sam harris on the religion of identity politics

i disagree with sam harris on a number of topics,but on the subject of identity politics i have to admit.i totally agree with his take on identity politics and how this way of thinking clouds the arguments and becomes an almost dogmatic way of addressing the serious issues we all need to be discussing.identity politics obfuscates the argument.
ChaosEnginesays...

The one time he allows for a persons life experience, he gets it wrong.

"My mom is Catholic and she believes in hell" is absolutely NOT a valid response to "Catholics don't believe in hell". For someone who believes in data, that's a terrible response. It's a sample size of one out of over 1 billion. And if you were to dig up the canonical Catholic teaching on hell, that STILL wouldn't be the right data (the argument was "Catholics don't believe in hell", not "Catholicism does not teach the concept of hell". Even if you were to say "actually every Catholic I know believes in hell" that's still not a valid argument, unless you know thousands of Catholics.

I've lost a lot of respect for Sam Harris over the years and this just reinforces that.

Of course, data is important, especially when it comes to things like whether vaccines cause autism (they don't).

But if you're talking about things like how police treat black people or whether women are paid less in the workplace... the life experience of those people are a vital part of the data, especially when the data isn't clear cut.

Stormsingersays...

Actually, it -is- a perfect disproof of the statement "Catholics don't believe in hell". It only takes a single example to disprove a universal claim like that. Had the statement been, "Most Catholics..." or "Some Catholics..." then you'd have a point. As it stands, he's right.

ChaosEnginesaid:

The one time he allows for a persons life experience, he gets it wrong.

"My mom is Catholic and she believes in hell" is absolutely NOT a valid response to "Catholics don't believe in hell". For someone who believes in data, that's a terrible response. It's a sample size of one out of over 1 billion. And if you were to dig up the canonical Catholic teaching on hell, that STILL wouldn't be the right data (the argument was "Catholics don't believe in hell", not "Catholicism does not teach the concept of hell". Even if you were to say "actually every Catholic I know believes in hell" that's still not a valid argument, unless you know thousands of Catholics.

I've lost a lot of respect for Sam Harris over the years and this just reinforces that.

Of course, data is important, especially when it comes to things like whether vaccines cause autism (they don't).

But if you're talking about things like how police treat black people or whether women are paid less in the workplace... the life experience of those people are a vital part of the data, especially when the data isn't clear cut.

ChaosEnginesays...

Ok, if we are talking formal boolean logic, then yes, that's a valid response, but human language is not a formal boolean logical system. This is why applying rigid logic to discussion of human beliefs and experiences is such a bad idea.

Most people are able to use life experience and simple human intuition to understand that the statement "Catholics don't believe in hell" does not mean "there are absolutely no Catholics that believe in hell" and instead is closer to "most Catholics (as a general rule) don't believe in hell".

A sweeping generalisation like "catholics don't believe in hell" is a pretty stupid statement to make in the first place.

Stormsingersaid:

Actually, it -is- a perfect disproof of the statement "Catholics don't believe in hell". It only takes a single example to disprove a universal claim like that. Had the statement been, "Most Catholics..." or "Some Catholics..." then you'd have a point. As it stands, he's right.

drradonsays...

Agreed (Stormsinger), and agreed (ChaosEngine) - it is a stupid statement and that was his point. A sweeping statement that "Catholics don't believe in Hell..." is stupid and incorrect. Likewise, saying "Police are biased against people of color" is also a stupid statement - many are people of color - doesn't really address the problem or lead to a cogent discussion of how to reduce the threat to suspects or the threat to the police officers who are also killed in the line of duty.

His point is absolutely correct: there is too much empty rhetoric intended to divide public opinion and not enough real interest interest in addressing the underlying cause of the problem.

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