[Max Goodman]

Though silence is probably the best response to posts veering in uninteresting directions, I'm posting because I'm flabbergasted that Brian's concise complaint drew a rebuke.

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

Oh, yawn, Brian. How petty.

Firstly, there's obviously a degree of self-deprecating humour in the statement

Self is certainly William's favorite topic. Yawn, indeed.

[Mark McDonnell]

Emitt,

I apologise if I sounded rude, I really didn't mean to. At least I think that's what you were implying by 'Well, I could reply that you have a habit of failing to see obvious connections but that would be to follow you into an unnecessary rudeness'. Again, it's hard to tell, because you use words in quite a slippery way. Including about what 'obvious connections' I'm failing to see. But I am sorry, I get carried away.

Like yourself I'm time-poor, so I'll limit myself to your links and a couple of points. I'd rather this weren't all about Sam Harris too, but let's just use him as a kind of 'talking stick' between us since I've just spent the last two hours googling stuff about him. Ha.

Your first link is to a website called 'Alternet'. Coincidentally (or not), this is one of the sites that Harris cites (see the link from his own website that I posted) as being somewhere that regularly misquotes him and/or takes stuff from his books outrageously out of context. I quote from the first paragraph of his blog.

'But there are now whole websites—Salon, The Guardian, Alternet, etc.—that seem to have made it a policy to maliciously distort my views. I have commented before on the general futility of responding to attacks of this kind. Nevertheless, the purpose of this article is to address the most important misunderstandings of my work.' Again, I urge you to read the link.

Now, it pains me to do this, as a good English liberal (I know, I know, you're bored of my 'leftist credentials'), because he mentions The Guardian there, the lefty Englishman's bible. But he's right! The examples he gives of quotes that have been taken out of context, tweeted, shared, turned into hashtags about his 'hate-speech' and examples of bigotry, when then compared to their original placement in context, are outrageous examples of bad journalism! And having spent 10 minutes on Alternet it's obvious that it's a completely partisan, left-wing mouthpiece. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and I'm not saying it's the left's equivalent of Breitbart. But it is what it is. Of course, you may still completely disagree with Harris' opinions when you see them in context but at least his critics should do him the courtesy of engaging with him on what he actually says, rather than on what they say he says.

Your second link, which you 'kept from last year' (why?) is also silly. Some journalist spends all this time in it complaining that Harris censored their conversation after Harris decided not to release it as one of his podcasts, because it went nowhere
and was 'boring'. What do you know? After the journalist kicked up a stink (ie the article you linked to) and after pressure from his curious listeners, he did release the conversation! And it is revealed to be (I haven't listened to all of it, but I feel Harris' pain) boring. So the article you link to has no actual validity. Here's the interview, if you have 3 hours to spare.

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/it...t-podcast-ever

I'll leave you with your own words.

'I doubt very seriously that your daughters are in danger from Islamic ideology relative to the danger that daughters of Muslims in the middle east are put in by ideas that increase the Otherness of their societies and cheerleading for military action/response as well as just the general suggestion by the new atheists that the religious mind is more susceptible to violence and thus more threatening.'

I doubt they are also. But I care about all women. Do you really think that the worst dangers facing Muslim women in the Middle East are 'ideas that increase the Otherness of their societies' and the 'general suggestion by the new atheists that the religious mind is more susceptible to violence'. Hmmm... If I were a woman accused of adultery in Afghanistan or Iran, I'd rather face Richard Dawkins at his most red-faced and indignant than an angry Muslim cleric.

Again, peace Emitt. I know you mean well.

[Mark McDonnell]

'Though silence is probably the best response to posts veering in uninteresting directions, I'm posting because I'm flabbergasted that Brian's concise complaint drew a rebuke.'

Max, why complain about a complaint? That's the most uninteresting direction you could have possibly moved this thread. Why not just move on? Write a poem or something...

Silence is good though. I agree.

[Matt Q]

Reinstated by request

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

Max, why complain about a complaint? That's the most uninteresting direction you could have possibly moved this thread. Why not just move on? Write a poem or something...

Hi Mark,

This is how it seems to me: Brian complained about Bill. You complained about Brian's complaint about Bill. Max complained about your complaint about Brian. And the above is your complaint about Max's complaint about your complaint about Brian's complaint about Bill.

best

Matt

[Mark McDonnell]

Matt,

Don't do the nevermind thing. I just read your post and was going to complain about it to the highest possible authorities!

[Matt Q]

Mark,

It's back. I posted it and then was worried it might be taken the wrong way. It's not intended to be snarky. And it's most definitely not a complaint. Honest.

Matt

[Mark McDonnell]

It was a tonic.

Now who can I complain to?

[Emitt Evan Baker]

Hey Mark.
Fair point about the podcast maybe actually just being too boring. I listened to a fair amount of it, maybe half, and didn't come away any less put off by Harris. His guest was about sharing an experience of the multifaceted and complex nature of the Islamic world. An experience I recognize. Sam was about winning an argument through very careful navigation of the discussion. Sam was much more seasoned and composed, rehearsed even and still doesn't escape the parts I listened to without dodging. But I concede that the article on it that I linked to seemed much more full and stand-on-its-own-ish back when I first read it. I suspect I had alot more of the subject fresh in my mind at the time.

The question remains what sort of approach to Islam(s) will benefit the various reformations that its people dream of, and what will make an environment conducive to entrenchment. I am somewhat certain from my experience in the culture, my experience with orthodoxies in my own community, and most importantly the words of most people actually living in the milleau in question that Harris is very much not helpful.

It is interesting that he talks about culpable bystanders in Islam but doesn't seem to find his own bystanding during the past years of bombing campaigns to be that interesting. Maybe he has done more protesting of the use his and similar works have been out to by the State the last decade but I haven't come across it. What I have come across by him, in and out of context, is Hitchens Tales. Tales of necessary military actions and hypotheticals that seem completely unrelated to what actually takes place in modern warfare.

He mentions the use of Uncle Tom labeling among Islam for apostates. He finds this to be evidence of some innate immunity to reform in Islam while he interestingly misses the correlation between Slavery and Imperialism.

His bit about the Koran being found buried in ground centuries from now, and its innate nature as a violent ideology. I do think it is an important question to decide what the limits of flexibility in a text might or might not be. He says what a fresh start would look like with the Koran is more Salafist then Rumi. But in doing so he misses the obvious. Rumi already has been. He seems to not wish to here his guest as he speaks of his experiences of the vast numbers able to contextualize and neutralize the admittedly troubling elements of Islam. (None more troubling than the Levitical laws or the Herem but that is another subject.)

In the end I didn't see the signs of a mind wanting to know if there was anything to learn from his guest, a mind troubled by the idea of what it might mean to be wrong on this, but rather a seasoned debater seeking to win. I guess I just don't really like the guy. I will set aside the rest of this mess for another time: my fight with the reductionist neuroscience of the present Brain Boys and my belief that in general Harris doesn't really understand religion at all, confusing it with ideology. I don't have the time for it this week and prolly it doesn't much belong on this thread anyway. Dude just pisses me off and Jim's original post caught me in a bad mood. I shouldn't have wandered into this so far without the commitment to see it through but to be honest the idea of hours of reading Harris again (which would be the only intellectually honest way to really hash this out) is horrifying. Classes start up again in a couple weeks and I have so much construction work going this season that I am about to get my ass kicked I think. I would love to hang around and keep chatting about this. And I will. But I will back off on the topics like mind/brain dualism and the nature of religion because I just don't have a good enough command of the material of the latter anymore and I never did of the former. Plenty of opinions though. Big fan of Penfield and Eccles. Ha!

I will leave it here with a quick reply to your most important paragraph:

But I care about all women. Do you really think that the worst dangers facing Muslim women in the Middle East are 'ideas that increase the Otherness of their societies' and the 'general suggestion by the new atheists that the religious mind is more susceptible to violence'. Hmmm... If I were a woman accused of adultery in Afghanistan or Iran, I'd rather face Richard Dawkins at his most red-faced and indignant than an angry Muslim cleric.

The Islamophobia I mentioned empowers imperialism (see Trump's recent eyeing of the mineral deposits in Afghanistan) as it legitimizes violent economic and military actions in the region that kill thousands and help to keep the clerics in control. I don't see how that isn't obvious. But why listen to me. The brigades of Islamic women in Rojava are right now fighting *from within Islam* for a revolution that in some ways is more progressive minded than anything viable in the West. Harris should shut up and listen or better yet, get his ass to front lines and join the fight he seems to suggest for others so easily.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/north-...ava-revolution

Couple years old but you can find more up to date stuff if you want. I thought this was a decent overview. Look for Hawzhin Azeez's writing. She is pretty great and right in the thick. She is also part of the Middle Eastern Feminist collective.

http://www.kurdishquestion.com/artic...economic-model

[William A. Baurle]

Emitt:

While I realize this is not you writing this, and that you have only put the para up as an aid to illustrate a point you were trying to make with Mark, I want to single this bit out as an example of what is throwing you AWAY from the truth, rather than getting you closer to it. Once again, for ye many readers and lurkers, Emitt DID NOT say this, but only put up a large para in which this bit occurred:

The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes.

Emitt,

There ARE NO classes of people. Each and every human being ever born is an individual. Individuals are judged by other individuals. There are no classes of people. Those categories and classes result from a L O N G time of various individuals talking about other individuals. These classes and categories of individuals DO NOT EXIST. They are not living entities, and have absolutely NO real existence apart from being convenient points of reference for individuals who were talking and writing about individuals and their behavior.

Classes, categories, mathematical sets (set theory), are DYNAMIC, and ever in flux. Individuals are born, individuals die, and these categories and classes remain indeterminate and in CONSTANT flux. They are NOT real.

ie: there IS NO ruling class. There is no upper class, no middle class, and no lower class. These are convenient forms of reference for those individuals who are paid by other individuals to study and research other individuals.

Class dismissed. Go have fun. Put on a bikini, and joyfully shame those who are too fat to wear bikinis in public.

Rinse and repeat.

[Mark McDonnell]

Emitt,

Tiring isn't it? And complicated! Those links you provided make really fascinating and heartening reading, and I'm glad to be more informed about what's happening in Rojava. So thanks for that. I do agree with you that for some kind of reform and increase in tolerance and equality to come from within Islam itself is obviously the best of all possible ways forward. And again, I'm certainly not proposing Sam Harris as the voice of all authority on the matter. But he's a voice in the plurality of the conversation, along with many others. Calling him an 'Islamophobic mouthpiece' is just silliness. He co-wrote a book about Islamic reform with Maajid Nawaz, former British Liberal Democrat MP and practicing Muslim. He (Nawaz) has apparently been called an 'anti-Muslim extremist' by the Southern Poverty Law Centre and is currently suing them for defamation. I just was struck by the vehemence of your original response to Jim's post and the sense occurred to me that the minutae of left/right partisan politics often clouds what are much bigger and more fundamental issues. I suppose I'm the one being vague now, after having accused you of vagueness. Sorry.

'May your God go with you. But keep him/her to yourself' is my new motto. Not very catchy.

All the best

Mark

Edit: After two days of arguing about religion and politics (the thing I was told never to do!) I hereby ban myself from these kind of threads. They never make me feel good. I never feel I've said what I meant to say, or that what I have said has been expressed either too broadly, or vehemently, or flippantly, or that I've been rude to perfectly nice people who I've never met. I come away feeling vaguely grubby and compromised. Oh dear. Oh well.