now sits which all Jews and Christians are barred from). How is supporting the Israeli claim of Jerusalem anti-semitic? Its the opposite. Jerusalem is God’s holy city for his chosen people- Israel.
Sorry, I was writing in a sarcastic voice, I should have labeled this as sarcasm.
Trump was constantly called Anti-Semitic, and despite all he did for the Jews, where were the Jews when Trump needed them? Crickets.
Trump was constantly called homo-phobic, despite being one of the very first public figures to call for gay marriage. I only ever saw one gay man in an interview defended Trump. Trump was the favorite shopping buddy of the very flamboyant singer Liberace ... if you were a friend of Liberace, you definitely weren't homophobic. Where was the gay community to defend an ally? Mostly Crickets.
Ok I will suck it up and give it a try . Even though I went into early retirement from vaccine mandates .
It’s hard not to get mad at the sound of his voice . His ludicrous moving of the goalposts as in. If it had a significantly larger death count I would have been right .
Well I did listen to James Carville who wanted to punch me in the face for my decision.
The essence of an open mind is the willingness to listen to those you usually disagree with when an event like Oct 7 forces us to ask, “What really matters.” Because there is so much that doesn’t.
Here is an idea: get all the muslim "true believers" and their supporters together in a room with suicide bombs attached. Then, explode them and they all go to paradise. Meanwhile, all the non-believers, infidels, etc., that are not ready to go stay behind. Everybody wins.
Bari Weiss has a keen sense of the issues and ideas that provide listeners with enough background and context to better understand our world and the moment in which we live. This podcast as well as her interview with Mead “World Spinning Out of Control “ are excellent examples and I thank her so much for both podcasts and her work in general
This was brilliant, and forgive me if I sound like a rube, but I hadn't heard of Sam Harris before listening to this while in my car on a long drive home from my daughter's college. I had no idea of Mr. Harris's previous TDS and his covid-laced authoritarian stances. Good thing, or else I might have completely skipped this. Here, his moral clarity shines through. It's a must listen/read for anyone that still finds themselves still vacillating over the assignment of blame.
I also have to say that when I noticed this would just be him speaking for an hour-long podcast, I thought I'd bail somewhere around the 20 minute mark, and yet he kept me riveted for the entirety. I love to know more about his process of sorting out these thoughts that kept my interest for so long.
There is no political justification for Hamas. For Hamas there is no end beyond the exercise of power, like the SS, a death cult. jihad an end to itself.
Hamas is deeply embedded within the Palestinian people. Whether by consent or intimidation, as Mao put it, they, “move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.” Hamas came to power in 2007 through democratic election, and while there have been no elections since, and many Palestinians do not support Hamas, many others support its stated aims of the elimination of Jews and of the state of Israel, or see Hamas as the defender of the people’s interest against domination by Israel, and see armed conflict as the only available route to autonomy.
On the other side Israelis are divided between those who would seek accommodation in a two state solution and those whose ultimate goals are the permanent establishment of a greater Israel, 'between the river and the sea', in which Palestinians are supplanted or subjugated.
Of those on both sides who advocate mutual accommodation, their positions are weakened by their weakness within their own camps and the general perception on both sides of the absence of faithful interlocutors representative of the other, such that might actually produce viable compromise and who have the political will and standing to sustain a meaningful peace process.
Of the current conflict, and the suffering produced, proportionality cannot be measured in numbers alone where existential questions are concerned, that of civilization versus barbarity, or of autonomy and a people’s claim to self-determination. The issues here are not of Palestinians and Israelis alone, but of the history of the proximate moment and of the global conflict between liberal ideas and those of theocracy and autocracy; of the axis of perversity that runs through Hamas and Hezbollah, from Iran through Russia, with China on the near horizon.
Solution of conflicts may often best devalue arguments based on false premises, or that they not be inordinately respectful of intransigent positions that bar the way to understanding. It is also true that synthesis requires that all relevant perspectives be analytically held in common, that to the extent that all positions hold truths, or a part of the truth, that those truths be honored.
If you are here you have an open mind and listened to the podcast. I want to believe that Sam on his moral teachings, especially in view of the horrors inflicted by Hamas on Oct 7, but my desire does not make it so. Thus, one should brush aside Sam's soft tones and understand the limitations of his reasoning.
The past criticisms of Sam's previous work are evident in this podcast where he gets to briefly rehash criticisms of Catholics:
Considered pedophile Priest scandal: One can argue that Catholic teaching is partially to blame for this scandal; follow the causality: by making abortion and contraceptives taboo ensures more out-of-wedlock babies and stigmatizing unmarried women, both of this ensures more children in orphanage that can be preyed upon by unhealth sexual men.
Statistics in the US; In 1980, some 18 percent of all women in the United States who gave birth were unmarried. As of 2021, the percentage of births to unmarried women has increased to 40 percent.
Making abortion and contraceptives taboo did not increase the number of out-of-wedlock babies.
Brilliant! Required listening for all my Moral Reasoning and Political Philosophy classes. Sam Harris is a philosophy professor both authentic and courageous -- excellent as he is rare and difficult.
This is overall very good, but it is *fascinating* that we are getting a morality lesson on good and evil from one of the most famous atheists in the world. I think Ben Shapiro hit the nail on the head when he asked Sam why the two of them share so many basic moral principles- and indeed agree in many ways on the basics of this topic.
To reduce the brightness of this argument that uses extremist behaviors as excuse for the perpetual avoidance of actions that will move Israel towards peace, please checkout Kim Iversen's interview with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. Until those with the greater power choose to, "vie in virtue" and summon the courage to become "exemplars for humanity", we are unlikely to see other than the perpetuation of the tragedy.
Sam, So sorry, you should have informed your Jewish friends, that if they wanted the charge of 'anti-Semite' to sting, perhaps they should have reserved it's use to only real anti-Semites committing real anti-Semitic words/actions, and not to water down the dog-whistle by over-blowing it in run of the mill political discussions ... most likely to cover the fact their political arguments had run out of steam.
For instance, when Matt Gaetz goes off on Soros, this is not necessarily an anti-Semitic thing; When someone decries 'globalism'; globalism certainly isn't an anti-Semitic thing ... So now, you're screaming anti-Semites, yet many of your would-be allies are quite worn-out by the never ending blowing of that same ol' dog-whistle ... yet again. Sadly with over-use it has lost it's meaning.
Isn't this the guy who claimed the Trump was such an existential threat to democracy that the media was justified in lies, deceptions and omissions? It seems to me that that kind of behavior by the media is exactly the thing that undermines democracy. He also had some pretty "interesting" ideas about vaccine mandates. Why would I take him seriously now?
Instead of watching click-baitey Twitter or Instagram clips of the guy, listen to his full episodes where those were pulled from. I think you'd appreciate his position more.
*Awaits incoming comments from the regulars here telling me about my TDS*
Susan, you are 100% correct on the items you mentioned. Harris did seem to loss it a bit during Trump/Covid times. But his moral clarity is spot on here. Regardless of the messenger, what he says here and has been saying since 9/11 is worthy of a listen.
Thanks Laurence. I will give it a listen with an open mind.
Laurence, you were right. This was great.
Susan - I am glad you did listen. I used to listen to Sam’s meditation app, Waking Up and to his podcast, Making Sense. I read some of his books, including the short one he refers to on Islam. I cancelled the app and the podcast about a year ago because of a few things: his position on the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story; his position on suppressing speech on Covid - both of these “for the greater good”. And, on his podcast, I felt he had begun to use his guests as a way to disseminate his own dogma. It was just too much and I couldn’t spend that much time on it anymore. So, I approached this one with some trepidation, but gave it a listen anyway. He still a kind of unshakeable moral certainty that makes me a bit uncomfortable. There seems to be very little room for doubt in Sam’s world. But this one seems to me to be spot on and worth a listen. So, I am glad you gave it a listen too. The incredible power of bad idea is all around us and is truly scary.
Wow...EXACTLY the same with me. Used his meditation app, listened to his podcasts etc. The TDS, Covid stances made me question him until I couldn't take it anymore and bailed.
Very well said! Thank you.
The other thing I had a hard time with was his embrace of the Effective Altruism movement. He had a hard time figuring out the whole Sam Bankman Fried debacle, I think in part because they were aligned on EA
I say without gloating, welcome to the Republican Party. This is what Trump said when he banned travel from 8 countries that produce the most Jihadis. Of course, then Sam and the staff who would later build the Free Press, called him a bigot. And not just a bigot, but one so awful that they accepted despite evidence to the contrary that Trump colluded with Russia and said there were good neo-Nazis at Charlottesville. He was so evil that he was dehumanized by the Left and no amount of reprobation was sufficient. The visceral hatred and approval of anything that could harm Trump looks a lot like the marrow-deep hatred of Jews by Hamas minus the paragliders. Hamas is different in scale, but not in in style. When Harris and TFP says they would vote for a Republican which unreservedly supports Israel over someone who downplays the threat from radical Islam for political power and funded Hamas and Hizbollah through Iran, I will welcome them much more enthusiastically.
Do you mean Trump the Anti-Semite who moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem?
Jerusalem is the capitol of Israel, chosen by David 3000 years ago, where the Temple of the Living God was built (where the Al Aqsa Mosque now sits which all Jews and Christians are barred from). How is supporting the Israeli claim of Jerusalem anti-semitic? Its the opposite. Jerusalem is God’s holy city for his chosen people- Israel.
Sorry, I was writing in a sarcastic voice, I should have labeled this as sarcasm.
Trump was constantly called Anti-Semitic, and despite all he did for the Jews, where were the Jews when Trump needed them? Crickets.
Trump was constantly called homo-phobic, despite being one of the very first public figures to call for gay marriage. I only ever saw one gay man in an interview defended Trump. Trump was the favorite shopping buddy of the very flamboyant singer Liberace ... if you were a friend of Liberace, you definitely weren't homophobic. Where was the gay community to defend an ally? Mostly Crickets.
Bruh, Im sorry sir. I shouldve read the sarcasm instead of being combative. Agreed! Take care!
Ok I will suck it up and give it a try . Even though I went into early retirement from vaccine mandates .
It’s hard not to get mad at the sound of his voice . His ludicrous moving of the goalposts as in. If it had a significantly larger death count I would have been right .
Well I did listen to James Carville who wanted to punch me in the face for my decision.
Its hard to keep an open mind lol but I’m trying
Update I did listen and it was spot on .
The essence of an open mind is the willingness to listen to those you usually disagree with when an event like Oct 7 forces us to ask, “What really matters.” Because there is so much that doesn’t.
Here is an idea: get all the muslim "true believers" and their supporters together in a room with suicide bombs attached. Then, explode them and they all go to paradise. Meanwhile, all the non-believers, infidels, etc., that are not ready to go stay behind. Everybody wins.
Bari Weiss has a keen sense of the issues and ideas that provide listeners with enough background and context to better understand our world and the moment in which we live. This podcast as well as her interview with Mead “World Spinning Out of Control “ are excellent examples and I thank her so much for both podcasts and her work in general
This was brilliant, and forgive me if I sound like a rube, but I hadn't heard of Sam Harris before listening to this while in my car on a long drive home from my daughter's college. I had no idea of Mr. Harris's previous TDS and his covid-laced authoritarian stances. Good thing, or else I might have completely skipped this. Here, his moral clarity shines through. It's a must listen/read for anyone that still finds themselves still vacillating over the assignment of blame.
I also have to say that when I noticed this would just be him speaking for an hour-long podcast, I thought I'd bail somewhere around the 20 minute mark, and yet he kept me riveted for the entirety. I love to know more about his process of sorting out these thoughts that kept my interest for so long.
There is no political justification for Hamas. For Hamas there is no end beyond the exercise of power, like the SS, a death cult. jihad an end to itself.
Hamas is deeply embedded within the Palestinian people. Whether by consent or intimidation, as Mao put it, they, “move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.” Hamas came to power in 2007 through democratic election, and while there have been no elections since, and many Palestinians do not support Hamas, many others support its stated aims of the elimination of Jews and of the state of Israel, or see Hamas as the defender of the people’s interest against domination by Israel, and see armed conflict as the only available route to autonomy.
On the other side Israelis are divided between those who would seek accommodation in a two state solution and those whose ultimate goals are the permanent establishment of a greater Israel, 'between the river and the sea', in which Palestinians are supplanted or subjugated.
Of those on both sides who advocate mutual accommodation, their positions are weakened by their weakness within their own camps and the general perception on both sides of the absence of faithful interlocutors representative of the other, such that might actually produce viable compromise and who have the political will and standing to sustain a meaningful peace process.
Of the current conflict, and the suffering produced, proportionality cannot be measured in numbers alone where existential questions are concerned, that of civilization versus barbarity, or of autonomy and a people’s claim to self-determination. The issues here are not of Palestinians and Israelis alone, but of the history of the proximate moment and of the global conflict between liberal ideas and those of theocracy and autocracy; of the axis of perversity that runs through Hamas and Hezbollah, from Iran through Russia, with China on the near horizon.
Solution of conflicts may often best devalue arguments based on false premises, or that they not be inordinately respectful of intransigent positions that bar the way to understanding. It is also true that synthesis requires that all relevant perspectives be analytically held in common, that to the extent that all positions hold truths, or a part of the truth, that those truths be honored.
this was brilliant, and in a way it was very much Team America: World Police in the form of a sophisticated lecture.
If you are here you have an open mind and listened to the podcast. I want to believe that Sam on his moral teachings, especially in view of the horrors inflicted by Hamas on Oct 7, but my desire does not make it so. Thus, one should brush aside Sam's soft tones and understand the limitations of his reasoning.
The past criticisms of Sam's previous work are evident in this podcast where he gets to briefly rehash criticisms of Catholics:
Considered pedophile Priest scandal: One can argue that Catholic teaching is partially to blame for this scandal; follow the causality: by making abortion and contraceptives taboo ensures more out-of-wedlock babies and stigmatizing unmarried women, both of this ensures more children in orphanage that can be preyed upon by unhealth sexual men.
Statistics in the US; In 1980, some 18 percent of all women in the United States who gave birth were unmarried. As of 2021, the percentage of births to unmarried women has increased to 40 percent.
Making abortion and contraceptives taboo did not increase the number of out-of-wedlock babies.
Moral confusion to me is not being able to access highlighted excerpts of this monologue.
Brilliant! Required listening for all my Moral Reasoning and Political Philosophy classes. Sam Harris is a philosophy professor both authentic and courageous -- excellent as he is rare and difficult.
This is overall very good, but it is *fascinating* that we are getting a morality lesson on good and evil from one of the most famous atheists in the world. I think Ben Shapiro hit the nail on the head when he asked Sam why the two of them share so many basic moral principles- and indeed agree in many ways on the basics of this topic.
To reduce the brightness of this argument that uses extremist behaviors as excuse for the perpetual avoidance of actions that will move Israel towards peace, please checkout Kim Iversen's interview with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. Until those with the greater power choose to, "vie in virtue" and summon the courage to become "exemplars for humanity", we are unlikely to see other than the perpetuation of the tragedy.
Sam, So sorry, you should have informed your Jewish friends, that if they wanted the charge of 'anti-Semite' to sting, perhaps they should have reserved it's use to only real anti-Semites committing real anti-Semitic words/actions, and not to water down the dog-whistle by over-blowing it in run of the mill political discussions ... most likely to cover the fact their political arguments had run out of steam.
For instance, when Matt Gaetz goes off on Soros, this is not necessarily an anti-Semitic thing; When someone decries 'globalism'; globalism certainly isn't an anti-Semitic thing ... So now, you're screaming anti-Semites, yet many of your would-be allies are quite worn-out by the never ending blowing of that same ol' dog-whistle ... yet again. Sadly with over-use it has lost it's meaning.