Sam Harris does it again, opening his yap and exposing his biases.
Liberals have really failed on the topic of theocracy. They’ll criticize white theocracy, they’ll criticize Christians. They’ll still get agitated over the abortion clinic bombing that happened in 1984. But when you want to talk about the treatment of women and homosexuals and free thinkers and public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue that liberals have failed us.
Hell yes, I’m still agitated over any abortion clinic bombing. Shouldn’t we all be? I’m also agitated over female genital mutilation and shooting girls who want an education in Pakistan. I can be frustrated by all the onslaughts against modernity everywhere; I don’t treat it as a failure of liberalism that American women are fighting for their rights at home as a priority; I’m sure that almost all of them feel a sense of solidarity with women around the world, but in most cases they are far more limited in what they can do about Somalia than they are about taking action in their own back yard.
Libby Anne really rips into him for that stupid remark.
Violence against abortion clinics and abortion providers dates back to at least the 1980s and continues in the present. Eight doctors or clinic providers have been murdered, the last one only five years ago. In fact, the clinic that was bombed in the 1984 incident Harris mentions was bombed again in 2012—and completely gutted as a result. I hear of arson and death threats, and it shakes me. I’ve served as an escort at my local Planned Parenthood clinic. It can be very scary—for all involved. Women often have their license plate numbers recorded by anti-abortion protesters calling them “murderers,” and in some areas of the country doctors who perform abortions have to wear masks when entering clinics to protect their identities. Just recently a writer for the high-profile National Review called for hanging women who have had abortions.
Americans are facing a wave of oppression of women’s reproductive rights: there have been 230 restrictions enacted since 2011. The majority of abortion clinics in Texas have been shut down by entirely legal means, and Sam Harris wants to blame liberals for not doing enough to protect freethinkers in the Muslim world? The only way liberals have failed is in not being as obsessed with Islam as Harris…but since Harris isn’t a particularly good example of an individual with liberal ideals, you’ll have to forgive me if I say “so fucking what?”
I say we must fight the fights we can. It’s important to stand up for women’s freedom world-wide, but it’s futile and hypocritical if we can’t even do the same for women at home.
I think Libby Anne is right. Harris is using Islamic oppression as a pretext for dismissing serious concerns right here in the United States.
“jakup3:
Shut Up.
Read the thread.
Go away.
We don’t need another Sam Harris fanboi. You want to defend that anti-Muslim sexist fucker, go for it. Elsewhere.”
“Yes. It shows that you have internalized biases that you are not even trying to challenge.
And oh my god a blog post!!!!!! A whole blog post!!!! A public figure makes bigoted, harmful comments and people are writting blog posts about it? That is basically like harashing him in his home and threatening his family….won’t the authorities do something about this vicious attacks?????”??’??? Monsssteeeeeeerrrrrrsssssss!!”
“There’s never ever a circumstance where, despite what people profess when asked directly about it, they don’t treat everyone equally in practice. Harris and Dawkins will say they believe in equality therefor they’re not actually wrong when they spout bullshit, oft-refuted ideas that perpetuate attitudes which have the effect of disadvantaging certain groups.”
“A torture and nuclear bombing apologist calling for “honest discussion” on people he hates. What a joke.”
-Hey Tony, why can’t I be a part of the discussion. How about you stop telling people who disagree with you to go away? I agree with Sam Harris on a lot of issues, does that really make me a fanboi? Is it that bad to criticize Islam? Sam Harris doesn’t attack people, he criticizes specific teachings of the Quran.
-@azhael Internal bias, maybe. He’s a guy so he said he. Everyone is biased. Maybe women have a tendency to say her, for god’s sake it’s a pronoun. Is it really hurting anyone? You made me out to be all upset and then called me an idiot based on your straw men representation of my views. My point was that the blog post simply wasn’t worth writing, not that Ophelia is a monster. You’re an idiot for getting so worked up over my criticism. Fuck you.
– @sevenofmine Sam made some comments that could be taken as sexist. Has he really said anything the leads to certain groups being disadvantaged? He is a champion of reason for christ’s sake. You are all attacking the wrong person. Religion is a huge source of sexism, so Sam Harris is helping the cause just by fighting religion. It’s worth defending someones views from misrepresentation if you support them.
-@vaiyt Your claim that Sam Harris hates Muslims is without justification. How about you read some of his work. Talk about a fucking bias.
I love this site.
@Tony!
I’ve noticed for a while that the people defending Harris seem to constantly ignore what he says, in favor of what they wish he had said. That was particularly noticeable in the “estrogen vibe” incident.
But I notice evidence that SH is right, or any of your other claims, is lacking. Which is why I find folks who can’t refute the criticisms amusing. *points at jakup 3* Bwahahaahahahahaha
jakup3 #501
Which is exactly why we should be free to point that sort of thing out. This is an argument for more criticism, not less. We’re all biased. We’re not going to overcome those biases unless they’re pointed out to us. Why Harris should be given a special exemption from this, I don’t know.
Actually, yes. The notion of male as default is widespread in our culture and has a load of problematic results that all work to alienate and side-line women and women’s concerns and problems.
So, why is it he can’t take simple criticism without throwing a shit fit? That’s not very reasonable.
Bull-fucking-shit. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend; not when he’s also busy stabbing me in the back.
Fighting the good fight on one issue does not give you a get-out-of-jail-free card for whatever else you’re doing. The expectation that the sainted Harris should be given a free pass just because he does good in one area is the exactly the kind of hero-worshipping, authoritarian bullshit that we’re supposed to be fighting against.
@jakup3
Wow, you do realise i was mocking you, right? I’m not worked up..i don’t give a shit that you think those blog posts didn’t deserve to be written. You’d prefer for people to ignore the bigoted things those public figures say and not make a stink. Tough…and fuck you for wanting that to happen.
As for your question, yes it does hurt people. The almost universal propensity to use masculine pronouns as a default is a symptom of far bigger and much deeper sexism in our culture. In more immediate ways, assuming that people are male by default can be insulting to everyone who isn’t, which is more than 50% of the population…
@tony@lykex
“I’ve noticed for a while that the people defending Harris seem to constantly ignore what he says, in favor of what they wish he had said. That was particularly noticeable in the “estrogen vibe” incident.”
“And though the phrase “extra estrogen vibe,” spoken in a tone that acknowledged its silliness, also got a laugh, Boorstein surely knew that setting it down in print would make me look stupid.”
-Sam Harris
“I am well aware that sexism and misogyny are problems in our society.”
-Sam Harris
“My criticism of Islam—for which I have been vilified by many of the same people who are now attacking me over my remarks about gender—is largely inspired by my concern for women.”
-Sam Harris
I wouldn’t expect these quotes to do the job, but what would it take to convince you guys that Sam Harris is not a sexist? He makes one comment suggesting that estrogen and testosterone have effects on consciousness and apparently that makes him a bigot. If anything he was wrong, but stop with the fucking accusations.
Headdesk.
jakup3 @6 go to this page and watch the 2 minute video. It’s the video of that estrogen vibe comment. In no way was it spoken in a way to acknowledge its silliness, nor did it get a laugh. He did not seem to mean it jokingly:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2014/09/sam-harriss-estrogenvibe-remark-wasnt-the-journalists-fault-video/
How to quote people:
<blockquote>Please use “blockquote” when quoting someone, it makes your comments easier to read</blockquote>
PSA
Using blockquotes
<blockquote>paste copied text here</blockquote>
causes quoted text to be offset
It makes comments easier to read.
Yes, Sam Harris is just soooo concerned about women. I’m so glad there’s a man out there to tell me I’m being concerned about, and then doing fuck-all about it. Actions, please, less words. A lot less words.
jakup3
Also, Ophelia Benson thought that Harris using 100% male pronouns was worth writing a blog post. Who are you to say she shouldn’t have done it? Why is it so ridiculous? People do blog posts about cats and about food all the time – why aren’t you ridiculing them for pointlessly wasting their own time? No? Oh, maybe because blogging is something people do for themselves first, by choosing to write about topics they themselves select, that they themselves believe to be, you know, significant, even if they are ridiculous or trivial (which an overuse of the pronoun ‘he’ isn’t, not really, since it jsut enforces subtle biases that male is default, but I digress).
The commentariat and readership come after. I doubt PZ sits at his desk wondering what we would like to read. I’m pretty sure he writes about what he finds significant. You don’t? Don’t read that post, or the entire blog. Don’t read Ophelia’s blog. There’s plenty more out there to adjust to your taste.
Also, mansplaining is sexist? Bah. Explain to me how labelling an action many men partake in because they do not see the equal intellectual worth of women is sexist. I oppress men by using that phrase? Sounds a lot more like punching up than punching down to me.
(But if you disagree, provide examples of where men have been systematically oppressed and pushed out of prominent roles and/or society in general by women wielding all the power (just to establish that whole systematic oppression thing that is a necessary element of sexism). Even more specifically: show me a time in history when men, as a half of the population, had to convince women to let them vote. Go on.)
hivemind
“But I notice evidence that SH is right, or any of your other claims, is lacking. Which is why I find folks who can’t refute the criticisms amusing. *points at jakup 3* Bwahahaahahahahaha”
Way to not contribute the the discussion at all. None of my claims? Are you even defending the crazy guy who said SH hates muslims? Come on, asshole. You know you’re overgeneralizing.
Is it just me, or is it full of wasps in here?
jakup3 @ 6
Yes it does because there’s zero fucking reason to think that and millions of reasons to think that culture and socialization have a massive effect. The only reason to say shit like that is because you’re riffing on cultural stereotypes which is bigotry by fucking definition. Fuck off and go read any of the dozens of criticisms of Harris’ estrogen vibe comment. This conversation has been had fucking hundreds of times already.
jakup @ 13
Sam Harris has built his entire fucking career on the demonization of Muslims, fuckwit. The fact that you’re credulous enough to believe him when he says he’s not bigoted out of one side of his mouth while painting all Muslims as sympathetic to extremist factions out of the other side doesn’t mean we’re wrong. It just means you don’t understand how words work.
@jackup
Yes, assuming that men are the only real people or the only people worth discussing is a problem worth writing a whole blog post about. If you don’t think so, I suggest taking a trip back in time to circa 1980 and reading the arguments against the universal masculine pronoun from the beginning. Your ignorance is out of date.
Nothing will convince me that Sam Harris is not a sexist. He said incontrovertibly sexist things, and when called out on them, instead of applying self-reflection and announcing a commitment to change—as a person who doesn’t want to be a sexist would do—he doubled down and said more sexist things. If *he* wants to convince me he’s not a sexist anymore then he will have to show he’s changed.
jakup3 #506
First, let’s distinguish between “a sexist” and “a person who said/did something sexist”. They’re not the same thing. That’s part of the problem. People are pointing to something sexist that Harris said and you’re reacting as if we’re getting out the pitchforks.
Second, I would be perfectly happy to accept that Harris was on our side, if only he’d start acting like it. A good step in that direction would be to avoid comments like the one mentioned in the OP. Belittling anti-abortion violence is not the right way to convince me that he’s totally in favor of women’s rights.
I’ll just repeat myself:
And then I’ll note that this blind spot seems to extend to what’s said by the critics of Harris as well.
If Harris is indeed the “champion of reason”, then we as a human race are truly fucked.
It’s also not surprising that someone who is so bad at reasoning attracts fanboys who think someone saying ‘I am not sexist’ is evidence enough that this person is indeed not sexist.
We need better champions.
@rq
And of course, if you don’t see it, it can’t possibly be there.
jakup3
It’s also entirely possible people are shunning him (shunning? just criticizing and pointing out as non-representative of themselves at the moment, from what I can tell) because they have read him. You shouldn’t make assumptions about other people’s experience with literature. But you’re entitled to your own opinion on him – it’s just that, when people think you’re wrong about it, especially regarding his rather sexist statements (which are several), they’ll tell you so in no uncertain terms.
“Sam Harris has built his entire fucking career on the demonization of Muslims, fuckwit. The fact that you’re credulous enough to believe him when he says he’s not bigoted out of one side of his mouth while painting all Muslims as sympathetic to extremist factions out of the other side doesn’t mean we’re wrong. It just means you don’t understand how words work.”
Have you even read the end of faith? Did you read the blog post I linked to? Sam acknowledges that there are moderate Muslims who find the extremism appalling, and it is for these people’s sake that he criticizes the doctrines of Islam. Again, Sam only criticizes ideas, not people, you fucking douchebag.
Here, I’ll post the link again.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/islam-and-the-misuses-of-ecstasy#.VD5yV3F3a3c.facebook
Read it. Watch the videos. It’s good shit.
There’s pretty much no point to engaging with jakup3 when the fool has no idea what xe is talking about and no awareness of that ignorance. Xe lacks an understanding of very basic concepts (like sexism, feminism, bigotry, and reason) and seems all too ready to spew opinions backed only with speculation: “maybe women have a tendency to say her.” With incorrect speculation, that is, because women don’t have a tendency to say “her”; we have the same tendency as men to say “him” because sexism, being sexism, is entrenched in the society we grow up in. Not to mention, xe holds hir own interpretation of Harris’ words as self-evident.
Maybe people wanting to waste their time with an ignorant idiot should try to educate the fucker on things like the definition of sexism first.
I may have missed something in the clusterfuck of troll-smashing that I mostly just skimmed through, but I think PZ and myself (and Harris…. arguably?) are the only ones who weren’t belittling anti-abortion violence. Quite a few went out of their way to say that is not “important” or “relevant,” not anymore at least. Presumably, they wouldn’t say that about the Holocaust, for example — which didn’t even happen in my own lifetime! Thus, how could it possibly matter? The logic is airtight. But nobody’s consistent, so I guess that’s not important either.
Anyway, if you don’t read it as a slight against liberals that they do care (even when they practically insist that they don’t), but as pointing out that they should (and sometimes do) care no matter where or when or how remote these things are, then it actually fits in with everything else he was actually saying instead of working against it. It also means we don’t have to work against ourselves by saying we don’t give a fuck about abortion bombings from oh-so-long-ago because “more important” shit has happened since then.
Dropping a obvious a lie as this one only destroys your own credibility, jakup3.
Everyone here has their own eyes and ears to listen and read what Harris actually says. And when it comes to Muslims he has used virtually *every* *single* *attack the people while pretending to only attack the ideas* dogwhistle routinely employed by the Islamophobic right-wing extremists.
@anoyd
jakup3 @ 23
And he also goes to great lengths to make clear that those moderate Muslims aren’t True Muslims because they don’t take the faith seriously. He gives lip service to their existence and then he erases them. But then when he needs to make a big deal about what a massive threat Muslim extremism is, he’s more than happy to count them and play up the fact that there are 1 billion-ish Muslims in the world.
Just recently during the whole thing with Ben Affleck is a perfect example of what he does. He asks Affleck how many Muslims there are. About a billion, Affleck answers. And Harris says there’s a core of extremists who are committing all the terrorism. And then there’s a group of Muslims who aren’t doing that stuff but are sympathetic to it which he estimates to be 20% of total Muslims. Then he references an un-sourced poll saying that 78% of British Muslims felt that the Danish cartoonist from a few years back should have been prosecuted and uses that to say “look how conservative I’m being with this 20% figure I just pulled out of my ass. He gives no source for the poll, which I tried Googling and couldn’t find except as a mention in a few articles. No source, no info on how the polled people were contacted or what specific question they were asked and he’s explicitly only bringing it up to contrast the 78% with his 20% estimate. But then he’s trying to equate “thinks the Danish cartoonist should have been prosecuted” with “sympathizes with terrorist activity” and then extrapolates that to all Muslims which he made sure to point out there are 1 billion of. So he nominally acknowledges the existence of moderate Muslims but then goes to great lengths to grossly overstate how many Muslims support the terrorist factions.
Again the fact that you’re gullible enough to accept his disavowal of bigotry as if it’s a magical incantation doesn’t mean that the rest of what he says no longer means what it fucking means.
Anyone offering odds on whether xe sticks the landing? I’ve got 40 quatloos saying there will be at least two bounces.
jakup3
consciousness razor has been doing so all along. Read all the comments, not just those directed to you.
So, no, there’s no unified hivemind opinion here.
jakup3
You must close the blockquote with a /
/blockquote
hahahahahahahahahaha, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
consciousness razor @ 25
Who exactly do you think said anything of the sort?
No, don’t use me as a fucking example. Yes, I’m here, and that doesn’t demonstrate anything.
jakup3:
Whenever I see people claiming that this is happening, they’re usually full of shit and haven’t even made the slightest attempt to try to understand why they are getting dismissed. Having read the thread since you’ve arrived, no, nobody is calling you ignorant because they disagree with you. They are calling you ignorant, and explaining why in detail, because you have no idea what you are talking about.
“they don’t take the faith seriously”
He didn’t mean to say that. He misspoke.
Again with you just accepting these excuses as if they’re magical incantations that actually change the meaning of the rest of his words. You’re pathetic.
jakup3, so you understand sexism but we had to explain to you why using male pronouns as a default is sexist? Yeah…maybe you could shut up about how mean people are being to you and actually get educated because it is obvious you need it. If you display ignorance, it’s reasonable to call you ignorant…luckily for you, it’s curable.
Nope. Maybe one day you’ll even understand that the criticisms are not only entirely, 100% fair, they are also important.
@rachel
Sorry, consciousness razor. I won’t anymore. Thoughtless of me. :(
We’re too sure of ourselves but the possibility that you might actually be wrong apparently hasn’t even occurred to you. K, then.
jakup3
Close the quote with </blockquote>. The slash within the pointy paranthesis, in front of the word ‘blockquote’.
jakup3:
I take it you haven’t even made an attempt to really try to understand the criticisms placed against you in this thread. I mean, as someone who was casually lurking, it’s really easy to deduce that from the sheer laziness of your responses versus the detail of the ones that are calling you out.
Irony much?
Here’s the thing. When someone says bigoted shit, I don’t try to make bullshit excuses and try to rationalize that they are somehow not really bigoted. I either call it out or support those who do. It doesn’t really matter who the bigot is, although if they are a well-known figure, then it’s more important to call them out. Cut the hero worship. It’s not looking good.
“jakup3, so you understand sexism but we had to explain to you why using male pronouns as a default is sexist? Yeah…maybe you could shut up about how mean people are being to you and actually get educated because it is obvious you need it. If you display ignorance, it’s reasonable to call you ignorant…luckily for you, it’s curable.”
I’m wrong about one thing therefore nothing I say is valid? I’ve said a lot of shit on here. My main issue is people calling Sam Harris a racist and a bigot. He’s obviously not. People are hateful on here.
Tell me, Jakup3, can you torture an idea? Can you racially profile an idea? Can you mass murder an idea? Sam Harris advocated using all those things to deal with Islam. Can you at least notice that these are things that hurt PEOPLE?
@rachel
“sheer laziness of your responses versus the detail of the ones that are calling you out.”
For christ’s sake, I’m getting ganged up on. Give me a break.
Just Google other Pharyngula posts on Sam Harris, lackwit, and read his own fucking words.
Says you! I can take my own conclusions.
jakup3, fucker-upper of blockquote tags:
Let’s start with his whole “estrogen-vibe” mess. We could also talk about his advocacy of racially profiling people who look like Muslims. Those are the most memorable to me, and that’s an incomplete list.
It’s really difficult to believe that Sam Harris ever learned anything from getting ripped apart for his profiling advocacy.
jakup3 (#27) [#527]
Oh, honey. This is exactly what I’m talking about. This is why you aren’t worth arguing with. (Not that anything in the rest of your reply was any better.) You think sexism is personal and intentional rather than institutional and performed regardless of intent because of conditioning.
I’m not assuming you’re ignorant. You’re a Dunning-Kruger poster child. You’re simultaneously promoting self-assessment while demonstrating its worthlessness.
(#41) [#541]
AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*gasp* *wheeze*
HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!!!
This one is hilarious, too.
Of course Sam Harris is a bigot no matter what you say. Because whether he’s a bigot or not depends entirely on what he himself says. (And, no, not whether he calls himself a bigot.)
Prima facie evidence, his position on profiling Muslims at airports. Paranoia run rampant.
But remember, he’s only criticizing the ideas, not the people. /sarcasm
” Can you racially profile an idea?”
He is not for racial profiling. Maybe you should actually read his post about this. He also has never advocated mass murdering muslims. People just say that based on out of context quotes from the end of faith. You obviously haven’t read his shit.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/in-defense-of-profiling
“What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe.”
-Sam Harris
Oh, but we have, and I really don’t see how you can read “In Defense of Profiling” and come to the conclusion that Sam Harris is not bigoted. I mean, he’s basically saying that if people appear to be a member of a certain religion, then they deserve shittier airport service and unnecessary obstacles in getting to their flight, and that they should welcome it. It’s explicitly in his writing, and I highly doubt that he ever wanted to only limit that treatment to airports.
jakup3
LykeX called it at (50)2
jakup3
Personally, I have zero problems calling Harris a liar.
jakup3 @1:
You can’t be part of a discussion when you don’t even have a 101 level understanding of the subjects at hand. You’re trying to wade into the deep end of the pool when you belong in the shallow end. That much is apparent by your defense of Harris’ statements.
Oh, and Sam Harris, your hero, thinks it’s possible to visually profile Muslims. That’s racism, bc there’s no way to look at someone and reach the conclusion they’re a Muslim unless you think all Muslims share some common physical features. They don’t. Why are you defending Sam Harris, the racist?
And I’ll tell you to go the fuck away all I want. I know it’s not like you’ll listen, but hey, sometimes I like wasting words on fools like you.
You’re operating under a very limited definition of ‘hate’. The man advocates for racially profiling Muslims. He wants to single them out as if they’re such a great threat to Western civilization, when they are NOT. Right wing extremists in the USA are a far greater threat than Islamic extremists. Both you and Sam Harris have drank the kool-aid that’s been passed around by the GOP. Islam is not the great big baddie of the world. It’s horrible like all religions are, but there’s nothing extra special about it. And even if there was, that still doesn’t justify racial profiling. Sam Harris is a bigoted, racist asshole and you shouldn’t be defending him. No one should.
But here you are.
@6:
You may as well give up. You’re not going to be able to convince anyone of this. Sam Harris, like the rest of us, grew up in a society where sexism runs rampant. He’s absorbed sexist beliefs, just like I have. Just like you have. Just like everyone else in the US. He doesn’t yet have the awareness or understanding of the pervasiveness of sexism to understand how deeply it runs, so of course he thinks he’s not sexist. But he is. So are you. It’s not the end of the world. The first thing to do would be to shut up and listen to the people who understand how much society is affected by sexism, rather than continually decrying “I’m not sexist”. I realized years ago that I was sexist, after reading this blog. I realized I had biases and prejudices about women that informed my thoughts about them. I realized that people growing up in a society where sexism is prevalent will have those biases and prejudices. And they’re going to have a lot of them. Just because someone stands up for women’s rights in one area doesn’t mean they’re magically not sexist.
For an analogy, it’s like the people who say “I’m not homophobic, I support gay marriage”, while saying “I have no problem with gay people, but I don’t want to see them kissing or holding hands”. The latter is a bigoted statement bc it treats gay people like the other, and their relationships like they’re lesser. It doesn’t say “gay people have the same rights as everyone else, including the right to show affection”. It says “I’m uncomfortable with this, and they should go elsewhere”. That’s not equality. That’s bigotry.
As I said above, you’re not ready for this conversation.
@20:
We have. That’s why we’re criticizing him.
Also, you’re not closing your blockquote correctly.
****
LykeX @2:
Very much so. They parse his “nurturing estrogen vibe” comment in such a way as to make it NOT sexist, when that’s exactly what it is. It’s plain to see when anyone takes a look at the atheist movement as sees that there are *plenty* of female atheists in this movement that doesn’t have enough of a nurturing estrogen vibe to appeal to women. As if *that’s* what would draw women to atheism. As if that’s something important to women. But his defenders blindly follow his words, without any thought to what the words mean.
jakup3,
I’m a petite white woman with blue eyes and mousy hair. Do I look like a Muslim?
Probably not? Why and how would someone “look Muslim”?
Also, if I recall, I’m pretty sure there were multiple posts from PZ on Sam’s profiling advocacy around the time he posted that blog and there were lots of heated discussion on it.
jakup3, if you’re going to rationalize that those who advocate racial profiling aren’t bigoted, then that’s your business. You aren’t going to get anyone to take you seriously here though. Just admit that you were wrong and move on.
jakup3
My. Fucking. Non-existing. God.
What does it say about a ‘thought leader’ when all of his supports are so dumb?
If we don’t know where the warheads are, how do we know where to strike first?
“You think sexism is personal and intentional rather than institutional and performed regardless of intent because of conditioning.”
So I’m sexist whether I like it or not, huh? Sounds like a load of shit. Seriously, back this up or something. Give me some examples of this harmful institutionalized sexism that controls me regardless of my beliefs.
jakup3 @41:
Hey, we’re making headway!
You’ve finally realized that no matter how much you defend him, he’s still a bigot.
I’m glad you’ve learned something.
Now if you’ll stop being a whiny little asshole who assumes the rest of us have never read anything by Sam Harris, we might make some further headway.
jakup3:
Sam Harris, in his defense of racial profiling:
Hell, Sam Harris’s title to that post was “In defense of profiling,” but no, Sam Harris clearly isn’t advocating racial profiling. Or maybe, jakup3, you’re an idiot.
@zenlike
“My. Fucking. Non-existing. God.
What does it say about a ‘thought leader’ when all of his supports are so dumb?”
Islam is a religion not a race, so shut the fuck up with your insults.
chigau,
You just strike everywhere where anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably have warheads or who looks like he or she could be neighbor to someone who could conceivably have warheads lives.
And yet, Sam Harris openly advocates racially profiling people who “look Muslim.”
jakup @67,
Really?
That dumb?
Please read the post above yours. You might lean something
jakup @64:
I thought you knew about sexism. Clearly you don’t. Otherwise you’d know that in the US sexism pervades society and biases and prejudices about women are held by society at large. The first step in you recognizing that would be to stop being defensive when people say you’re sexist and actually take a good hard look at yourself and analyze your beliefs and attitudes towards women. As I said upthread, I did that a few years ago, and I realized that I had sexist views.
You *don’t* understand sexism. Please fix that problem.
Behold, the feminist.
“And yet, Sam Harris openly advocates racially profiling people who “look Muslim.” ”
He includes himself in this.
Simply thinking you aren’t exist isn’t enough to not be sexist. You have to actually walk the walk. And hey, nobodies perfect. It’s easy to be unintentionally sexist, and if you are called out on that, then the best thing to do is to understand why you are getting called out and fix your behavior, rather than defending your behavior as “not really exist” or “misunderstood/misinterpreted.”
Wait, I think I might have started talking about Sam Harris there. shit.
And your point is? He’s still advocating racial profiling and telling the would-be victims of it that they should welcome it and like it. The fact that he personally is OK with that crap possibly being applied to him means nothing.
@tony
“The first step in you recognizing that would be to stop being defensive when people say you’re sexist and actually take a good hard look at yourself and analyze your beliefs and attitudes towards women.”
All individuals are different and generalizations based on race, gender, etc…are simply not true. I honestly can’t think of any view I hold about women as a whole. We’re all different. Maybe I’m actually not a fucking sexist. Is that a possibility?
jakup3
Yes.
I don’t want to act sexist, but sometimes I do. That time I was at a party at the friends’ home and before leaving joked about how much cleaning up my friend would have, like it was a given that she would do it and not her boyfriend (both her and her boyfriend pointed out my mistake)…. that was sexist.
Not deliberate. That’s unconscious sexism, and you engage in it sometimes, whether you like it or not.
So? I’d wager he would be the first one to squawk if he actually got pulled aside and questioned and frisked at the airport.
jakup3 @ 56
So you really are that stupid are you? You want to link a post titled “In Defense of Profiling” as evidence that Sam Harris doesn’t support racial profiling? Well what the fuck trait do you think is going to make someone look like a Muslim? Again, you apparently think that because Sam Harris says he’s not advocating for profiling people by race that the actual TSA agents whose job it is to choose who looks Muslim are magically not going to be influenced by their personal bias that Muslims are brown skinned people with names like Abdul. You and Sam Harris both are staggeringly fucking ignorant if you think that’s not what would happen. But I don’t actually think Sam Harris that staggeringly ignorant. I think he knows full well that’s exactly what would happen and that he’s counting on credulous shits like you to just take his word that he’s not saying what he’s clearly saying.
jakup3 @47:
For someone who goes on and on about how people need to read Harris to understand him, you could stand to do some reading of him yourself:
Harris thinks there is a visual way to determine if someone is a Muslim or not. He doesn’t need to specify his thinking here for the rest of us to realize he’s talking about people of a specific ethnicity.
That’s fucked up. He’s willing to say that brown skinned people should be profiled at airports, as if all Muslims are potentially terrorists, and they’re not. The vast majority of Muslims on this planet are not extremist assholes. Profiling all Muslims is bigotry. Pure and simple. Even someone like you, who doesn’t understand the subtle ways bigotry and prejudice affect people should be able to see how blatant this bigotry is. It’s just like the racial profiling of black people by cops in the United States.
Also, as I pointed out upthread, Islam is not the huge threat to the US that Harris thinks it is. By focusing attention on profiling Muslims, that takes away attention from the very real problem of right wing domestic terrorists, who are a bigger problem in the US than Islamic extremists.
jakup3,
I will repeat my question, how do I go about spotting someone who “looks like a Muslim”?
You’ve clearly missed the point about unintentional sexism. Whether or not you consciously think you are sexist, you are still very capable of perpetuating sexism. So yes, if someone calls out certain behavior as sexist, the best thing to do is self-reflection and fix your newly-discovered sexism.
“And your point is? He’s still advocating racial profiling and telling the would-be victims of it that they should welcome it and like it. The fact that he personally is OK with that crap possibly being applied to him means nothing.”
Is it immoral to do if Islamic extremists actually pose a threat to nationally security? Profiling is just common sense. Why waste time searching old white couples in tropical shirts?
Well, I’m done arguing with jakup3. I have other things that I need to attend to, and jakup3 isn’t worth being late for those. Later!
PZ’s post and subsequent comment thread dedicated to Harris’ article “In defense of profiling”:
NO RACIAL PROFILING, PLEASE
Oh and of course the “he included himself in that” defense. It’s easy to say you include yourself in that when you know full well that no airport security employee on the entire fucking planet is going to look at you and think you must be Muslim.
Geez, I wonder who is going to make Page 3 all about themselves…
@rachel
“You’ve clearly missed the point about unintentional sexism. Whether or not you consciously think you are sexist, you are still very capable of perpetuating sexism. So yes, if someone calls out certain behavior as sexist, the best thing to do is self-reflection and fix your newly-discovered sexism.”
I can’t defend myself? Would you at least acknowledge that the person accusing me of sexism could be wrong as well?
Fuck, and I thought I was done.
First, you denied that Sam Harris was advocating racial profiling, and now you are explicitly defending Sam Harris’s racial profiling advocacy. First off, you are labeling anyone who “looks Muslim,” which of course you and Sam leave undefined, but we all know that what you really mean is “brown people,” as a possible terrorist extremist. Then, you throw in some white purity into the mix. But, no you and Sam Harris clearly aren’t bigots. Obviously Sam Harris is the “champion of reason.” Or, not.
Yeah, it’s time for me to call it quits. I could be here all day, but I think all that needs to be said has been said, and I think that jakup3 has done an excellent job of revealing the (low) quality of their character. Good day!
Then show us the profile of an Islamic extremist, versus a non-extremist. What you have to do is to profile all based on something like skin color. Which is bigoted. Period, end of story.,..
I’m quietly lurking as I don’t want jakup to feel more ganged up on and ya’ll are doing a great job of kicking his preconceived notions out from under his various claims. This one is the best so far
YES! We all are! It’s a common side-effect of religious/authoritarian culture that people take for granted. There is even a link in the sidebar (just above PZ’s photo) to the pharyngula social justice wiki, which contains exactly the information ( how sexism is deeply ingrained into all aspects of culture) that jakup needs to read before shoving his feet even further into his throat.
jakup3 @556
jakup3 @573
jakup3 afterwards:
Don’t be too sure about yourself jakup3, you rationalist you.
Damn blockquote fail:
jakup3 @556
jakup3 @573
jakup3 afterwards:
-Starts defending racial profiling-
Don’t be too sure about yourself jakup3, you rationalist you.
jakup3 @67:
What you haven’t yet pieced together is that Sam Harris thinks that followers of Islam-Muslims-can be profiled. I.e. you can look at someone and tell if they’re a Muslim. On what basis does one do this? What physical characteristics do all Muslims share?
I’ll answer this one for you bc I’m sure you have no clue.
Muslims are not all brown skinned people from the Middle East. There are also white Muslims. There are also Black Muslims. There are also Asian Muslims.
Take a look at this chart and tell me, how can you look at someone and determine they’re a Muslim if Muslims don’t all look alike?
Then go ask Harris on what basis Muslims can be profiled.
@Tony
“Geez, I wonder who is going to make Page 3 all about themselves…”
You aren’t talking about me are you? Can we at least agree on something? Sexism is worth fighting against. I agree with all of you. Sam Harris might be wrong about a lot. This has been fun, and I appreciate all of you guys taking to the time to reply to me. I promise I’m not that much of a douche( although I can be). I’m open to changing my mind. Anyways, Waking Up is a great book and mindfulness has definitely added to the quality of my experience. You guys should check it out.
jakup3 @76:
If you were raised in the US, you have sexist beliefs. It’s part of society and it begins at a young age. This isn’t an insult. It’s an observation that sexism permeates society. The fact that you don’t understand this shows that you don’t know enough about this discussion to have an educated opinion.
(I wonder if I should shatter his mind and mention that we all hold racist beliefs too. And what about homophobia? That might break his brain.)
@tony
Ok, you’re right about profiling. You would have to just profile everyone( like we already are)
I was wrong.
Did I put my invisibility watch on accidentally?
Well, you are Commenting While a Woman, so in effect, yes, Beatrice.
@Tony
Got any recommended reading?
But not a blog post.
@beatrice
Sorry, I should have given you credit,too. I didn’t see your comment. I’m reading PZ’s post now.
Beatrice
I see you, so it’s not like you are totally invisible.
jakup3 (#64) [#564]
Yes! We all are. And, no, I’m not interested in proving this to you. The point is, you don’t understand that, whether or not you agree, this is the standard framing of sexism within feminism/social justice. And yet, you consider yourself sufficiently informed to argue about sexism with feminist/social justice advocates.
(#95) [#595]
Let’s replace “sexism” with our respective definitions of sexism and see how much we still agree.
@azhael
“But not a blog post.”
What are you talking about?
@a noyd
Sexism- discrimination against a certain gender or social pressure to behave a certain way based on gender.
That’s the best I got. What’s yours?
P.S- I thought I wasn’t worth talking to…
jackup3
I said it, Rachel said it, Nerd said it, Beatrice said it more than once. Isn’t it interesting that the only person you noticed is the only one of us whose name is clearly male coded? Hrmmm.
No, I dismiss what you say because you provide no evidence to back up your claims. I’m not going to take your unevidened word for anything, other than possible self-serving bullshit. Funny how defenders of philosophers fall into the same problem. They think evidence is irrelevant, but it is why science works.
Shorter version of Harris on this issue: “I don’t give a damn about the unguarded door in the bloody basement, I am worried about the damn army I am sure is camped outside the main gates!” You know, because no one can possibly be sneaking in through that one unguarded door… Its not only **not** a distraction to deal with everything at once, its a necessity, lest you fix some “big” problem one place, only to look up and go, “How the hell did we get to where things are almost as bad here?”
quoting Tony! at #(500+)96
I think it’s pretty safe to amend this to “If you were raised anywhere on earth anytime in recorded history, you have sexist beliefs”.
What just happened? Obviously not the spam filter since I see an empty comment.
Hey, I (thought) I was just joking about the invisibility watch!
jakup3,
Social pressure! Yes! Society is something we all live in, and which influences us in obvious and not so obvious ways. Since society is more or less patriarchal and sexist everywhere, we are, by virtue of being parts of that society, also sexist.
Some more, some less.
The difference is that those who recognize that in themselves can work on not behaving in sexist ways and/or trying to influence others.
@sevenofmine You’ve got to be kidding me. It was the link that got me. I just realized all of a sudden that there was no way to tell who was a muslim. I think you accusing me of sexism over that is ridiculous. Please tell me you’re joking.
Typical non-sequitur from somebody getting their ass handed to them. They must get something they can call a victory, no matter how minor. Thanks for playing…
jakup3, much reading for you: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Sexism_Education_101_Link_Dump
Book recommendations: Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice by Jack Holland and Manhood in America: a cultural history by Michael Kimmel, and Guyland, by Michael Kimmel.
“Typical non-sequitur from somebody getting their ass handed to them. They must get something they can call a victory, no matter how minor. Thanks for playing…”
I wasn’t making an argument, I was just saying that. You’re the one making it about win/ lose. I’ve already admitted i was wrong on several issues. Grow the fuck up.
jakup3 @ 113
No. I’m not joking. You did, in fact, ignore multiple people asking you how you expected to tell someone is Muslim by looking at them. All of those people have names that are clearly female or ambiguous. Except Tony! who is the only one you acknowledged. I’m asking you to consider why that might be.
Jakup
Excellent! I suggest keeping this attitude and getting to work reading the social justice wiki. You might also want to consider changing your nym to something that doesn’t reference male masturbation.
*waves* Yes, it appears you are femvisable. It’s one of those completely normalized features of sexist culture that jakup has yet to notice. Odds are fair that eventually the kicks of rationality will dislodge the blinders and earplugs of casual everyday sexism. *adds more hobnails to the boots of justice*
@sevenofmine
It’s a fucking coincidence. End of story. Are you seriously claiming that it has to be sexism?
Why don’t you shut the fuck up instead? Besides, I grew up 40+ years ago. You need to mature your thinking.
jakup3 @83:
I guess you missed my comment @59 which addressed this falsehood.
Right Wing extremists pose a greater threat to the US than Islamic extremists.
Or you can read this:
Terror From the Right: Plots, Conspiracies and Racist Rampages Since Oklahoma City. Over 100 Right wing plots, conspiracies and rampages have occurred in the US since the Oklahoma City bombings. In comparison, how many attacks from Islamic extremists has occurred on US soil?
@tethys
“changing your nym to something that doesn’t reference male masturbation.”
It’s supposed to sound like jacob.
@nerd
Why’d you make it all about winning and losing? Life’s not a fucking competition. Goddamn you’re arrogant.
jakup3, some questions you need to answer:
What did you hope to accomplish here today?
How is it going?
If it isn’t going well or at all, why are you still here?
@jackup
It is a demonstrated phenomenon for people to overlook contributions to discussions made by women or those perceived to be such (e.g. due to feminine-sounding names) while acknowledging the same contributions if made by men. This *can* be completely unconscious, a result of sexist bias.
It may be coincidence in this case that you appeared to be more engaged with your more-likely-to-be-male interlocutors, but it is not surprising that people are speculating that sexism, unconscious or not, might be a factor.
You know what I think? Well, I’m going to tell you what I think.
jakup3, I don’t think you are ignoring me because of sexism (but I could be wrong). I think you’re ignoring me because I explained things you would like to keep Just Asking Questions about, because it’s easier to make offended comments than thoughtful ones.
A number of us explained how sexism works, in short words.
… So?
What my boss likes about me? No attitude. But you need to examine your own.
jakup3, jakup3, jakup3:
We see the phenomenon demonstrated here all. the. time. So, you might want to give it some thought, instead of being defensive. Also, go read the stuff I linked @ 115. You’re ignoring that post, Jakup3.
jakup3 @119:
Sexism is insidious. It creeps into all the cracks and crevices of society. It appears at the forefront and the background of our thoughts. It informs how we interact with others. One of the ways sexism affects people, specifically men, is that men will often ignore women in meatspace, or they will ignore nyms online that are coded female or not specifically male. It’s something many people don’t think about until they learn to recognize it.
I think you’re still making the mistake of thinking of sexism as an intentional thing. It can be, but often it isn’t. Often, sexism manifests as biases against women that people don’t even think of. The reading material recommended by others in this thread is a great place for you to start if you want to educate yourself.
There’s more reading here: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Feminist_link_roundup
jakup3 (#106) [#606]
Entrenched patterns of belief, behavior, norms and social organization that serve to uphold the patriarchy/kyriarchy and that are expressed both collectively and individually, with or without intention, through the devaluing, demeaning, dehumanizing, restricting, and otherwise harming of women, feminine¹ people, and femininity¹ itself.
It’s almost like I said that folks “should try to educate the fucker on things like the definition of sexism first.”
…………..
¹ However defined.
@ibis3 I get what you’re saying, but it’s honestly a coincidence. i don’t know what else to say.
@nerd. I came here to read the blogs, then I got caught up defending Sam Harris. What are you trying to accomplish by asking me these questions? You just want to perceive me as an enemy apparently. Why I am I still here? I don’t know. I have other shit to do.
You’re just the asshole who criticized me for trying to find common ground. It’s probably the best way to further discussion. What do you want me to say?
I’ll also post these two quotations from an article about Chilly Climate, because they’re good examples of similar phenomena that result from systemic, unconscious sexist bias so you have an idea what we’re talking about:
Well, I’m not just wearing the invisibility watch, I have a whole damn invisibility suit on. So much for being nice.
Iyeska,
*high five*
Oh damn, was that you face? Sorry, I was aiming for you hand but you’re kinda blurring in and out. (Kidding)
@jackup
As I said, maybe in this case it was a coincidence. I’m not just saying that. It’s hard to tell if it’s part of a pattern given such a small sample size. On the other hand, it could be a sexist behaviour that you are not even aware of perpetrating. Just like the interrupting men in the anecdote I posted above, or Sandler’s checking of her watch, maybe it’s something you should keep an eye on in the future just to make sure that it’s the one and not the other.
@ jakup3
It happens all the fucking time that people whose ‘nyms aren’t obviously male coded get ignored and then suddenly someone with a clearly male coded name says the same thing we’ve been saying all along and our interlocutor suddenly recognizes that thing as being absolutely right. When it happens on a daily fucking basis it becomes a teency bit difficult to think it’s a coincidence. As Ibis3 said above, it’s exactly the kind of unconscious thing that people do as a result of cultural sexism.
Similarly it’s well documented that men will often perceive a group to be 50/50 men to women when in reality only about 17% of the group is female. As that number approaches 30%, men will start to perceive that there are actually more women than men.
Here’s an anecdote: Some months ago a guy on Twitter said that he found Allison Kilkenny of the Citizen Radio podcast to be insufferable because, he claimed, in the first five minutes of the show he listened to, she talked so much that Jamie Kilstein, who is male, couldn’t get a word in edgewise and she said “like” constantly. Someone went back and listened to the first five minutes of that show and found that Jamie had talked far more than Allison and that he was the one responsible for the single instance of the word “like” in those five minutes. So not only did this guy perceive that the woman was talking too much even though she talked less than her male cohost, he attributed this word he finds annoying to her and also perceived that it was said “constantly” as opposed to only once.
This shit happens. It’s well documented and your personal incredulity about it doesn’t make it not true.
@A. Noyd
“It’s almost like I said that folks “should try to educate the fucker on things like the definition of sexism first.”
HA! It’s kind of hilarious.
@everyone .
I didn’t mean to ignore anyone. I’m sorry if any women on here feel like I don’t value their arguments. I will be more careful in the future.
You all have convinced me that I have a lot more to learn on these issues before I come to a general consensus. I will check out all the info in the wiki.
Peace,
Jacob Harney.
Hmmm…I’m curious…
jakup3:
You asked for reading material earlier. How about:
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Sexism_Education_101_Link_Dump
Beatrice:
And a *clenched tentacle salute*. Y’know, at least when I was Caine, I mistaken for being male often enough that I could slip info through now and then. Sigh.
jakup3 @ 138:
Good, I’m glad. Oh, and you’re welcome.
Not only can I, as as woman and a person with a feminine-coded name, confirm I get ignored saying the same things as men, as a trans woman I can confirm that this is a major change from the days when people mistook me for a man. It is an absolutely real thing, and it happens even on the relaxing, usually-Horde-only threads, time and to other people with feminine-coded nyms. And these are people whom I trust as allies, for the most part, and who generally walk the walk on living a feminism-informed life. This kind of sexism is often unconscious and incredibly pervasive.
CaitieCat @ 142:
Yeah, it is. And it would be damn nice if, just once in a while, we saw someone think about that, instead of immediately bristling with a “nope, not sexism!”.
It happens to us all. My current fave anecdote is about reading The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S. Ramachandran. I’m a woman, and as I was reading the book, I was seriously taken aback by Ramachandran’s use of she/her as the default pronoun. I was over the half way mark before it stopped being so jarring and so noticeable.
I can add that, since becoming a commenter here, I have learned to (sometimes, ashamedly, force myself to) pay attention to the female-coded ‘nyms and to actually respond to them, even if is just to agree – as acknowledgement. I see no reason to worry if I skew too much in that direction sometimes (doubtful, but possible-maybe-perhaps on occasion), because (as data shows) even the appearance of ‘too much’ can be highly misleading.
To keep this post on the current subtopic, I can say that, as a dude, I’ve personally observed the chilly climate effects mentioned, not just here but in many meatspace groups I’ve been a part of, including explicitly progressive student groups which had an actual majority of female members (not a perceived minority). I’ve done it myself, although I try not to I don’t always succeed, and I haven’t tried as hard in the past as I should have either.
Well, I wrote all of this, and now the point has been conceded. I’m posting it anyway, on the off chance that there’s lurkers who still need/want it…
Tony!
Indeed, I will go so far as to categorically state that, as an American, the threat to my life, health, liberty, or rights from Islam generally or any Muslims particularly is as near to zero as makes no difference. The same cannot be said of Christianity generally or a large number of Christians specifically, nor can it be said about libertarian and right-wing atheists either. Now, I’m not saying that extremist Islam shouldn’t be opposed, for the benefit of those who are under threat, but to Americans (or, for that matter Europeans) generally fall into that category is blatantly absurd. ( There are Americans and Europeans who are under threat from Islam/some Muslims, but these principally women/girls, sexual and gender minorites and religious dissenters in immigrant populations from predominantly Muslim regions, and are usually not terribly different from the similar threats faced in other religious communities which face considerably less criticism for it (in America and Europe, principally Christian and Jewish communities, for instance).
Beatrice#[5]60
I don’t see why not, there’s loads of Muslim Bosnians who match that description, just as a for instance.
jackup3#[5]83
I’m facepalming so fucking hard right now…
1)Yes, it would still be bigotry
2)Islam, extreme or otherwise, is not, in any way, a threat to U.S. national security (insofar as there can be said to exist such a thing as national security, but that’s a separate argument).
Except for the part where 3)It doesn’t actually work. Here’s some commentary by Bruce Schneier.
Since Dalillama mentioned it, Beatrice @560 – I have a good friend from university who is Pakistani, her entire family is – and they look Polish. Blonde hair, blue eyes, all of them (except for Friend). You’d never think they were Muslim. So, profile everyone!!!
I have a friend who’s a Bosnian Muslim. Blue eyes, blonde hair as well. Then there’s me: raised Catholic; ancestry from some of the most Catholic places in Europe, and just the other day I had a Dubliner ask me if I was an Arab.
Us Southern Slavs are tricksy like that.
Tony!@139
I see what you did there…. I was about to do the same…
Jak@everywhere
Seriously, though. The first part of understanding prejudice is being aware that the vast majority of it is:
1) Institutionalized (i.e. ‘Big ‘R’ Racism’)
2) Insidious (it’s. fucking. EVERYWHERE!)
For great examples of 2, go check out Libby Anne over at Lovejoyfeminism and read her stuff on socially enforced gendering and the issues she’s had with people (and even herself!) gendering her children.
In regards to sexism from Tony’s comment, it’s like the evil, creepy relative of the force from star wars…
laziness:
I always find statement like this….curious….coming from people who have lurked here for nearly ten years.
Jacob Schmidt@383
I’m more curious how xe thinks this might happen when xe seems completely incapable of listening.
Teh kiloGraeme @391
It took it a second for that comment to register. Then I did a spit take. That’s some golden snark there! A dozen guilt/calorie free internet cookies for you!
laziness said this:
But, back in post 85, there was this little tidbit:
Really? Have you actually changed your mind, or did you forget that you completely minimized that whole point that was sorta what kicked off this shitstorm of raging misogyny what..4 years ago now?
Tom Foss @431: Now that is comedy! Well played.
And I see scoobie has come along to take the place of laziness. That seems somehow appropriate. It’s not a sock, is it?
…and based on jackup3’s contributions to other blogs here, there’s another shitstain pretending to care. I’m calling it a troll at 487. I’ll read the rest and determine my status as a profit, err…I mean prophet!
*reads rest of thread* Yep, totally nailed it. I can see the cash flowing in now. (Ok, maybe I’m not that prescient).
And wow, jakup3 actually exceeded my expectations of fuckwittery. So, uh, congratulations?
Although xe shows signs of improving.
@Anthony K 147: Do you live in Ireland? I lived there for 6 years, and I was surprised at how much less “white” I suddenly became– I’m American with mostly Greek and German heritage, and I have a complexion similar to Tina Fey. In America I’m unquestionably white, but people in Ireland frequently referred to me as looking “exotic.” My [Irish] partner even called me “dusky” once. O_o
Iyeska
I think your post with the link to the wiki was the one that finally penetrated jakups cultural earplugs. Apparently he has difficulty understanding how some forms of behavior are racist or sexist until at least five hordlings make nearly identical criticisms and suggest the same remedy.
rq @144:
It’s not just you. I’ve gotten better over the years, but I still have to force myself (at times) to pay attention to female-coded nyms and respond to them. And like you, I’m ashamed of that.
jakup3, #83,
My entire family is Muslim and several of them “look” Muslim due to attire and facial hair, you asshole.
I don’t want a single one of them profiled because I know them and you don’t. They’re decent human beings who have no connection whatsoever to harming anyone ever.
I mostly like Sam Harris. I enjoy and appreciate most of what he has written and I like how he writes. I criticize him where he deserves it: sexism and profiling. I wish he’d shut up on getting defensive on those issues and spend a lot of time thinking why people think those things are wrong. I don’t think he’s been as stubborn as Dawkins, so I hope eventually he will realize it.
That said, you’re a real piece of shit for saying what you did.
-Sam Harris
I’m jumping ahead without reading some of the thread, but I wanted to comment on this. There is currently one Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons, namely Pakistan, which developed its nuclear program in response to India’s nuclear program. Other than that, the only country that could even partly be described as being ruled by an “Islamist Regime” that is possibly close to developing nuclear weapons is Iran. Iran had a nuclear weapons program before the Iranian Revolution, but it was disbanded after the revolution, because the new leader felt it was forbidden under Muslim ethics. These days, Iran probably has the capability to develop nuclear weapons if it really wanted to, but it also seems not to be pursuing them.
Also, even if Iran suddenly decided that it was going to make a bunch of nukes and attack the US, it currently has the capability to make something like one warhead a year, so the US would hardly need to bomb them to “ensure our survival” (All that is putting aside the difficulty they would have getting the warhead to the US).
So, Harris has built this big hypothetical to justify nuking some Islamist regime that simply isn’t all that realistic.
I’ve been challenging those who have Islamophobia (paranoid fear of Islam and its followers) for years. The closest I ever got to a realistic scenario of Sharia law being imposed in their lifetime was the opening of a halal deli (could substitute for kosher) down the road. It wasn’t just Western food…..
@150, hyrax,
No, Canada. A visitor, or perhaps immigrant, from Dublin bummed a cigarette from me, and we chatted for a minute. Strangely enough, I often get mistaken for middle Eastern by people from the mid East as others. Iraqis, Lebanese, and even Pakistanis often want to claim me as their own.
I wonder if a young black man in a tropical shirt gets more of a pass than a young black man in a hoodie.
jakup3, #83
I’m trying to figure out how this doesn’t qualify as hate speech. And it’s personally offensive, and doesn’t belong on a blog like this. Profiling me and my relatives is common sense?
How is this different from saying “Profiling black people is common sense because omg_violentcrimestatistics!!!1”?
Evidently you can’t think beyond the end of your eyelashes. If you want to blow up a plane, think of the people least likely to be searched or suspected to carry the bomb…..
so you think profiling works?
you’d be wrong.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/05/iftikhar.profiling.does.not.work/
interestingly, given the debate around Harris’ views of late…
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-trouble-with-profiling
Saad @158:
No, it definitely is not, and jakup3 really ought to apologize for that hateful comment.
wow, and here I thought everyone had recognized by now the flaws with…
“Dear Muslima, “
Ichthyic #662
That’s another one of those blind spots: Rebecca makes a mild complaint; the douchebros loose their marbles; Rebecca is criticized for the lost marbles. Interestingly, it’s exactly the same pattern we see with Anita.
I really don’t quite understand how this works. It’s almost as if they have no coherent position at all; they’ll say anything at all that will allow them to throw hate at women.
probably a good thing.
Saad
It’s that too, all right.
Not in the faintest degree. In fact, as you dig into the details, you’ll find more and more parallels.
LykeX
It sounds as though you understand perfectly how it works, actually.
The reason I mentioned my looks in relation to “looking Muslim” was that I doubt jakup3 or Harris or many of pro-profilers would agree with you.
[OT]
On a side note – now that you mentioned Bosnian Muslims (thank you!), I realized I’m suffering from a strange disconnect. I was trying to point out to jakup3 that there probably exists a bias in his thoughts about looking Muslim, but now I realized I have a bias too.
When I think of a Muslim, first comes to mind the stereotype I was trying to point out (and non white Muslims in general).
When I think of a Musliman or Muslimanka (name in Croatian), I think of my neighboring Bosnian Muslims (or more generally, white Muslims).
Change of language somehow makes me think of completely different groups of people. Maybe because most conversations about this topic that I have in English are about the racial bias? Weird. I’ll have to be more careful about that.
@Tony and Saad
I’m sorry for offending you, but I didn’t mean that to be against middle eastern people. I was thinking in terms of harm prevention. I’m kind of a utilitarian when it comes to ethics, so I think one should do what will result in the overall least suffering. If singling out characteristics of people most likely to commit a certain crime helps prevent it from happening, then it is the ethical thing to do.
I definitely didn’t mean to sound hateful, but I do realize that it would feel pretty shitty if the shoe were on the other foot. Say there are several instances of crazy white guys shooting up movie theaters. I would want tighter security at the movies at that point, but there is no justification for singling out one race.
The thing that made the argument seem rational to me is that fact that it has happened before and some Muslims do in fact commit atrocities in the name of their religion(jihadis, martyrdom). The point is that good security should be an important part of flight regardless, because anything could happen. Profiling is stupid and indeed racist.
@beatrice
Yeah, I think you called it on my bias. I tend to think of middle eastern people. Sam Harris really does try to convince people that most muslims sympathize with jihadis. He thinks that hatred is a part of mainstream Islam. I don’t know my shit, but I’m not going to try to defend that without good evidence. Sam definitely has a massive bias against Islam.
So, the question now becomes what is good security, versus security theater (our present sitituation). Personally, remove the theater, go back to only the metal detectors.
jakup3
That the fact that you won’t acknowledge that for it is, Islamophobia, or more correctly, anti-Islamic bigotry, doesn’t say much about your cogency….
jakup @167:
Thank you.
jakup3 @168:
Nerd’s response to you @169 is a bit more heavy handed than I’d have gone with, but he does have a point. Harris has more than bias against Islam. Whether its his support for profiling Muslims or this:
or this:
or his support for torture:
(note that he’s talking about torture being ethical in the course of the War on Terror, which targeted…Islam and its adherents)
Sam Harris demonstrates more than a bias against Islam. He is an anti-Muslim bigot.
@nerd
You’re right, it is bigotry if he already had it out for Islam when forming his arguments. The thing is he supports his position with evidence, although it may not be the most reliable sources.Harris is appalled by the Quran. His claim is that people generally take it more literally than the Bible. If anything he’s wrong, but I don’t know about Islamophobic. I just don’t feel like claiming that right now. Aren’t we all anti-muslim by the way? and anti-christian, as well as anything else that causes harm? What’s so bad about being against Islam?
@tony
You may be right, although I’m not so sure his positions are really against Muslim people. He may just be wrong about how seriously people take the doctrines of Islam and how serious a threat Islam poses the rest of the world. He does say some fucked up shit when he starts talking about Islam. I don’t know if it’s bigotry, because he seems to genuinely believe that Islam is a huge threat, and most of arguments are based on minimizes the harm those dangerous beliefs can cause. He’s wrong about the torture thing though, good god.
minimizing*
For instance, he is making an essentially utilitarian argument here. He thinks it would be ethical to torture people like Osama bin Laden if it led to countless lives being saved. Choose the option which leads to the most well-being. I’m not sure I agree, but I don’t see how this makes him a bigot. He’s saying he would torture anyone if the stakes were high enough. The ends don’t always justify the means. Adhering to this kind of ethics, one would have to sometimes commit injustices to get the best overall results for everyone. That’s where it gets tricky for me. I’m definitely not a fanboi, but give the guy some credit for attempting to have rational discourse about these topics.
One last thing, I realize that ‘muslim’ and ‘christian’ are terms which refer to people. I’m not against the people, just what they stand for… my mistake.
jakup3 @175:
You missed the part where his comments about supporting torture were made in the context of the War on Terror, which targets adherents of Islam, who are Muslims.
Also, torture is not an effective way of acquiring valid information.
@176:
You have to be careful with generalizations like this. Islam has billions of adherents across the planet and an infinitesimal fraction of those are extremists. Do you stand against *all* Muslims (if so, why), or just Islamic extremists?
You could of course say that you oppose religion in general bc it promotes a false view of reality, but in that case, you wouldn’t single out Islam as anything special. You’d say something like “I am opposed to all religions-Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc”
If you irrationally against Islam, you are bigotted. The torture and first strike nukes SH advocates is prima facie evidence of his problems with Islam, which aren’t totally rational. Why won’t you admit that?
@nerd
Read the quote again. He advocates a nuclear first strike in self defense only if we know a they are going to nuke us and we have no other choice. The whole thing is far-fetched if you ask me, but Sam Harris only mentions that because if extremists did get ahold of nukes, we’d all be fucked.
As for torture, he doesn’t argue for torture just for muslims. He think’s it is a viable option where it is useful in preventing harm. Although torture may not actually be beneficial, as tony points out, it is not clear that Sam meant torture was only viable in the war on terror. He was making a pragmatic argument about whether torture is a viable strategy at times. Where does he say “only muslims?”
He’s just pointing out that in this case it may be beneficial. He doesn’t say ” Who cares, they’re just muslims”
jakup3 @172:
You’ll find that even people who make bigoted statements often offer evidence that they think supports their opinions. One of the things to look for is what effect their views would have if put in place. For instance, if someone supports dropping daisy cutters in the Middle East to eliminate Islamic extremists, that might sound reasonable to some (well not to me, bc that’s murder and I want less violence in the world not more; committing violence to reduce violence is nonsense; such actions are antithetical to Humanistic values, and they would succeed in creating more terrorists) until you realize that such actions would also kill off innocent people. If those civilians who are killed are Muslims, and you write them off as collateral damage, what does that say about your opinion of Muslims? If I say “let’s bomb the hell out of the Middle East to get rid of ISIS. It sucks that there will be casualties, but that’s collateral damage”, what does that say about me? That I’m willing to engage in wholesale slaughter of civilians…of a particular ethnic group…in the name of killing terrorists? My actions would cause the death of hundreds or thousands of Muslims, and I’d be shrugging my shoulders and saying “enh, I’m sorry, but it had to be done”. Can you see how that’s deeply bigoted? That’s beyond apathy. It’s actively advocating for genocide.
Is his claim backed by evidence?
There are people-women and LGBT-in the US for instance, that suffer as a result of literal interpretations of the Bible. He’s declared Islam to be worse bc he’s paying attention to all the ways in which Islamic extremists commit horrible actions. Why isn’t he paying attention to all the ways Christian extremists commit horrible actions? He’s interested in playing “this religion is worse than these others” and I don’t see the benefit in doing that. It leads to dismissing the problems of one religion (say Christianity) because he thinks Islam is worse. He also massively inflates the danger of Islam. He thinks the US’s security is endangered by radical Islamic extremists, yet as I pointed out upthread, we have more to worry about from Far Right domestic terrorists. Harris’ actions would largely ignore that problem because he’s focused so much on Islam, which doesn’t pose a significant threat to the US.
Does that mean Islam isn’t a threat? No. It is. Most especially to the people living under the thumb of an Islamic theocracy. But there’s not a lot we can do for them over here, other than speak out against it, and offer our support. What we can do is fight back against domestic terrorists and religious extremists in this country. Well, some of us could. Sam Harris doesn’t seem too worried about them.
If you don’t feel like claiming it, I’d advise against saying it. Also, it may be more helpful to say anti-Muslim bigotry. I learned recently (by doing what I see you’ve done; shutting up and listening) that it’s better to use that phrase rather than Islamophobia (for a variety of reasons-one of which is that bc Islam is not a race, the minute you begin using the term, some people shut down conversation and refuse to listen to anything you say; it doesn’t help discourse, it hinders it).
Prima facie evidence of paranoia. What evidence do you need that his attitude is irrationally fearful? It screams dog whistles. Which you seem utterly ignorant of….
jakup3 @179:
It doesn’t matter that he’s positing a far fetched scenario. He’s envisioned a scenario where genocide is a reasonable option. Genocide should *never* be seen as a reasonable option. The idea that a pre-emptive strike is necessary to stop those “evil Muslims” is deeply bigoted.
By now you should have read my response to that question. It’s clear he’s talking about Muslims because of the context of his talk about torture. Read this paragraph again:
That’s all the context you need. He’s talking about torture as a tool in the war on terror. Who was targeted by the war on terror. Hint: it wasn’t domestic terrorists.
@jakup 179: He doesn’t say “only muslims,” but he does explicitly say “torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror.” The war on terror which targeted… who, again?
=======
Pretty sure I’ve read this essay before, but I just re-read it and I’m grossed out all over again.
No, no infants, just human beings who are being held without trial and many without a shred of evidence against them. To say nothing of the disgusting amount of collateral damage our “war on terror” has racked up in the middle east. But Sam clearly cares about Muslims.
@tony
You raised a lot of interesting points and I agree with a lot of what you said. Seeing as how air strikes are all anyone does to combat ISIS, what the hell are we supposed to do about it?Protest? I’ll talk to you later my friend, I need to sleep.
jakup3
Swing and a miss.
Good start.
Bullshit, which you admit in your very next post, when you reply to Beatrice with
.
Own your bigotry, old bean, especially when you’re trying to apoligize for it. Otherwise it sounds kind of like a pathetic notpology from someone who completely fails to get it, which in fact is exactly what you do sound like.
Not very clearly, else you’d have actually looked into what policies in fact reduce harm before shooting your fool mouth off. (hint: ethnic profiling isn’t one; neither is most of the ridiculous rigamarole that’s infested America since 2001).
Oh no you fucking don’t. You do not get to cover your assholery in the mantle of utilitarianism, and fuck you for trying. Because 1) you can’t actually quantify suffering the way you seem to think, and 2) as I, and others, have noted repeatedly, right here in this very thread, IT DOESN’T FUCKING WORK, you FUCKING ASSHOLE, and therefore there cannot possibly be a utilitarian argument in favor of it any more than there can be one in favor of treating ebola with fucking leeches.
It is true that there are characteristics traits that can be predictors of certain forms of criminal behaviour. These traits are behavioral; for instance, torturing animals is a strong predictor of later violent crime against humans, and kids who do that should receive specialized attention for that reason. The problem is that you persist in beleiving, contrary to all available evidence, that ethnicity and religion are among these traits. This is bigotry, which many people have already pointed out to you.
So, you do get it, when you’re potentially on the receiving end. And yet you insist that you’re not bigoted.
So have Christians. Many more of them than Muslims, in the United States. Yet you jerked your knee about the evil brown turrists. Think about why that might be.
Getting there…
What’s this ‘if’? Why is it so hard for you to beleive in the existence of anti-Muslim bigotry? Why are you so committed to defending Harris on this issue?
No, he doesn’t. See, for instance, his continuing support of torture and ethnic profiling, both of which are contraindicated by the evidence. Also his conviction that Islam poses an existential threat to the West, which is blatantly ridiculous from any evidence-based perspective.
Things from inaccurate sources are not, in fact, evidence.
Good for him, I guess?
This is a claim which is highly suspect, and also one of questionable relevance. As I noted earlier, what matters is the degree to which the state privileges religious actors. Based on their explicit statements to this effect, I conclude that there are a great many Christians in the U.S. and Europe who would treat women, sexual and gender minorities, religious dissenters, etc. exactly as poorly as ISIS or the House of Saud does, were they in a position to do so. And not just Christians, either; as has been extensively discussed around various places, especially since the infamous Elevator Incident, a depressingly large number of atheists are right on the same program. Indeed, a great deal of the time they do behave in such violent and brutal fashions, and they do get away with it. [Trigger warning for the following; discussion of assorted types of violence] Some acquaintances of mine were hospitalized in a gay-bashing incident last year, here in lefty, tolerant Portland, and no arrests were ever made. You think they wouldn’t have pulled the full video execution rigamarole if they thought they could get away with it? I don’t. You know why? Because people in the U.S. have taken videos of themselves committing atrocites and gotten away with it; police executing black men in the streets, football players gang-raping schoolgirls, etc. [end TW] So don’t try to pretend that this crap is unique to Islam, and most especially stop pretending that it’s Islam or Sharia or anything of that nature that’s harming people’s rights here in the West.
Once again, why not? Why is it so important to you that Sam Harris isn’t called a bigot for his bigoted statements? Why is this the hill you want to die on?
No, we’re anti-Islam and anti-Christianity, as well as anti-Hinduism, Shenism, Judaism, religion, and authoritarianism generally; try carefully to parse the difference.
Nothing. Being bigoted against people from the Middle East is another matter entirely, though, which is what’s principally happening here.
Ah jeez, not this shit again.
Do I have to go over again how arguing in favor of something that doesn’t work reliably isn’t a utilitarian arguement? Cos I’d rather you just looked up a bit, and pretend I did it again. Also, real life is not a Michael Crichton novel.
Support for torture per se isn’t what makes him a bigot. It makes him an asshole, and a moral vacuum, but not a bigot. It’s all the bigoted shit he says that makes us call him a bigot.
Right. Like I said, he’s an asshole.
Especially when you can’t get to the desired ends by those means anyway.
The best overall results for everyone categorically excludes the commission of injustices. To paraphrase Babbage, I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a statement.
Could have fooled me, the way you’re bending over backwards to excuse and justify his atrocious behaviour.
Why? I see no evidence that he’s doing any such thing, and neither you nor his other fans have provided any.
That is an oxymoron.
The first does not follow from the second. Simply because you beleive you know that, say, the government of Iran is going to (somehow, for some reason) attack the U.S. with a nuclear device, why does that justify murdering tens of thousands if not millions of innocent people? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Not any more than we already are; do you have any fucking clue how close the world has come to the nukes flying, or how many times? Do you really think that Dominionist fanatics in the Capitol or the Pentagon are more trustworthy custodians of nukes than Wahabbist fanatics in Saudi Arabia? The big difference, of course, is that the U.S. actually has nukes, in terrifyingly huge quantities, such that we’re in infinitely more danger of being nuked accidentally by our own fucking government than foreigners of any race, creed, or nationality.
That’s supposed to be better? That he has a literally medieval view of criminal justice, which relies on judicial torture?
And he’s fucking wrong, because it isn’t.
And?
So much for ‘evidence based’, what?
@hyrax
Alright, alright. Sam Harris is a sexist anti-muslim bigot.
Key word being “if” . Since evidence indicates that torture doesn’t work, we have no reason to indulge in his hypotheticals.
I’ve changed my mind on most of the shit you’re ripping on me for. I don’t support profiling, or torture,or Sam Harris. And I’m not a bigot. Well fuck, I try not to be anyways.
My comment wasn’t against anyone. I thought profiling made security more efficient, but I was wrong. I realize that utilitarian arguments only work if the premises are actually true. I was just trying to point out that Sam Harris being wrong doesn’t make him a bigot. I know though, it’s the fucked up shit he says that makes him a bigot.
Blah.
Key word being “if” . Since evidence indicates that torture doesn’t work, we have no reason to indulge in his hypotheticals.
Agreed.
@dalilama
Let’s say you’re a doctor and you let a murderer with a gunshot wound die to harvest his organs and save like 5 innocent people who would die without them. That’s the kind of situation I’m talking about, where you would have to commit an injustice to attain the most overall well being.
jakup3 #190
So, you’re telling me that you have no personal ethics, or at least don’t have the ability to hold onto an ethical code? I say this because I assume that you are also putting yourself into the shoes of this hypothetical doctor, and proposing that in that situation you would throw away every principle of medical ethics and commit a murder. This is not a justifiable behaviour.
A doctor shouldn’t just “let” his or her patients die. “Do no harm” and all that.
What about saving five “guilty people”? Wouldn’t that also attain more well-being, and why is it not premised on something like that, if this isn’t secretly about punishment or retribution?
We’re all of a sudden measuring people’s lives in terms of how innocent or guilty we think they are of something. Are they simply innocent of not-being-that-murderer who you want to punish (as a doctor, no less), or are they all-around innocent of every conceivable crime? What about things they’ve done which aren’t crimes yet are morally wrong — can they be considered “guilty” of those? Besides, what exactly does that have to do with whether or not overall well-being has increased? If someone’s committed a crime or any other wrong thing, aren’t they just as capable of having satisfying lives or of being a part of the satisfying lives of their friend/families/acquaintances/etc.?
But generally, I just don’t get why justice overall is supposed to increase when we add some particular “injustice” to the mix. That looks a lot like wishful, magical thinking. How exactly is that supposed to be getting us any closer, instead of further, to having more justice in the world? Explain it to me. Don’t just tell me that there are trolley problems — we know that already. What is there that’s worth saying about them?
@dalilama
That’s why I said the ends don’t justify the means. That thought exercise was supposed to just illustrate a problem with utilitarianism. It’s straight out of my ethics book. Why would you just assume I would let the murderer die? I was just showing you the line of thinking that could lead to the statement about injustice in the name of overall well being.
@consiousness razor
I’m not recommending injustices if that’s what you’re saying. I just brought up that thought experiment because dalilama thought I was crazy. I think that in general, overall well being is the goal of ethics. But utilitarianism carried to an extreme makes no sense.
jakup3
Let me just explain why I think Sam Harris’ support of torture indicates bigotry rather than reason.
What he’s done is create these scenarios that never happen (thought experiments, if you will) to justify torturing people. Besides the fact that, as Tony! pointed out in #177, torture isn’t effective in real life, Sam Harris is really just making stuff up to say that something really bad can be justifiable. This would be fine if we were just conversing in magical imaginary thought land, where none of our words have real life consequences, but in the real world, people ARE being tortured in the name of the war on terror, and the justifications for doing so are exactly what Sam Harris blabs about in his “what if” scenarios. The effect is that his words support continuing institutionalized torture, and I think Harris is smart enough to know full well what he’s supporting. And he seems fine with our practice of torturing almost exclusively middle eastern muslims.
This happened after the Boston Marathon Bombing. After the surviving perpetrator was arrested, there was a national debate on whether we should suspend his constitutional rights, just so we could have him tortured (sending him to gitmo was even mentioned). You know, just in case he was connected to a terrorist cell and had knowledge of another attack. We just have to torture him to stop that other attack from happening! US senators were calling for this, even though there was no evidence of any terrorist cell or second attack.
This whole “what if” argument reminds me of people who justify our gun culture in America by making up stories. Trigger Warning for typical gundamentalist arguments using rape. Like, what if someone breaks in your house and rapes your family while you’re forced to watch? Then you’d want to have a gun to shoot them. But that particular situation is so unlikely to happen, and in reality, people use their guns to kill “scary” POC, or they use their guns in intimate partner violence, or unintentionally kill themselves or others by being idiots.
Applied in that particularly nonsensical way, it makes no sense. The spectrum of utilitarianism doesn’t need to go in that direction, so taking it “to an extreme” can be something very different from that. For better or worse, it isn’t specific enough to make claims like that. It’s a big, wide category or style of ethical thought, not something that actually does invariably lead to the claim that doctors should harvest the organs of “guilty” people (or any other type of person).
jakup3 @193:
You do realize that in your thought experiment you had the doctor violating hir code of ethics, right?
“I’ll violate my code of ethics and let this person die when I should have done all in my power to save their life, so I can harvest their organs to help other people”
That’s your idea of promoting overall well being? If a doctor did this, they should be imprisoned.
@everyone
Sleepytime. Talk to you guys later.
@ jakup3
You need to talk less and listen more. You keep saying “Sam Harris didn’t mean it that way” or “I didn’t mean it that way”. It doesn’t matter what you were thinking in your head when you said the words. Language doesn’t work that way. People can lie. People can be wrong. I can think very, very, very hard and earnestly of a table in my head and then say “chair.” And despite what I meant, you will understand me to be speaking of that thing holding your ass up and not the thing holding your lamps up. You need to get over this willingness to let those kinds of disavowals work on you and focus on what people are actually saying. Words don’t change their meaning because you deny meaning it that way.
You’re also trying to draw a distinction between being bigoted and being wrong about the way he supports his arguments. The bigotry in what Sam Harris does is rely on demonstrably untrue shit, stereotypes, fanciful and staggeringly unlikely thought experiments to justify things like torture and racial profiling and to explain why so few women buy his books. He’s using these things to justify behaviors that, out in the real world, have the effect of disadvantaging groups of people. And he’s wrong in ways that are not obscure. Like there’s boatloads of data that would tell him he’s wrong if he could trouble himself to pay attention to it. But he doesn’t. He riffs on stereotypes, speaks from apparent ignorance (I say “apparent” because I don’t really believe he doesn’t know some of this stuff), fails to define his terms (i.e. leaving “looks like a Muslim” undefined so that you don’t consider the implications of what he’s advocating) and actively, knowingly distorts facts in order to justify an indefensible position. That’s bigotry. It’s not just being wrong.
I should add to my 198 that it’s bigotry because of the effect of his words; not because of whatever he’s thinking in the privacy of his skull. Maybe he really, genuinely doesn’t approve of racial profiling but that doesn’t change the fact that what he’s advocating will BE racial profiling in practice.
jakup3:
Given that you seem to be open to the possibility that you’re wrong about several things (you are, and there’s nothing wrong with that), I wanted to suggest one more thing. You’ve gotten pushback from several people. That pushback has contained harsh words and invective. That’s tone. Those words are not ultimately what is important. Pay attention to the substance of what people are saying. I’ve seen many people get wrapped up in “they called me harsh words”. So much so that they don’t pay attention to the information conveyed along with the so-called profanity. This is a rude blog and people are under no obligation to treat you with kid gloves. If you are handled roughly, don’t let that deter you.
I just wanted to take note of this too, because jakup3 actually inadvertently hit on what we were trying to explain way back at #67. It’s another example of these phrases people use like they’re magical incantations. People say it to deflect accusations of racism but give it a moment’s thought and you realize that, yes, Islam is a religion, not a race, so why does Sam Harris think you can profile people who look Muslim? This is why I get so frustrated with people who whine about intent because what they’re asking of you is to not think it through. It’s the Jedi mind trick. “These aren’t the droids (*koff*sexist pigs*koff*) you’re looking for.”
Many thanks and congratulations, people – you actually appear to have changed jakup3’s mind, and on more than one issue. Of course, backsliding is likely, but still very good to see – and yet another proof that Pharyngula’s confrontational tone can be highly effective!
jakup3, #167
I accept your apology. Thanks.
I also agree that harm should be prevented. But you haven’t thought this through, and I suspect it’s because you’re not aware of your privilege. Do you realize it’s extremely humiliating to be singled out for your appearance and treated with suspicion in a busy airport in front of everyone? Not only is it humiliating, it can also be really harmful to the person. It’s not like being questioned for suspicion of stealing and then being cleared. You don’t just simply walk away. People who see you being singled out and questioned won’t be able to get that out of their heads. It is degrading at best and at worst, it can ruin the person’s reputation and even lead to them being harassed. There is already a fair bit of prejudice against Muslims in the U.S. Profiling will only make that worse.
Profiling someone isn’t simply a harmless, preventative act with no ramifications.
I don’t understand. I thought that’s what you were saying? And before you say Muslim is not a race, then how were you proposing the profiling be done? Attire? Well, you’ll find that there are very, very few white or Chinese men wearing the taqiyah cap or any other traditional Muslim attire. So effectively, the profiling will be done via their facial features and skin colors.
The point is that good security should be an important part of flight regardless, because anything could happen. Profiling is stupid and indeed racist.
I don’t understand this part. In the context of this conversation, aren’t those two sentences contradictory?
Oops…
I meant to blockquote the above in my previous post. That’s from jakup3, not me.
Once again, we are sambarrased by his insouciant words.
sambarrass (vt.)
1) to feel shame and discuss when Sam Harris speaks
2) to use Sam Harris’s words to shame or embarass atheists
That should read disgust. I hate autocorrect.