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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| David wrote: | | Perhaps I'm a bonehead too, because unless you're nailing Harris for anthropomorphising and ascribing morality to societies/nation states (a common sin), then I have no idea what you're talking about. |
A common sin? A complete disqualification, more like it. The bloke moves between individuals, groups and mass entities without alerting his readers they're different phenomena.
Specifically, in reference to their email exchange, I'm calling Harris a twit for not knowing anything about Chomsky's thinking, and therefore being unable to work him out. I also find the very discussion of "our righteous motives" outright cringeworthy. Is that the essence of our superpowers, is it?
"Yes, your child's limb was torn off because we triggered a sectarian war that we were advised was very likely to be triggered; but we meant well. Even Sam Harris thinks, that in this particular case, we really did, because he studied our leaders' body language frame-by-frame, and it was quite different from, say, the Monica Lewinsky lie." 
Does Harris really think he has discovered some miraculous new phenomenon in extremist Islam being overtly aggressive, and advanced, extremely powerful postindustrialists claiming to have good intentions? Peoples have been overtly aggressive, or deceitfully aggressive or callous for millennia. I mean, he's such a bum he doesn't even know we're being deceitful or putting lipstick on a pig, as if the PR agents, paid shills, nice suits, leaked documents, prosecuted journalists, revolving doors, and staged performances are an artistic cultural flourish or something. And, as we have seen time and again, put us under security or financial pressure, and we become overtly rabid; we just happen to live lives of low-stress luxury.
Acknowledging our sins, and then going right back to his "our good motives make us special", doesn't change that one bit and is still no substitute for serious psychosocial analysis. The bloke needs to do some serious study of these things because he's a sociology and psychology ignoramus. People have been trying to tease these factors apart for centuries.
And I did LOL at Chomsky asking Harris to investigate George W. and his god-driven war. Bush's handlers couldn't cover all the looney god stuff up; sometimes it slipped out, while in such things as State-of-the-Union addresses, it's stated outright as a matter of state, no less. (And, sometimes, Bush's handlers let it out deliberately when he needed to appease the far right. Which reminds me, have you noticed we have a far right and a political spectrum, but other cultures don't, lol. A truly astonishing sociological phenomenon, that one!).
You tell me, David, seeing as this is apparently the epiphany Harris is supposed to bring me: What am I supposed to glean from Harris description of a situation whereby overtly aggressive groups clash with deceitfully aggressive groups? What grand moral insight is Harris showing me, aside from it looking like he hasn't noticed he's reading PR spin when it comes to us on the one hand, and knows nothing about sociology and social psychology when it comes to the great variety of human predicaments, good and bad, on the other?
Yes, but we don't preach about killing people, so we must be morally superior! Look! Check our leaflets! Not a single incitement to jihad! Just a call to stop teRRoR!
Cultures clash; some are more violent than others due to a still massive list of factors we have yet to bring under any serious intellectual control. Does Harris even talk about the most important of them, socio-economic development? Does he even know what it is? That's one area we know a bit about, but I guess he avoids it because if he seriously analyses the centralisation caused by the artificial oil economy, and its impacts on the societies concerned, and in contrast he looks at the decentralisation caused by industrialisation in the West, his "but we mean well" thesis will look even more embarrassing.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| swoop42 wrote: |
Who the hell is Chomsky? |
I could ask the exact same question, but I'd ask it in the DILLIGAF thread. 
Anyway, I thought you could buy ointment for Chomsky at the supermarket these days, you didn't need a prescription. 
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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swoop42 
Whatcha gonna do when he comes for you?
Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Location: The 18
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| stui magpie wrote: | | swoop42 wrote: |
Who the hell is Chomsky? |
I could ask the exact same question, but I'd ask it in the DILLIGAF thread.
Anyway, I thought you could buy ointment for Chomsky at the supermarket these days, you didn't need a prescription. |
It actually sounds like the Russian version of a chomp.
P.S-Whatever happened to the Polly Waffle?
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He's mad. He's bad. He's MaynHARD! |
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David 
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| pietillidie wrote: | | And I did LOL at Chomsky asking Harris to investigate George W. and his god-driven war. Bush's handlers couldn't cover all the looney god stuff up; sometimes it slipped out, while in such things as State-of-the-Union addresses, it's stated outright as a matter of state, no less. (And, sometimes, Bush's handlers let it out deliberately when he needed to appease the far right. Which reminds me, have you noticed we have a far right and a political spectrum, but other cultures don't, lol. A truly astonishing sociological phenomenon, that one!). |
And it was a misplaced attempt at oneupmanship, given that Harris has been a long-time critic of the religious right's influence on American politics and George W. Bush in particular.
While some of Harris's claims do slip into cringeworthy special pleading, his ideas on the concept of cultural superiority are a lot more nuanced than you're giving him credit for. This is no dumb rah-rah defence of empire; Harris is primarily interested in how a society should be (and no, the answer is not "like the US"), a worthy subject if there ever was one. If you haven't before, I'd encourage you to have a look at his book The Moral Landscape before casting too much judgement on him based on this email exchange and a handful of inane comments about Muslims.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^Fair enough, but do understand I would've read him with keen vigour if he had a coherent approach to researching culture and/or religion and/or societies and/or economies and/or the formation of cognitive constructs. But no, nothing. His efforts at serious scholarly research are a much bigger yawn again; have you read them? Would you have even expected religious and non-religious thought to look different on an fMRI scan? To then learn nothing from your own non-findings and push forward all the same beggars belief. FYI, that is exactly the kind of point-and-shoot, badly hypothesised academic work Chomsky hates. You have to have good reason to test something (i.e., a mature hypothesis) and suck in academic funding like that 
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| swoop42 wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | swoop42 wrote: |
Who the hell is Chomsky? |
I could ask the exact same question, but I'd ask it in the DILLIGAF thread.
Anyway, I thought you could buy ointment for Chomsky at the supermarket these days, you didn't need a prescription. |
It actually sounds like the Russian version of a chomp.
P.S-Whatever happened to the Polly Waffle? |
Polly Wafflski had a visit from the Russian Mafia.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | | I have no idea what you're talking about. |
Finally
This is how the rest of us feel to David
_________________
You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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King Monkey
Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Location: On a journey to seek the scriptures of enlightenment....
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Haven't heard too many conversations like this down at the local......
Maybe start a new section - Victoria Park Library, Victoria Park Study Hall, Victoria Park Philosophy Room???????? 
_________________
"I am a great sage, equal of heaven.
Grow stick, grow.
Fly cloud, fly.
Oh you are a dee-mon, I love to fiiight." |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| think positive wrote: | | David wrote: | | I have no idea what you're talking about. |
Finally
This is how the rest of us feel to David |
Well, neither of you would understand it, because unbeknownst to you, Harris hasn't actually told you exactly what he's investigating!
His only effort at serious definition found no difference between thoughts about religion, and thoughts about any old stuff. In other words, he has written pages and pages about something he himself can't even detect scientifically.
(Yes, I know you didn't mean that )
But have you ever tried to define religion? Is it a psychiatric state? A set of beliefs? A mystical set of beliefs? A mystical set of beliefs based on a mystical set of writings? An organisational form of some sort? A body of belief and practice? A community of like thinkers? Whatever Wikipedia thinks?
Well, guess what? Harris doesn't know, either, despite writing endless pages on it. Which is why I keep saying if you can't even define religion, and you can't locate it in the brain, and on top of that you don't know a single Muslim at any depth, and beyond that you've never even lived in one of the multitude of Muslim cultures for a time, WTH makes you think you've got anything useful to say about "Islam"?
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| King Monkey wrote: | Haven't heard too many conversations like this down at the local......
Maybe start a new section - Victoria Park Library, Victoria Park Study Hall, Victoria Park Philosophy Room???????? |
Computers is Computers. |
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King Monkey
Joined: 15 Apr 2009
Location: On a journey to seek the scriptures of enlightenment....
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| pietillidie wrote: | | think positive wrote: | | David wrote: | | I have no idea what you're talking about. |
Finally
This is how the rest of us feel to David |
Well, neither of you would understand it, because unbeknownst to you, Harris hasn't actually told you exactly what he's investigating!
His only effort at serious definition found no difference between thoughts about religion, and thoughts about any old stuff. In other words, he has written pages and pages about something he himself can't even detect scientifically.
(Yes, I know you didn't mean that )
But have you ever tried to define religion? Is it a psychiatric state? A set of beliefs? A mystical set of beliefs? A mystical set of beliefs based on a mystical set of writings? An organisational form of some sort? A body of belief and practice? A community of like thinkers? Whatever Wikipedia thinks?
Well, guess what? Harris doesn't know, either, despite writing endless pages on it. Which is why I keep saying if you can't even define religion, and you can't locate it in the brain, and on top of that you don't know a single Muslim at any depth, and beyond that you've never even lived in one of the multitude of Muslim cultures for a time, WTH makes you think you've got anything useful to say about "Islam"? |
It's a way of dodging tax.
_________________
"I am a great sage, equal of heaven.
Grow stick, grow.
Fly cloud, fly.
Oh you are a dee-mon, I love to fiiight." |
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David
to wish impossible things
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: the edge of the deep green sea
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| King Monkey wrote: | | Haven't heard too many conversations like this down at the local...... |
You really need to get out more! 
TP, that's how some posters here might feel, but for the rest of us, PTID provides good value and engaging debate (once you've read his posts a couple of times over... ). Sure, this thread is doing my head in, but I only have myself to blame for posting such an obscure topic in the first place. There's probably a 1 to 1 correlation between the posting of a thread about Noam Chomsky and the woolliness of the ensuing discussion.
_________________
"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence." – Julian Assange |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | | King Monkey wrote: | | Haven't heard too many conversations like this down at the local...... |
You really need to get out more!
Nah, it's just we prefer the local pub for relaxation to an archaic library. |
_________________
You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| King Monkey wrote: | Haven't heard too many conversations like this down at the local......
Maybe start a new section - Victoria Park Library, Victoria Park Study Hall, Victoria Park Philosophy Room???????? |
You're just not drinking from the top shelf!
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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