'End of Liberalism': Interesting Article

[Trent 0]

Interesting read from one of their own, in fact. I'm sure those here who should really read it, won't... but I wanted to share it. While I'll probably disagree with the author on almost all of his other positions... this one strikes home since it seems to me that many liberals are willfully ignorant about the subject.

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-end-of-liberalism/

Oh, hello again!

[quade 4]

I read it.

I don't agree with some of his propositions, therefore, I pretty much can't agree with his conclusion.

Even his use of the word "liberalism" is too vague for my tastes.

For example, "This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that 'liberals are soft on terrorism.' It is, and they are."

I don't believe that's the case at all. I can't think of a single person that I know and that could be generally considered to be a liberal is "soft of terrorism".

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 3,117]

A few comments:

>Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I’d like
>to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and
>homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration
>deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years . . .

OK, so he basically is as much of a liberal as I am.

>But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism
>has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world . . .

Is he saying that HE is out of touch with the realities of the world? Or that he is a liberal, but he does not believe in "liberalism?" A bit confusing there.

>This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that “liberals are
>soft on terrorism.” It is, and they are.

I think terrorists should be apprehended and/or killed; I don't know of any liberals who would disagree.

>This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are
>absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the
>faith is the highest possible good . . .

Definitely true.

>t is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual
>resources to build a nuclear bomb — and to believe that he will get 72
>virgins in paradise.

Just as we have people here in the US who actually DO build nuclear weapons - and believe they will get a harp once St. Peter lets them in the pearly gates.

It is not what direction one prays, or the belief in the afterlife that's the problem, it's the people who are eager to kill for their faith (or even lack of faith, as in the Tamil Tigers.)

>At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing
>subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11
>were orchestrated by our own government.

I don't know (in the real world that is vs the net) a single liberal who believes that.

>Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark
>the decline of liberalism . . .

Conflating "liberalism" with "conspiracy theorists" makes little sense. Conspiracy theorists work both sides of the aisle. Would he propose that the conspiracy theorists who can "prove" that Clinton had people killed are liberals as well?

You can be a kook no matter what your political leanings.

>Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the
>Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given
>sufficient economic opportunities.

"The West" is neither consistently benevolent nor malevolent. We have armed terrorists and ended plauges. We have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians with WMD's and saved millions from starvation. In that way we're like most other parts of the world.

Likewise, the "powerless people of the earth" are neither evil nor inherently benevolent. They're just people, like us.

>Recent condemnations of the Bush administration’s use of the phrase
>“Islamic fascism” are a case in point. There is no question that the
>phrase is imprecise — Islamists are not technically fascists . . .

True. I prefer "islamic extremists" myself.

> Religious dogmatism is now playing both sides of the board in a very
> dangerous game.

Very true. Yet if he posted such a thing on SC, he'd be attacked for his liberalism.

>While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age
>madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant.

. . . which is why the democrats, which tend more towards liberalism than conservatism, keep winning elections?

This is a pretty silly article, one that simply conflates "liberalism" with everything bad. A liberal could do the same thing with conservativism, and conflate it with bishops who tell lies about condoms, senators who troll for gay sex in public bathrooms, representatives who send explicit messages to underage kids, and conservative pundits who rail against drug abuse then get popped for abuse of prescription drugs.

Do those people define conservatism? No more than the 9/11 conspiracy nuts define liberalism. It's especially silly since he identifies himself as a liberal to begin with then begins the diatribe.

[SpeedRacer 1]

I pretty much agree with Billvon's criticisms.

Also, the article begins: "TWO YEARS AGO I published a book highly critical of religion, “The End of Faith.” In it, I argued that the world’s major religions are genuinely incompatible, inevitably cause conflict and now prevent the emergence of a viable, global civilization."

So here is a guy who already has a bias about religion generally. He thinks religion is generally a bad & dangerous thing, ignoring the millions of peaceful religious people & focusing on the fucked up extremists.

He is applying his anti-religious bias to Islam in this case.

He is saying that the "liberals" aren't dealing with reality here, except that it seems to me that more liberalism is exactly what we need especially in the Muslim world, to counteract religious extremism. Reliance on extremism to counteract extremism only brings more of the conflict he is so worried about.

Take Iran for instance. You've got a big youth population there, who are getting fed up with the extremist mullahs runniing their country & suppressing freedom. The rise of liberalism should be encouraged there, but if we attack Iran, the people will instead rally around the extremists.

We should do what worked at the end of the cold war: Let these countries rot away from the inside until their people get fed up with religious extremists & overturn/transform their own government.

Speed Racer
--------------------------------------------------

[nerdgirl 0]

Agree - worthwhile piece to discuss. Agree some of his observations are right-on. OTOH, some of the conclusions that he infers (analysis) from those observations are disputable (see comments by Quade, Bill Von, & SpeedRacer) and pushing provocative to inflammatory ... but Harris is writing for the LA Times not for International Security, Foreign Affairs, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, or the Naval War College Review

The use of intentionally inflammatory language (which Bill Von highlighted) is a common tactic. It's far from brilliant or innovative, as all sorts of folks, e.g., toward one end of the spectrum - Howard Stern, use intentionally inflammatory rhetoric to get attention. One could argue that our multi-media saturated environment, voices that speak precisely, calmly, and without hyperbole can get lost too easily ... or they're "boring wonks, academics, pointy heads," etc.

What do you think Harris would like to see? Do you think the tactic he took is likely to be effective? (Perhaps, yes ... or perhaps, no.) Or are there more effective strategies (as opposed to tactics)? Is Harris following the Christopher Hitchen's model? Both are extremely critical of organized religion and its followers from Christianity to radical Islam.

Others have argued, more thoughtfully that Harris (im-ever-ho) in the last few years some of the same issues with more robust analysis and conclusions, e.g.,
-- Kelly's A Renaissance of Liberalism, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200201/kelly;
--Starr's Freedom's Power http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/books/review/Lind.t.html;
-- Michelle Flournay, President of the Center for a New American Security
http://www.observer.com/2007/hot-policy-wonks-democrats-new-realists
-- Joe Circione, Senior Fellow and Director for Nuclear Policy at Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.org/experts/CirincioneJoseph.html
-- Mavis Leno (i.e., Jay Leno's wife), who as far back as 1997 spoke about the threat of and against the atrocities of the Taliban (and testified before Congress in 1998).

As a thought experiment: Imagine if someone posted a piece with an introduction characterizing skydivers as 'willfully ignorant' or some similarly pejorative descriptor setting up any of our other dynamic factions in Speakers Corner, i.e., strong 2nd Amendment supporters (literalists), families and former uniformed service members.

VR/Marg

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Interesting read from one of their own, in fact. I'm sure those here who should really read it, won't... but I wanted to share it. While I'll probably disagree with the author on almost all of his other positions... this one strikes home since it seems to me that many liberals are willfully ignorant about the subject.

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Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

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[pirana 0]

I agree with some of what he has to say. Especially the parts about Islam having major internal conflicts to resolve. To the peaceful Muslims worldwide, violent Muslims are their worst enemy - not western culture or it's people. The terrorists have succeeded in distracting people with their West-Is-Evil diatribe when what really needs to get resolved is their own humongous rift.

And where did they learn to write? Appears they learned from a bunch of old J Peterman catalogs. The excesive flowery language and beating around the bush drive me nuts. Instead of "We think you are the root of all evil and will destroy you" we get "The rabid imperialist dogs of the evil American empire that eats it's own children and usually consumes the entire bag of chips in one setting will never stop our glorious crusade to the promised land and it's multitudes of virgins . . . . "

Yada yada yada.

Can any one of these asswipes just get to the fucking point, just once? I wonder if they make their victims listen to that shit for hours on end before they kill them? That in itself should warrant the death penalty.

What was this thread about? Oh yes, political labels. Liberalism will just morph, like all the political -isms. The labels all remain, and the ideas all remain, but the assignments change. Kind of like musical chairs. The chairs represent the labels and the people represent the ideas. Either from boredom or because they no longer like what the label has come to mean, they keep moving around. In the last 200 years the labels have almost completely reversed.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[ErricoMalatesta 0]

You have to smile at how hard Sam Harris still tries given how much a newb-scholar he is.

Sam Harris - wah wah wah wars aren't about economics and hegemony they are about religion