Why I do Criticise (and Despise) Samuel Harris
I think Sam Harris is highly intellectually lazy, appallingly
illiterate (for a public ‘intellectual’, especially such a brash and vociferous
one), highly delusional about his own rationality, unjustifiably arrogant in
general, a very facile thinker, and an extremely specious, incompetent arguer. I
do not think of them as an intelligent man, but an intellectual fraud. Incidentally,
most of his acclaim and celebrity derives from young male fools between the
ages of 13 and 20. He is the intellectual icon of pubescent male imbeciles.
In my time, I have gathered
together a vast number of articles on Sam Harris’ intellectual and moral
failings, and I have grouped them under headlines below, with accompanying
thoughts. What follows is poorly structured and uneven, but it is still better
than anything ever produced by Sam Harris (this is a joke).
Harris Taking Audaciously Strong Philosophical Stances
without Serious Argument (The Moral
Landscape and Free Will):
In his 2010 book, The
Moral Landscape, Sam Harris argues that utilitarianism is right[1]; and
that morality is objective and can be
made scientific and empirical, by becoming (literally) a
branch of neuroscience (which he claims will provide us with profound new
insights into right and wrong, and will be able to cast a decisive vote on various
fundamental dilemmas (giving the key to both explaining why FGM is wrong, and
why US foreign policy is fine)). As it happens, the book is utterly atrocious,
and his attempt to defend these idiotic theses is dismal.
Not all of the following reviews
of this book exactly agree, and I don’t think I exactly exactly agree with any
one of them. But together they paint a devastatingly clear picture of just how unbelievably
sloppy, stupid, crass and arrogant Harris’ book really is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/books/review/Appiah-t.html
http://www.artisresearch.com/articles/Atran_Sam_Harriss_Guide.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/books/review/Appiah-t.html
http://www.artisresearch.com/articles/Atran_Sam_Harriss_Guide.pdf
In 2012, Sam Harris published a monograph called Free Will in which he defends
incompatibilism and the view that “free will is an illusion”, but without
engaging seriously with any philosophical literature or indeed any serious
counter-arguments whatsoever. Daniel Dennett wrote a sterling, highly scathing
review of this stain on philosophy:
Sam Harris’ Views on Foreign Policy, World Affairs and
Islam:
One of the many reasons why Harris’ infamous email exchange
with Chomsky should be considered as nothing more than a total humiliation for the party under discussion is that, in the
correspondence (or battering), Harris doesn’t make a single argument that Chomsky hadn’t answered in print countless times going back literally decades. Harris only has one point to
make, that we should make exceptions for US war crimes because of his state’s “benign
intentions”. But even if Harris had even just read Chomsky’s famous 1967 essay “The
Responsibility of Intellectuals”, he’d have answers to his concerns. Consider
this passage from near the end of Chomsky’s famous piece:
“AS A FINAL EXAMPLE of this failure of skepticism, consider the
remarks of Henry Kissinger in his concluding remarks at the Harvard-Oxford
television debate on America’s Vietnam policies. He observed, rather sadly,
that what disturbs him most is that others question not our judgment, but our
motives—a remarkable comment by a man whose professional concern is political
analysis, that is, analysis of the actions of governments in terms of motives
that are unexpressed in official propaganda and perhaps only dimly perceived by
those whose acts they govern. No one would be disturbed by an analysis of the
political behavior of the Russians, French, or Tanzanians questioning their
motives and interpreting their actions by the long-range interests concealed
behind their official rhetoric. But it is an article of faith that American
motives are pure, and not subject to analysis (see note 1).
Although it is nothing new in American intellectual history—or, for that
matter, in the general history of imperialist apologia—this innocence becomes
increasingly distasteful as the power it serves grows more dominant in world
affairs, and more capable, therefore, of the unconstrained viciousness that the
mass media present to us each day. We are hardly the first power in history to
combine material interests, great technological capacity, and an utter
disregard for the suffering and misery of the lower orders. The long tradition
of naiveté and self-righteousness that disfigures our intellectual history,
however, must serve as a warning to the third world, if such a warning is
needed, as to how our protestations of sincerity and benign intent are to be
interpreted.”
If Harris had read just one
passage like this, he would have seen that there was no point to the debate,
because he would have realised that Chomsky has been facing this same kind of
objection to his radical foreign policy stance (usually in far more
sophisticated form) going all the way back to the very beginning of his
political-activist turn. And it is Chomsky’s utter disgust to have to engage
with Harris’ trite, incompetently presented arguments which explains the tone
of complete contempt he adopts with Harris throughout the exchange, reaching a
peak in the vicious mordancy of the longest email he sends:
“I am sorry you are unwilling to
retract your false claim that I “ignore the moral significance of intentions.”
Of course I did, as you know. Also, I gave the appropriate answer, which
applies accurately to you in the al-Shifa case, the very case in question.
If you had read further before
launching your accusations, the usual procedure in work intended to be serious,
you would have discovered that I also reviewed the substantial evidence about
the very sincere intentions of Japanese fascists while they were devastating
China, Hitler in the Sudetenland and Poland, etc. There is at least as
much reason to suppose that they were sincere as Clinton was when he bombed
al-Shifa. Much more so in fact. Therefore, if you believe what you
are saying, you should be justifying their actions as well. I also
reviewed other cases, pointing out that professing benign intentions is the
norm for those who carry out atrocities and crimes, perhaps sincerely – and
surely more plausibly than in this case. And that only the most abject
apologists justify the actions on the grounds that perpetrators are adopting
the normal stance of criminals.
I am also sorry that you evade
the fact that your charge of “moral equivalence” was flatly false, as you know.
And in particular, I am sorry to
see your total refusal to respond to the question raised at the outset of the
piece you quoted. The scenario you describe here is, I’m afraid, so
ludicrous as to be embarrassing. It hasn’t even the remotest relation to
Clinton’s decision to bomb al-Shifa – not because they had suddenly discovered
anything remotely like what you fantasize here, or for that matter any credible
evidence at all, and by sheer coincidence, immediately after the Embassy
bombings for which it was retaliation, as widely acknowledged. That is
truly scandalous.
And of course they knew that
there would be major casualties. They are not imbeciles, but rather adopt
a stance that is arguably even more immoral than purposeful killing, which at
least recognizes the human status of the victims, not just killing ants while
walking down the street, who cares?
In fact, as you would know if you
deigned to read before launching accusations, they were informed at once by
Kenneth Roth of HRW about the impending humanitarian catastrophe, already
underway. And of course they had far more information available than HRW
did.
Your own moral stance is revealed
even further by your complete lack of concern about the apparently huge
casualties and the refusal even to investigate them.
As for Clinton and associates
being “genuine humanitarians,” perhaps that explains why they were imposing
sanctions on Iraq so murderous that both of the highly respected international
diplomats who administered the “Oil for food” program resigned in protest
because they regarded them as “genocidal,” condemning Clinton for blocking
testimony at the UN Security Council. Or why he poured arms into Turkey
as it was carrying out a horrendous attack on its Kurdish population, one of
the worst crimes of the ‘90s. Or why he shifted Turkey from leading
recipient of arms worldwide (Israel-Egypt excepted) to Colombia, as soon as the
Turkish atrocities achieved their goal and while Colombia was leading the
hemisphere by far in atrocious human rights violations. Or why he
authorized the Texaco Oil Company to provide oil to the murderous Haitian junta
in violation of sanctions. And on, and on, as you could learn if you
bothered to read before launching accusations and professing to talk about
“ethics” and “morality.”
I’ve seen apologetics for
atrocities before, but rarely at this level – not to speak of the refusal to
withdraw false charges, a minor fault in comparison.
Since you profess to be concerned
about “God-intoxicated sociopaths,” perhaps you can refer me to your
condemnation of the perpetrator of by far the worst crime of this millennium
because God had instructed him that he must smite the enemy.
No point wasting time on your
unwillingness to respond to my request that you reciprocate by referring me to
what I have written citing your published views. If there is anything
I’ve written that is remotely as erroneous as this – putting aside moral
judgments – I’ll be happy to correct it.
Plainly there is no point
pretending to have a rational discussion. But I do think you would do
your readers a favor if you presented your tale about why Clinton bombed al-Shifa
and his grand humanitarianism. That is surely the least you can do, given
your refusal to withdraw what you know to be completely false charges and a
display of moral and ethical righteousness.”
As Harris admits in the exchange,
he had indeed done no reading on Chomsky beyond Chomsky’s essay on 9/11. As
Chomsky might say, “this is scandalous”. Even leaving aside the incredible intellectual
laziness and arrogance of this failure to read up on his rival’s voluminous
writings (and voluminous published speech- and interview transcripts), it was
extremely imprudent. After all, Chomsky’s IQ is two standard deviations above
Harris’ and he is far more erudite
and far more knowledgeable. Harris
should have known that he was going to get an almighty ass-whooping. The
reality is, of course, that Harris wasn’t even equipped with the intellectual
tools to understand Chomsky’s
position. He clearly didn’t (and doesn’t) understand Chomsky’s ‘Leninist’ views
about the dominant role of the military-industrial complex and the interests of
US capital in determining foreign policy and foreign policy objectives for the
US state (Chomsky, like all left-wing radicals, is an exponent of institutional
analysis and sees world affairs as a complex interplay of various competing
institutional incentives, with individuals being little more than cogs, and “intention”
certainly not being an individualistic affair (it doesn’t matter if Bill
Clinton is a good man or not)). Harris clearly didn’t (and doesn’t) understand
Chomsky’s historical perspective on US atrocities and their propagandistic
analysis by patriotic intellectuals; Harris clearly hadn’t read Chomsky’s
endless tracts about how US imperialism is not all that different from that of
the British Empire or other empires form history, and how the intelligentsia
within imperialist regimes always employ the same propaganda and take the same
highly hypocritical stances, failing to apply even a semblance of moral
consistency in analysis (Chomsky has often discussed John Stuart Mill’s
writings about the unprecedented enlightened justice of the British occupation of
India). In fact, it seems to me highly likely that Harris was (and is) just massively
ignorant about the things his state has actually done in the world since 1950:
in particular, the devastation his great nation has wreaked in South-East Asia,
Central America and the Middle East, resulting in roughly 40 million deaths (a
conservative estimate) [http://www.globalresearch.ca/reality-denial-apologetics-for-western-imperial-violence/32066].
I find it hard to believe that Harris would hold the views he does (“US is a
well-intentioned giant”) if he knew the true horrors of Agent Orange and the US
bombings in Vietnam, and the vast numbers of civilian deaths caused by his
great benevolent nation; if he knew the facts about the US carpet bombings of
Cambodia and Laos, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and led
directly (in Cambodia) to the rise of Pol Pot; if he knew about the US-backed
Indonesian occupation of East Timor and genocide; if he knew what it was like
to be a Palestinian living in the hellscape of the Gaza strip; if he knew about
the 1954 CIA coup in Guatemala on behalf of the United Fruit Company; if he
knew about the obstruction of democracy in Chile culminating in the 1973
CIA-backed coup which established Augusto Pinochet’s murderous military
dictatorship (a dictatorship which was advised on economics by Milton Friedman
and his Chicago Boys); if he knew about the obstruction of democracy in El
Salvador throughout the 1970s; if he knew about the US support from 1979 of the
deadly right-wing Contras against the economically successful left-wing
socialist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government in Nicaragua;
if he knew about the invasion of Panama in December 1989; if he knew about the
immensely destructive consequences of the ‘liberalisation’ policies foisted on
the Third World and post-Soviet Russia by the International Monetary Fund and
World Bank, organisations run in the interests of US finance capital; if he
knew about the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, which
resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and led to a brutal response by
Serbian forces on the ground; if he knew the massively counterproductive and
horrifying consequences of the War in Afghanistan (“Operation Enduring Freedom”);
and if he knew the reality of the Iraq War, in the main three-year phase of which
possibly 665,000 Iraqis died (etc).
The fact that Harris did initiate
this dialogue with Chomsky in such a state of abject ignorance has always
pissed me off. Did Harris really think
that his asinine counterfactual thought experiments (imagine if circumstances
were radically different from the actual circumstances in which the bad act
occurred (and the bad act is ever likely to occur), then maybe the act would be
morally justified) and his repetitive employment of the word “intention” (and refusing
to actually engage with statistics, facts and evidence, refusing to even enable the falsification of his treasured
assumption of US state-benignity) was going to change Chomsky’s mind? Was he
really that arrogant? Was he really that deranged?
The most bizarre thing about the
exchange is, of course, that Sam Harris adopts an outright anti-utilitarian, anti-consequentialist
position in order to conduct his apologetics for the US, effectively saying that
statistics of dead and maimed, and facts about the devastating consequences of
US bombings and invasions, don’t matter. This blatant contradiction of the
stance he takes in The Moral Landscape
represents irrationality and hypocrisy at an almost unbelievable extreme.
Harris has clearly never made any
effort to try to adopt the perspective of a non-American, in order to avoid the
abject moral hypocrisy that characterises the imperialist attitude. Harris has
clearly never considered how his views might differ if he were raised in the
Middle East – whether he might care about violations of International Law,
perhaps, and be angry at US war crimes. Harris has never considered how he
might react if an ‘Arab’ writer suggested that a nuclear first strike on the US should be seriously considered.
Harris has never adopted the perspective of anyone other than US government
officials and US or Israeli soldiers. He is the ultimate propagandist.
Here are two articles on the
Harris-Chomsky exchange from authors who share similar views to mine:
Here are articles on Harris’ view
of Islam, foreign policy and world affairs generally (the first two are by a
guy called Theodore Sayeed, whom I think is brilliant):
Finally, here’s an article specifically
on Harris’ laughable Israel podcast, written by Sayeed again:
I also want to say something
about this podcast. Mercifully, it will be quite brief.
When I first read the transcript
of “Why I don’t Criticise Israel”, I was shocked: it is entirely factless, no-skin-in-the-game,
hollow, smarmy, massively distortionary, moralising BS. That is to say, it is
complete intellectual trash. People trying to defend Israeli atrocities
resolutely avoid statistics (or include statistics highly selectively), but in
this podcast Harris goes to the extreme of talking about the conflict without
including any statistics at all. Of course, this failure makes perfect sense; the
statistics are horrifying and blood-curdling without ornament or embellishment,
and no amount of casuistry can alter their awesome effect. Now, I’m not saying
that Harris thought about including statistics and then backtracked because he
realised they were inimical to his position, but I think that it is absurd to
make the claims Harris does without sourced evidential support in any case. And the defence that Harris
actually musters of Israel is another one of his astonishingly moronic counterfactual
thought experiments. Literally the argument goes like this: Israel’s atrocities
are defensible because if Hamas, overnight, somehow came into possession of
Israel’s weapon capabilities, they’d probably do something way worse. This is
so bizarrely stupid and irrational. One cannot even begin to understand the
nature and dynamics of the conflict, or its horror, without understanding the massive
power and military imbalance. Imagining
that the imbalance didn’t exist in order to defend Israel is deranged. It’s
like defending the US invasion of Vietnam by suggesting that if the Vietcong
had the weaponry at LBJ’s or Nixon’s disposal then America would have been
bombed even more viciously. It is completely irrelevant – it is featherbrained
propaganda.
One More Thing:
The title raises a pertinent question. I contend that we know
the answer:
Because there are drooling imbeciles with even more
catastrophic cognitive disabilities than Harris himself: his fans. They are
everywhere on the internet, and they spread further every day. I fear for this
species.
[1] Although
he’s not clear on what kind of utilitarian is right; he simply adopts an extremely vague half-rule-half-act, sub-Millian
utilitarianism which conveniently spits out his pre-formed moral views (enabled
by the vagueness).
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