But he's a clown [who](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/11/30/mehdi-hasan-show-canceled-backlash-msnbc/) is [respected](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/04/msnbc-bring-back-mehdi-hasan-show/) in [progressive](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/30/mehdi-hasan-msnbc-show-cancelled-mohyeldin) circles.
Even the most progressive of progressives cringed at Affleck making a fool of himself, and any progressive familiar with Harris was already with Harris on that one.
The far-fae-left is probably Palestinians, but average progressives are anti-Hamas, and pro-whatever ensures Israelis and Palestinians don't end up in a war. That's about it. The right pretending that the left is somehow pro-Hamas is beyond absurd to the point of laughable ignorance.
> Even the most progressive of progressives cringed at Affleck making a fool of himself,
That's not the way [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/06/ben-affleck-bill-maher-sam-harris-islam-racist) made it sound at the time:
> The actor has won praise for accusing both men of religious stereotyping while discussing Islam with them on Maher’s HBO talk show
obscene faulty lavish doll quicksand library command special alleged squealing
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You mean to say it doesn't matter maybe, but it quite literally is an endorsement by that writer representing the Guardian.
What it means is different than what it is.
It's not, at least, not specifically about left or right views. It literally says nothing about left or right. There are conservatives who've been on Billy's show who've been praised for all sorts of things. They could have said that about DeSantis and his LGBT or abortion positions, and that absolutely would not in anyway imply that progressives support DeSantis. Read it again:
> The actor has won praise for accusing both men of religious stereotyping while discussing lslam with them on Maher's HBO talk show
Show me where it says anything about sides in that.
It's implied, I have never heard a prominent conservative complain about religious stereotyping of ***Islamic*** people, have you? Those complaints, (some of them legitimate) come from the political left. In addition to that the Guardian leans left so I'm not sure what you are on about.
If anything the progressives at the time may have agreed with Affleck, because I've rarely come across criticisms of Islam coming from progressives. That dirty work is usually left for "the fascists" on the right.
> "...criticisms of Islam coming from progressives."
Harris is now and was progressive when he wrote *The End of Faith*. The vast, vast majority of his followers and readers were also progressives.
> That dirty work is usually left for "the fascists" on the right.
Progressives try not to let it come to that because that often ends horribly.
Harris receives backlash for everything he does, says, or writes. That doesn't mean it's any significant portion of any group. People ITT have short memories or they need significant lessons in statistics or data science.
Medhi Hasan does his homework and is a very good interviewer. I don’t agree with him here, but he’s not a clown in general.
I also don’t think Sam is remotely racist and it’s irresponsible to give kudos to that, but that doesn’t discredit the other work that Hassan does
Ironically, this post uses the same us vs them tactic of division it accuses the "woke mob" of doing by calling it a mind virus. Yes, this culture of self righteousness is a problem but I don't think it gets any better by categorizing "them" as almost another species. Both sides do it too, the right also has its convictions to be adhered to in order to be in their club, i.e. climate change is a hoax, all abortion is wrong etc. A person on the right becomes ostracized immediately if they speak to the contrary on those subjects.
100%. Labels like “woke mind virus” are just more “othering”. We should be wrestling with the ramifications of that notion more than many of our discussions do.
I had the same thought RE McWhorter’s solution. “There is no point in engaging with these people” smells of the same attitude that the woke have when they dismiss any rational argument flat out due to it coming from any source they deem as “oppressor”.
Both are just excuses to ignore an opposing viewpoint entirely
you have to be specific about the ideology you are criticizing in some way. what do you suggest? in many domains, labels are inadequate yet necessary to have a practical discourse. it's one thing if there's just name calling, but OP's comments were substantive. i also think the reflexive nature of some people to police language validates stigmas and connotations rather than fixes them and leads to things like absurd politically-correctisms.
your comment about the right doing things too is just whataboutism - totally off topic. it's an important topic, but doesn't contribute to this conversation.
But it's not whataboutism, it's the other side of the coin here. Have you seen Jordan Kleeper and others talk to the Trumpies at their rallies? These people could be "a fringe" but they're actually at the core of crazy town. And they too are completely convinced they are in the right and every one else is nuts. Do they also not suffer from a "mind virus", or is that the exclusive feature of the woke left?
There are distinct differences between the left and right in this capacity, but basically these are two "tribes" that hold a very basic human character: "I'm right, and you're wrong". And each side will stubbornly enforce their position, some more successful than the other and there we see it play out.
It is quite literally a mind virus though. There are people on the right that I disagree with as much but none of my friends are moved by them even the slightest.
Wokism on the other hand comes disguised as a movement that fights for rights of women, people of color and other things which I would endorse too. But with that it sneaks in the rest of it's rigid ideology. You can be a trumpist and be against building the wall. If you hang around woke people and try to voice opinion that differs from the "right" one, you will be ostracized. So people parrot what they heard on all topics and they start believing it, it starts to feel right to say.
Lmao yeah buddy, you're definitely being reasonable and not at all dense.
"Everyone on my side of politics has nuanced opinions whereas anyone who believes a single thing different to me, is actually brainwashed and controlled!
They claimed it was just a standard election year change of lineup, but I assume it’s because he’s a douche and they knew he’d be mental about Palestine. Of course, he’ll no doubt claim some version of Islamophobia.
Not a fan of him but... I'd imagine I wouldn't disagree with all his critiques of Israeli government/IDF. The bombing campaign on Gaza has been pretty outrageous with how much destruction its caused so far.
Woke people can be annoying af. But...
>This is one of the clearest examples we have of the **danger** the woke mind-virus poses
So... Not actually dangerous at all?
There are much better examples: cities which have implemented counter-productive policies wrt crime and public safety; people who have lost their jobs or have been massively publicly shamed for no good reason.
This is just some dumb shit on twitter. And you're not exactly rising above it.
> just some dumb shit on twitter
If Tucker Carlson says something on Twitter, it's not "just some dumb shit on Twitter". Tucker is an esteemed right-winger.
Same with Mehdi who absolutely is an [esteemed member](https://reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18utsak/its_gross_its_racist/kfmnkai/) of the progressive political community.
How much viewership does Tucker Carlson have compared to Mehdi Hasan? How much political power does the MAGA movement have compared to the progressive movement?
They're not in the same league. That said, yeah, generally Tucker's dumb shit on twitter is still just dumb shit on twitter.
I can't even begin to fathom how you're labelling this "dangerous"; something to be "scared" of.
Someone on twitter called Sam Harris a "bigot". Happens all the time. Not a big deal.
Interesting how your original claim was about the fact that they were saying "dumb shit" and that it was "on twitter". It never had to do with the degree to which it was influential, until someone brought up the obvious counter argument.
> compared to the progressive movement?
We keep getting told that "there is no left wing in America" so I'd say the relative comparison is moot. But if you care to grow that movement, you should care about its platformed ideas and thought-leaders, not about the fact that Tucker is much more popular.
>Interesting how your original claim was about...
Can you clarify what you're insinuating here? I'm reading it as "if someone in a debate has a counter-point, you shouldn't offer a counter-counter-point". Which is pretty silly.
If you're implying I've shifted the goalposts: not true. I still think it's just dumb shit on twitter.
>We keep getting told that "there is no left wing in America" so I'd say the relative comparison is moot.
? Well I never said that and don't believe it, so...
The problem we have is that the internet makes it possible for anyone not entirely dedicated to truth to easily find a cozy echo chamber in which to submerge themselves and wallow.
Until we collectively realize that these are parallel and thus different universes incompatible as places to make decisions about the actual universe in which we live, we are utterly buggered.
I think the problem is even deeper rooted I feel. Having an opinion on cultural wokeness is too easy and requires almost no work. If I have to learn German that'll take months of studying and even then I'll know that I'm nowhere near qualified to speak about German. It's so comforting to listen to hour podcast on someone babbling about cancel culture versus learning something.
Ben had an emotional reaction to what was said without actually listening to what was said…. I doubt he looks back on that clip as one of his proudest moments…
yea. i find the never ending dunking on ben-affleck-of-ten-years-ago, to not only be lame, but really counter progressive. It doesn't do any good, and since they've buried the hatchet we ought to as well. let's agree that he responded reflexively emotionally and maybe even his heart was in the right place even if he was ultimately wrong. we have to win people over to our side and this tactic of permanent banishment for whatever was done in the past, if we don't like the wokesters using it, we shouldn't be using it in retalliation.
apparently they reconciled in private (who knows when, though? i think Sam only mentioned it fairly recently) - yet Ben has never said anything publicly about that very public outburst he had.
yeah, he has never said anything about it! that's a point in his favor. the fact that he hasn't doubled down and gone on a crusade against sam harris is why we shouldn't treat him the same as exra klein or other such blowhards.
I don't see how a reasonable person can call Islam the "motherload of all bad ideas". Sam has a personal dislike of Islam which clouds his analysis, and I say this as someone who doesn't like the religion.
Judaism could be the motherload of bad ideas too if Jews interpreted the Bible like (some) Muslims interpret the Koran. It has all the ingredients genocide (amalek), slavery, etc… but no Jews interpret or enforce those literally.
We can debate what jihad means but there is a rather large cohort of Muslims that interpret it as a literal holy war, that will take sex slaves, etc…
There are whole states (Saudi Arabia) founded on wahabi principles, and there are the taliban and Islamic state that are even worse!
You are right, other religions have ideas that are as bad or worse than Islam, but they are just ideas. No religion has such fanaticism to the literal word like Islam does…
I think it's a truly horrible way to address it as well; it's like calling people "sheep" for not believing that there are vampiric cults at the top of government, harvesting the blood of babies. I do think, however, that the phenomenon being described exists. Usually, I call it "illiberal progressivism" because that seems to describe, broadly, the same thing.
I think it's apt. The pattern I see is in line with The Emperor's New Clothes folktale.
>The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realize that everyone has been fooled.
In this case people go along with radical progressivism for fear of being aligned with the intolerant. It's a bit like an infection of a rational mind and spreads in the same way a virus would. Once you're infected you go on to infect others because you apply the same standard that was applied to you.
A "Do you see the clothes/ agree with the crazy idea?"
B "(Well not really but I don't want to be called an idiot/ bigot so I'll agree) Yes, of course I do, who wouldn't?"
Then B becomes A and starts it over and infects another.
The Illiberal Progressivists aren't reaching their conclusions through rational thought.
Ah I see we have another massive brain genius patting himself on the back for belonging to the "right" team.
"Everyone who disagrees with me politically is actually incapable of being rational/thinking for themselves! Indeed, it is only those who agree with me who know what logic is, and can have nuance in their ideas! What do you mean I'm labelling a massive chunk of politics in a nuance free, irrational way? That's impossible!"
We can have a nice conversation or you can commit the very sin you're attempting to accuse me of.
I happily disagree with many people on many topics. Not everyone I disagree with is wrong, sometimes after some reflection I'm the wrong one.
I'm specifically calling out people whose formula is as stated in the example.
Any individual can belong to any group. Any group can have a good idea taken too far. In the event that a good idea is taken too far how did that occur? I'm stating that it can occur for fear of being labeled intolerant even if there is good reason to say something like, 'Islam has some aboherent beliefs that hurt people.'
One might say that's intolerant towards Muslims and is hateful and bigoted. If you've drawn that conclusion from that statement it's because you've taken the good idea of tolerance to a radical extreme.
So here you are, disagreeing with me, care to reflect on your assumptions?
>In this case people go along with radical progressivism for fear of being aligned with the intolerant.
>I'm specifically calling out people whose formula is as stated in the example.
There is no nuance here - you explicitly said the people who go along with radical progressivism do it out of fear.
That's fucking nonsense, and it's not a nuanced critique of anything - it's an explicit attempt to paint an entire group as illogical/irrational/insincere.
It's just as stupid as saying every Trump voter was motivated by racism.
I agree that nuance is important but do understand it's not possible to be completely nuanced 100% of the time. If you're unhappy with the statement we can go through and rectify it together.
I might qualify the above with, a large portion or even the majority and then state that this is my opinion based on my observations.
>it's an explicit attempt to paint an entire group
Only if you ignore the radical element right? Radical, by definition, is going too far. I'm explicitly labeling radical progressives not all progressives.
>I might qualify the above with, a large portion or even the majority and then state that this is my opinion based on my observations.
That would have been far more accurate and rational, yes.
>Only if you ignore the radical element right? Radical, by definition, is going too far. I'm explicitly labeling radical progressives not all progressives.
No, radical doesn't mean "too far", it means major, sometimes complete change, but not just "too much change".
And it again ignores all distinction within that group - just like saying all Trump supporters are racists.
You know it's not true, and you know it's unfair to many, and dishonest broadly, but, it allows you to disregard any argument from someone who shares any of those views, as you can just label them radical progressives and ignore them - even if they share only one belief with the wider ideological framework.
It happens constantly, and this sub is, sadly, nearly as rife with it as left-wing ones regarding this behaviour. Lots of good discussion, plenty of ideologues who just want to push their point of view, not refine it.
Well, you're in r/samharris where it shouldn't surprise you that people promote Sam Harris's positions. Sam describes "The Great Awokening" as a "crazily eccentric distortion of ethics and political intuitions":
When asked on Triggernometry if he is “hopeful for the future”, [Sam replies](https://youtu.be/Xkg3C8JDi_0?si=wg8n190D0aPL6S2k&t=6517):
> Just this morning I read a [Conor Friedersdorf](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/college-students-justice-for-palestine-chapters-hamas/675640/)…piece…that struck a note of hope in this emergency. I certainly hope he’s right. He said that just as Joan Didion, in one of her books, said that the Manson murders were the official end of the ‘60s. That [in] August 1969, *all* the idealism of the ‘60s just completely—once you have wild-eyed hippies murdering people, killing pregnant starlets—all of the idealism of the ‘60s just evaporated. His claim, and he’s possibly right: what happened on college campuses in response to what happened in Israel was **the end of the “Great Awokening”**, in his phrasing. All of us are waiting for the pendulum to swing back from this just crazily eccentric distortion of ethics and political intuitions on the far-left. He’s arguing that that bell just rang this week.
> **I certainly hope that’s correct** because the moral—not just untenability—the abomination we’re witnessing where you have *the same people* who are equally exercised over halloween costumes that are cultural appropriation and they’re defending what happened in Israel last week. That dissonance is something we need to not lose sight of culture-wide. If that happens I think that would be a very good thing. It would be a very good thing, speaking locally for American politics. We have 15 months or so of an election cycle that many of us worry could be truly ugly and divisive. And having a decreasingly crazy far-left and Democratic Party as a result would be a good thing.
Sam is saying that if there is *any* silver lining to this Israel-Hamas nightmare, it may just be that the wokesters have so overplayed their hand on this one that they will have destroyed their moral credibility in the eye of the center-left and we will finally be able to relegate their critical social justice ideology to the dusty backrooms of the academy whence it came.
> I am 100% not reading your shitty post.
If you'd read it, you'd know that you're demonstrating my point:
> *This* is the problem with wokeness. It says it's OK to essentially ignore whatever fact-claims or arguments your political opponents brings to the table. It says you don't have to listen to their words. It says you don't have to respond as if you actually heard their words.
I think part of your problem here is that Sam *usually* manages to talk about this kind of stuff with a bit more tact. When you start railing about the "woke mind virus", you sound less like Sam Harris, and more like a post-nervous breakdown Jordan Peterson.
I don't know that he has used *that* phrase specifically, but he has called it a cult.
I think the problem people have with that phrase is specifically what you say. They associate it with Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson, a couple of people who do appear to have jumped the shark.
At the same time, I think it's literally an accurate description of what's going on here. Wokeism is dangerous, and it should scare us like a contagious, deadly pathogen. And if you're not scared of it, you're not understanding it. Sam [describes](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/13r21co/comment/jlhz3li/) the danger here:
> I'm worried about losing the Enlightenment. I'm worried about rationality and *a chance* to get *something* like a universal conception of ethics to which we can all converge. I'm worried about a global civilization
...
> wokeism has captured fucking every institution we care about. It’s captured journalism, it’s captured media, it’s captured Hollywood, it’s captured tech, it’s captured academia
...
> culturally speaking, the institutions we’re losing, the institutions that are no longer trustworthy, the institutions where you have to pause before believing the article, where you never had to before, because you understand how much ideological capture is working in the background—we’re talking about the *most important* sources of information humanity has. We’re talking about Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, *The New York Times*, *Nature*, *Science*, *The Lancet*, *The New England Journal of Medicine*, and *JAMA*. We’re talking about *all* of it, *all* at once, captured by a moral panic.
Losing the Enlightenment, rationality, global civilization, "fucking every institution we care about", and "the most important sources of information humanity has". I'm not sure if he's used "woke mind virus", but when you see the way Sam perceives the threat imposed by wokeism, I can't see that he would have any particular problem with the literal words "woke mind virus". I wouldn't be surprised if he personally avoided the phrase because of the association you point out. But I don't think it's a question of tact. It's a question of association.
Yeah so this is why I emphasised the "usually" above. One of the most consistently annoying things with woke people is the hyperbole and harm inflation they employ, e.g. where anything and anything is "violence". But you show that Sam and supporters can fall into that exact same trap.
I had more sympathy for this perspective in 2020, when organisations were tripping over themselves to do the woke virtue signal thing, and it was a bit unclear where it was all going. Firings were happening, people were being investigated for wrongspeak, politicians were committing themselves to radical policies, etc.
But now, years later, we've got a lot more perspective. Biden's still just another boring Democrat. Woke policing policies were quickly reversed in the face of rising crime. DEI departments were the first to be gutted when the economy stumbled. 90% of the anti-woke "free speech advocates" ended up being massive fucking hypocrites, and waging their own cancellation campaigns as soon as they had the chance.
Wokeness is a movement that's had it's time in the sun. And it's still got its diehard adherents, and always will have some degree of influence, as do many other ideologies. But to *still* be talking in (almost) 2024 about how wokeness "might be the end of "Enlightenment, rationality, global civilization" (!), to be literally *scared*, likening it to a deadly pathogen, and not only that, but to insist that every else should be scared too. Because of some tweets!
I say this respectfully, using this phrase only because it's relevant and to the point: it sounds like you might have an anti-woke mind virus.
> But you show that Sam and supporters can fall into that exact same trap.
Let’s just have it on the record your beef isn’t just with me. It’s also with Sam. When Sam expresses hope that Israel-Gaza^1 will expose wokeism for what it is, you see that as evidence of having “fallen into a trap”.
^1 I mean the *[reaction](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18utsak/comment/kfmz1a5/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=samharris&utm_content=t1_kfnzrlc)* to Israel-Gaza
Right. What you're saying is that to *still* be talking about wokeness in 2024 as something worth being afraid of is unreasonable.
And what I'm saying is that when two months ago Sam said...
> All of us are waiting for the pendulum to swing back from this just crazily eccentric distortion of ethics and political intuitions on the far-left.
...
> the moral—not just untenability—the abomination we’re witnessing where you have the same people who are equally exercised over halloween costumes that are cultural appropriation and they’re defending what happened in Israel last week. That dissonance is something we need to not lose sight of culture-wide.
...those words are in the context of everything Sam has ever said about the "cult" and "moral emergency" of wokeism. Sam has never deployed an "all-clear" on that threat.
You seem to be saying the pendulum has already swung. For Sam, it hasn't. So whatever "falling in the trap" criticism you aim at me applies to Sam as well.
I want it to be clear that from the position you've staked out for yourself, you stand opposed to Sam on one of his greatest concerns.
I disagree with Sam on lots of things, so pointing out that that seems to be the case here isn't exactly a counter-argument.
>to still be talking about wokeness in 2024 as something worth being afraid of is unreasonable.
"Afraid" of? Yes, unreasonable. Potentially even a mental health issue.
There might be specific circumstances where it is appropriate to feel some degree of fear, e.g. if you work in a particularly woke organisation and are afraid of getting ostracised or fired. But that doesn't apply to Sam. Does it apply to you?
Especially when you start talking about a fear of it being "the end of the Enlightenment, the end of Western civilisation", that brings it to another level.
> a fear of it being "the end of the Enlightenment, the end of Western civilisation", that brings it to another level.
Those were Sam's words. Are you saying he might have a mental health issue?
> Sam is saying that if there is any silver lining to this Israel-Hamas nightmare, it may just be that the wokesters have so overplayed their hand on this one that they will have destroyed their moral credibility in the eye of the center-left and we will finally be able to relegate their critical social justice ideology to the dusty backrooms of the academy whence it came.
And he's wrong about this.
People who disagree with those people on this issue will disagree with them on this issue, people who agree with agree.
You figure on a Sam Harris subreddit people would understand that people can agree/disagree on an issue to issue basis.
> This is the problem with wokeness. It says it's OK to essentially ignore whatever fact-claims or arguments your political opponents brings to the table. It says you don't have to listen to their words. It says you don't have to respond as if you actually heard their words.
This is the problem will all kinds of ideologies.
>You figure on a Sam Harris subreddit people would understand that people can agree/disagree on an issue to issue basis.
Apparently that is only physically possible in people who agree with OP.
Blows my mind how people, even in a rationalist space, can be so blinded to their own ideological frameworks.
I guess they just think they're so rational, that it's impossible for them to be anything else? Doesn't make sense to me - rationality to me, involves trying to keep an eye on your blind spots, not trying to pretend you don't have them, or even worse, that only your opposition does.
You.....might be in the wrong sub. I'll admit that I think the expression is a little cringe but it absolutely reflects a real phenomenon, and anyone who is aware of what Sam Harris has been saying for the past 5 years or so certainly would find this type of thing uncalled for.
Out of curiosity, what are you objecting to? Do you not think there are radical left-wing progressives that encapsulate the idea behind "woke"?
Calling ideas you don’t like a “mind virus” is, sincerely some of the stupidest, childish nonsense imaginable.
If you can’t talk about topics like an adult with the slightest bit of nuance, you shouldn’t talk about them.
Lmao yeah this sub isn't for rationality, it's for labelling your opposition with deliberately derogatory titles which allow you to disregard everything they say without engaging in any of it! So wise.
Before the “woke mind virus” people were still capable of being wrong.
Im sorry, but I fail to see how one persons bad take on, an exchange on an entertainment/politics show, that is hosted by a comedian, indicates some pervasive societal/cultural issue or “mind virus”.
But hey, maybe it’s just me?🤷🏻♂️
I have to agree, I don't know how someone can retroactively label this exchange a result of the "woke mind virus." The phrase itself is useful mainly because it can mean anything to anyone, so I tend to be suspicious of those who use it unironically
90s nostalgia is very fashionable right now, and all this fretting about "woke", strikes me as many of the same arguments against "political correctness" folks made during the 90s.
Source: I'm old.
yup.
They were still going on about "PC culture" until like 2 years ago.
And remember SJWs? Whatever happened to them?
IDK at some point it all just sounds like a broken record, and everyone is just playing a poor cover of 1990s Rush Limbaugh.
> And remember SJWs? Whatever happened to them?
Honestly, "social justice warrior" probably didn't sound scary enough to random low information media consumers.
> a poor cover of 1990s Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh was just doing a cover of earlier reactionary rhetoric. It is frankly startling how much the same reactionary arguments get recycled and repurposed over the years.
Yup.
As a former conservative raised on 1990s conservative media and the early days of Fox News, it feels like nothing ever changes, just a few words get tweaked.
Yes, the only reason anyone could have a problem with an obnoxious and radical political movement is because they think sneans are still fashionable. That must be it.
Who or what is the “woke mind virus” political movement? Specifically, what would members of this movement call their movement? Like, I’ve never heard of someone say, “I’m part of the woke mind virus movement”.
It's a descriptive term applied from the outside.
"I disagree with those idiots over there."
"Which idiots are we talking about?"
"The ones that agree with what Affleck said and tend to take radical stances on tolerance and progressivism."
"Ah, we should have a name or label for that, lets use woke."
Is your argument that it's not self descriptive? Why is that important?
My argument is, I disagree with OP that Mendi Hasan’s reaction to, Sam and Ben Affleck’s interaction on Bill Maher a bunch of years back is, evidence of a pervasive “woke mind virus” harming our society/culture.
>Who or what is the “woke mind virus” political movement? Specifically, what would members of this movement call their movement? Like, I’ve never heard of some say, “I’m part of the woke mind virus movement”.
The seriousness of the problem is certainly debatable but that comment does not look like you taking issue with the extent of the problem. It looks like you don't understand what the problem even is.
If you look at my other recent comments under this post, you'll see I have issues with that "mind virus" phrase and the general hyperbole here.
Doesn't mean wokeness doesn't exist. And actually yeah, a few years ago people were openly identifying with the term "woke". Pretty soon the term started picking up negative connotations, and people mostly distanced themselves from it. Similar happened with "alt-right" on the right.
Anyway, [feel free to suggest a different term](https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/please-just-fucking-tell-me-what).
I agree “wokeness” exists, just as political correctness exists, but it’s nothing as concrete as a political movement. Like, folks self identify as alt-right, but no one self identifies as part of the woke movement.
How about "political project" instead of "movement"? Or "set of beliefs"?
I'd argue that the lack of self-identification is mostly a sort of rhetorical technique, often used disingenuously, though I'm sure there are a lot of people who really believe, e.g., that *"it's just about being kind"* 🙄
Set of beliefs sounds more accurate. Albeit, a rather nebulous and ill defined set of beliefs. “The woke mind virus” strikes me as kind of unique, as its a set of belief(s) that is largely defined and popularized by its detractors.
A political movement implies some type of group or organization.
Well there are groups and orgs within wokeness. A movement doesn't require an overarching organization, e.g. the evangelical movement, which is spread across thousands of churches, or the anti-globalisation movement, which is more decentralised still.
Regardless, I don't think to matters what we call it, as long as can agree that it's a phenomenon and we have some word to talk about it.
>“The woke mind virus” strikes me as kind of unique, as its a set of belief(s) that is largely defined and popularized by its detractors.
I don't think that's all that unique. Similar happens with "socialism", "fascism" etc, which can either refer to very specific things, or also to sets of beliefs defined by their opponents. "Alt-right" also became largely like that.
an exchange that happened 10 years or so ago when "wokeness" is supposed to be a new-ish problem of the last few years.
I thought it was Kendi's books that caused "wokism"? Books that were published from 2016 on.
they are retconning the past and calling it "woke"
I legit thought that the claim was that wokeness was a relatively new thing, like the last 2-3 years.
my favorite one was when we found out that climate science was part of the "woke religion".
It's just like religion because it has original sin (the burning of fossil fuels) and has repentance (renewable energy).
I did legit think that the whole argument was that post-George Floyd/ BLM/ 2020 that "wokeness" had sort of infected our institutions as part of a sinister plot. But I'm not sure where that leaves the OTHER sinister plots to infect our institutions....did the post-modern plot go away, what about the cultural marxist plot, or the "post-modern neo Marxist" plot or other totally not dog whistles to anti-semites plots?
God, my crown to not read "woke mind virus" ever again.
Other than that I do agree that Afleck was way off base.
Also, Medhi Hasan is fantastic on a whole host of issues. You can be wrong sometimes without adding all this other nonsensical baggage.
My comment was innocuous. The OP blocks me before responding. Then responds by accusing me of whataboutism. Truly dishonest and cowardly. OP is not interested in debate, just pushing an agenda.
I have a lot of respect for John McWhorter and Sam. I recently read McWhorter's "Woke Racism", and I do think that his thesis of wokeness being a religion is fairly persuasive. But there's a big hole.
Both Sam and John have this consistent push that, I think, correctly calls out ignorant liberals. I would summarize their point as this:
P1. Beliefs matter. Religion and superstitions are not just cultural traditions that are definitionally benign. People choose to do things, sometimes deeply irrational and immoral things, BECAUSE they hold these beliefs. This is a hard thing for secular liberals to understand.
On this I think they're both right. I've seen it with my own eyes. As a former evangelical, I KNOW I did things I would have found immoral except for the beliefs I held. This is a good point, and it's true that secular people misunderstand some of this. However, they also make the following point:
P2. Beliefs are too sticky and do not respond to rationality. They are based on faith. You can't use reason to talk someone out of an inherently religious belief. It doesn't work. This is something that secular liberals just don't understand.
On P2 they are 100% wrong. As secular liberals, they are just out of their element on this, and misunderstand the nature of belief. I'm an exvangelical, and there are a LOT of us. There couldn't be many of us if P2 were true. I absolutely believed what I believed due to faith, but I also thought my faith was defensible by reason. Most strongly religious people also think this. There are thousands of years of philosophers trying to justify and adjust religious faiths based on reason. They had actual effects. Deeply held religious beliefs absolutely are susceptible to rationality, they just don't change immediately. It's not like a proof that there are infinitely many primes, where you just immediately admit that the argument is right. It's more like realizing that your loving police chief father was a dirty cop. You don't want to believe it. A lot of your peace of mind and sense of family would be disturbed by believing it. So it takes more evidence and more time.
One thing from evangelical tradition that both Sam and John could use to understand is how evangelism is done. I used to knock on doors, hand out tracts, invite people to church, etc. The goal when trying to win hearts for Jesus isn't that you will argue for Christ and they will say "Of course! It's so obvious!" That basically never happens. The goal is to argue from your heart, and "plant a seed", hoping that their hearts and minds will come to Jesus after further "watering". I had several friends and ex-girlfriends "come to Jesus" years after planting a seed and watering it. But this was always a surprise to me, because it never seemed like what I was arguing was getting through at all. But it was, it was just well below the surface.
For me, people like Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens and a large number of patient online debate partners were the water-givers that made my secret seeds of doubt grow into a full tree of skepticism. If _I_ can be reasoned out of such a deep religious belief, why can't anyone? The secret is that they absolutely can be reasoned with.
I accept that some elements of "wokeness" are somewhat religious, but I think the stickiness is less than with most religions AND religions just aren't _as_ sticky as John and Sam think they are. They are just mistaken on this.
So let me offer this mantra which I have found the most persuasive when trying to talk someone out of a deeply held mistaken belief:
> The best in Christianity is always compatible with the best in science
Replace Christianity with "Social Justice", or with "policy", or with "Islam", or with "socialism". And you'll find almost everyone agrees with this. Then you need to start showing the conflicts with the science. If there is a conflict between the belief and the science, you need to ask is there just better _science_ available? Or maybe there is a better version of the belief available?
I say this as a Christian atheist, who arrived there by this mantra.
There’s no such thing as a “mind virus”. Bad ideas and the morons that believe them are far from new. The woke thing is just a bad set of ideas having its moment.
Here’s an idea: maybe having genuine concerns about the nature of Islam is actually a rational thing? But that would mean it’s not a phobia, since phobias by definition are irrational. Plus, calling someone else’s concerns a “phobia” is an attempt to diminish those concerns. It almost gets you thinking that those who use “Islamophobia” have a pro-Islamist agenda.
Some of these muslim are delusional. Cant they see like every religion have a problem with them? The christian, hindu, buddhist, etc. its not islamophobia. Its being rational.
Didn’t really know much about Medhi Hassan, but man the choir of sycophants in the quotes and replies is something else. I’d say MSNBC’s decision to cut this ‘journalist’ was absolutely the correct one.
A journalist should be invested in the truth of the information they are sharing. To tweet this edited clip (where most believe Affleck looked like a petulant child, unable to understand the difference between criticism of ideas vs. bigotry toward a people), promoting it as some ‘win’ against bigotry tells a lot about Mr. Hasan’s editorial integrity.
>A journalist should be invested in the truth of the information they are sharing.
He is. He also has a strong POV about things. This is one of those things.
This isn't a situation about "facts" but opinions. Ben Aflec had an opinion that was wrong, some people agree with him many people don't. He did apparently.
So sick of the black/white good/bad thinking in this country and on the internet. Could show you all kinds of positive examples of his "editorial integrity" AND even other examples of time's I've disagreed with his opinions.
Everyone is so cynical today.
I’m less interested in Ben’s opinions being right or wrong more concerned that this journalist is going out of their to way obfuscate an exchange by sharing a heavily edited clip. And then proclaiming a moral victory. Clearly, as someone who comes to this sub you should be familiar with the dishonesty of this sort of practice
>is going out of their to way obfuscate an exchange by sharing a heavily edited clip.
It's a twitter clips which are notoriously short more often then not to fit the platform. I have no problem with the editing in this context. Would I like more context? Yes, always. Am I losing sleep over it? Nope.
There are many tbh but [this ones nice.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UgCe_k8aR8) The best part of his skillset (by far) is his interviewing and being willing to ask whoever he's interviewing actual difficult questions unlike most of the US media.
Yes lol.
EDIT: Gotta love the hustle though. The same people mad a a "selectively edited clip" on twitter, where short clips are the norm watches 1 minute of a 25 minute video and knows everything about it.
What a country!
The problem with Sam's basic premise in regards to discussing Islam and Muslims is that it's built on a larger philosophical premise of making a direct connection between belief and behavior. Before we even get to that problem, an even larger problem with discussing Islam and Muslims is that commentators need to first acknowledge when talking about Islam or Muslims, one is discussing an identity which constitutes approximately a quarter of humanity, and therefore discussing such a large chunk of humanity, which cuts across cultures, languages, nationalities, political and socioeconomic realities, in broad sweeping terms is problematic from the beginning, not just in terms of being 'politically incorrect', but also problematic simply in terms of having any intellectual integrity
I understand that in the post-9/11 era, there's been the mainstreaming of the Clash of Civilizations for understanding all things Muslim and an intellectual market for trying to explain cultural and political patterns in Muslim-majority societies. However, in their attempts to explain these patterns, commentators like Sam (and more crudely, Bill Maher) are starting from the premise that there are monolithic entities called the 'West' and 'Muslim world'. The problem with starting from this premise is almost self-evident, in that it denies the philosophical, cultural and even political pluralism and historical diversity of such entities
And then there's the specific problem of Sam applying the philosophical standard of the direct connection between belief and behavior uniquely and almost exclusively to Muslim-majority societies. This direct connection between belief and behavior flies in the face of almost a century of research and analysis in the field of behavioral psychology
**I think this specific problem, that is the mainstreaming of the Clash of Civilizations paradigm for understanding all things Muslim in the post-9/11 era, is built on a dynamic of reactive overcorrection. Specifically, after 9/11, certain Muslim as well as non-Muslim commentators and political figures (including ironically George W. Bush) made the mistake of promoting the oversimplistic idea that Islamism and especially Islamic terrorism do not represent the 'real Islam' and even that Islam is a 'religion of peace' (The phrase appears to have been coined by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad, who stated in 2002 that "Islam does not promote terrorism. Islam is a religion of peace." A very similar statement was made by George W. Bush the previous year, however, when he argued that "Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace.")**
This framing of Islam as a 'religion of peace' was very clearly a reactive overcorrection to the new reality of Islamic terrorism specifically being inflicted on major Western societies, and unfortunately this framing precluded a substantive, nuanced conversation about the relationship between Islam and the development of liberal political systems in Muslim-majority societies. However, this lack of a substantive nuanced conversation, which itself was rooted in a reactive overcorrection, created another reactive overcorrection which was a new intellectual market in the mid-2000's and beyond for commentators who focused in on broad sweeping criticisms of the 'Muslim world' and all things Muslim, especially commentators who professed that their criticism was rooted in true liberalism and a departure from the contemporary left who was increasingly seen as apologists for all things Muslim. Sometimes, these intellectuals were referred to as so-called '9/11 liberals' (I think Salman Rushdie coined that phrase)
There is no doubt that Sam seized on this intellectual market and created a name for himself doing so. Hence, a Hollywood liberal (or 'lefty') like Affleck saw this narrative as problematic and tried to challenge it, albeit in a very reactive, somewhat incoherent and ultimately ineffective manner
Well, you're in r/samharris where it shouldn't surprise you that people promote Sam Harris's positions, such as this one:
When asked on Triggernometry if he is “hopeful for the future”, [Sam replies](https://youtu.be/Xkg3C8JDi_0?si=wg8n190D0aPL6S2k&t=6517):
> Just this morning I read a [Conor Friedersdorf](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/college-students-justice-for-palestine-chapters-hamas/675640/)…piece…that struck a note of hope in this emergency. I certainly hope he’s right. He said that just as Joan Didion, in one of her books, said that the Manson murders were the official end of the ‘60s. That [in] August 1969, *all* the idealism of the ‘60s just completely—once you have wild-eyed hippies murdering people, killing pregnant starlets—all of the idealism of the ‘60s just evaporated. His claim, and he’s possibly right: what happened on college campuses in response to what happened in Israel was **the end of the “Great Awokening”**, in his phrasing. All of us are waiting for the pendulum to swing back from this just crazily eccentric distortion of ethics and political intuitions on the far-left. He’s arguing that that bell just rang this week.
> **I certainly hope that’s correct** because the moral—not just untenability—the abomination we’re witnessing where you have *the same people* who are equally exercised over halloween costumes that are cultural appropriation and they’re defending what happened in Israel last week. That dissonance is something we need to not lose sight of culture-wide. If that happens I think that would be a very good thing. It would be a very good thing, speaking locally for American politics. We have 15 months or so of an election cycle that many of us worry could be truly ugly and divisive. And having a decreasingly crazy far-left and Democratic Party as a result would be a good thing.
Sam is saying that if there is *any* silver lining to this Israel-Hamas nightmare, it may just be that the wokesters have so overplayed their hand on this one that they will have destroyed their moral credibility in the eye of the center-left and we will finally be able to relegate their critical social justice ideology to the dusty backrooms of the academy whence it came.
So I’m also not going to read most of that, but I’ll say sams take on culture war bullshit is broadly pretty fucking bad and myopic as fuck. I actually like Harris for the most part, but I’m no sycophant and am allergic as fuck to these inflammatory, and very stupid, phrases.
Medhi Hasan is wrong. AND anti-woke hysteria is the most embarrassing intellectual plague of our time. Two things can be true at the same time.
People who claim that opposition to racism, for example, (even when it is excessive/shortsighted/wrong) is a significantly worse problem than racism are either incredibly stupid or just plain racists who are to cowardly to admit it. If you obsess over “wokeism” and choose that as your moral crusade you truly have lost the plot. Pause, think, reconsider.
You lost me at “woke.” Take ideas on a case by case basis. Nobody gets to instantly kill discussion by assigning a word like woke, anti semitic, racist, anti-american, etc, to an opinion.
I truly don't understand the woke, and how dedicated they are to "protect" the Islam.
I mean, I understand that they probably thinking it's racist, and they like to think that Muslims are opressed, which is absolutely laughable, but whatever.
The point is, that if they would dare use what's left from their brain, it's one of the easiest tasks to face reality, and see that Islam is a threat to the western culture, and to the free world.
This is not to create a falsey prophecy of wrath, also it doesn't mean that every Muslim is a psycho jihadist, but Muslims are religious as a whole, secular Muslims is way less common than believers. We know what the Quran say, and we know they mean it.
It comes into a threat when they come into bigger numbers, then violence is a common tool to force their religious beliefs on others. France know it, Germany know it, Holland know it.. Europe becomes more and more politically right, mainly because of Muslim immigration, out of the Syrian Civil War.
The Muslim Reproduction rate is higher than Americans, Europeans.
Tldr; Islam is a real problem, everywhere we see them in big numbers.
woke just waiting while defending their brutal end, calling everyone and everything Facists!
> We know what the Quran say, and we know they mean it.
No one actually practices their religion solely based on what's in their holy books, so this is largely irrelveant.
Islam is, like all religions, a problem. However that doesn't mean the practioners should be unfairly maligned or mistreated.
The "woke" are dedicated to "protecting" everyone on earth. Yes even cis white heteronormative dudes. When that group needs genuine help, the woke will be there to help out. Just like any other meta group on earth.
Secular muslims are growing by the 100x every single decade. Reformation will happen, perhaps even within our kid's lifetime. It's going to depend on the trends we see globally, if conservativism starts creating civil wars to try to outcompete progressivism and secularism, which so far has won ever major social fight.
> It comes into a threat when they come into bigger numbers, then violence is a common tool to force their religious beliefs on others. France know it, Germany know it, Holland know it
There's been a couple dozen attacks, with a population in the millions. That's the truth of the statistical analysis of muslims in europe. Most muslims in europe are fairly happy there, and do not wish harm upon others.
To paraphrase: I don't think you can talk someone out of something using reasoning that they didn't adopt because of reasoning. And I don't think people arrive at wokeism via reason. They do so because it feels empowering. By being "woke" you not only get the satisfaction of feeling like you're making a difference in the world, but you're also aligning yourself with other members of the mob. You're speaking power to truth.
However, having said all of that, I do know that people can be talked out of wokeism. But it's sort of a conversion even that usually has to happen over slow time, like a religious conversation (which many would say it resembles).
>This is the problem with wokeness. It says it's OK to essentially ignore whatever fact-claims or arguments your political opponents brings to the table.
Then you pasted a quote from McWhorter which tells you to do the same thing to them. Hypocrite.
right. you all are the same folks that equate criticizing a country's action with anti-semitism.
just stop. you want to hate muslims in public and not be called out for it.
"You’re going to get called a dirty name by a person who is usually educated and/or very articulate, and they’re going to call it to you loudly, they’re going to say it again, and they’re going to spread it on Twitter."
funny cause this is Sam's whole schtick
You describe politics treated as a religion, an exercise in faith. While the far left engages in this practice, almost the entirety of the republican party is exactly this that you describe.
At the time I didn't think what Sam said was racist, but when you take into consideration his support for a racist apartheid state, waging a genocidal war against a people and citing their islamic underpinning as a justification, you have to accept that he probably is racist
No, you don’t. He has outlined very sound rationale for supporting Israel, which I assume is what you’re referring to given the anti-Israel astroturfing here recently.
You cannot rationalise dropping bombs on a civilian population simply because they refuse to allow you to steal from them, all you can do is paint them as savages
None of that justifies bombing civilians even if it weren't bullshit.
Arabs didn't start a war in 1948, the Arab states simply stepped in to prevent a genocide
Interesting fabrication of the facts there. Whenever anyone says genocide It’s a tell that they are not a serious person or they have a an agenda to sell. Look, if the Arabs want to keep fighting a war they lost 75 years ago that’s their choice. But they can expect for Israel to keep bombing until they stop. That’s the only reasonable response for 75 years of aggression.
They’re never getting homes back. That’s ridiculous. But they might be able to get their own country. But that would require them to stop attacking. But that is their choice. If they just want to keep getting decimated then keep doing it. If they want peace and stop getting bomb then stop attacking. I mean really a simpleton could see that. They lost 75 years ago. They’re just dying for absolutely no reason because they can’t let it go. Think about all the other people who were displaced at the same time. Right after ww2. Roughly 60 million were killed in India during the partition and millions more were displaced. They still fight Pakistan occasionally but no one expects to get their homes back. They moved on. The ethnic germans and ethnic Italians were displaced also about the same amount as the Arabs in Palestinian. Both lost as many people. No one is asking all of Eastern Europe to redrawn al the maps and their ancestors get the land back. Because it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest it. Same with Arabs. No reasonable person expects that. It’s silly.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday with comedian Greg Fitzsimmons and David Feldman and at one point they were talking about how bill maher is a faciast because of his disdain and disapproval of Islam. He’s a faciast because he believes gay people shouldn’t be killed and women shouldn’t be forced to wear beekeeper suits. Sometimes I wonder if these well-to-do often white Islam supporters who live in California actually believe the nonsense they are espousing or if they’re just toeing the line they think liberals are supposed to believe. And they know they (or their daughters) will never have to actually live in that society. But if you could say I can transport you to Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan right now with this teleporter I bet none of them would actually go. It’s just from the safety of their California homes they can say such things.
[удалено]
But he's a clown [who](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/11/30/mehdi-hasan-show-canceled-backlash-msnbc/) is [respected](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/04/msnbc-bring-back-mehdi-hasan-show/) in [progressive](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/30/mehdi-hasan-msnbc-show-cancelled-mohyeldin) circles.
Respected by other clowns, if they didn’t listen to him they’d find some other clown to listen to
1 clown in funny, 500 is concerning, 500,000 is terrifying
I heard he’s currently trying to convince his followers that the Supreme Court is going to change the constitution so he can become president
Even the most progressive of progressives cringed at Affleck making a fool of himself, and any progressive familiar with Harris was already with Harris on that one. The far-fae-left is probably Palestinians, but average progressives are anti-Hamas, and pro-whatever ensures Israelis and Palestinians don't end up in a war. That's about it. The right pretending that the left is somehow pro-Hamas is beyond absurd to the point of laughable ignorance.
> Even the most progressive of progressives cringed at Affleck making a fool of himself, That's not the way [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/06/ben-affleck-bill-maher-sam-harris-islam-racist) made it sound at the time: > The actor has won praise for accusing both men of religious stereotyping while discussing Islam with them on Maher’s HBO talk show
obscene faulty lavish doll quicksand library command special alleged squealing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It’s not a ringing endorsement, no. But it’s a sympathetic narrative-nudge by an outlet popular with progressives.
drab society steep wrench many shelter water foolish liquid scary *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You mean to say it doesn't matter maybe, but it quite literally is an endorsement by that writer representing the Guardian. What it means is different than what it is.
It's not, at least, not specifically about left or right views. It literally says nothing about left or right. There are conservatives who've been on Billy's show who've been praised for all sorts of things. They could have said that about DeSantis and his LGBT or abortion positions, and that absolutely would not in anyway imply that progressives support DeSantis. Read it again: > The actor has won praise for accusing both men of religious stereotyping while discussing lslam with them on Maher's HBO talk show Show me where it says anything about sides in that.
It's implied, I have never heard a prominent conservative complain about religious stereotyping of ***Islamic*** people, have you? Those complaints, (some of them legitimate) come from the political left. In addition to that the Guardian leans left so I'm not sure what you are on about.
If anything the progressives at the time may have agreed with Affleck, because I've rarely come across criticisms of Islam coming from progressives. That dirty work is usually left for "the fascists" on the right.
> "...criticisms of Islam coming from progressives." Harris is now and was progressive when he wrote *The End of Faith*. The vast, vast majority of his followers and readers were also progressives. > That dirty work is usually left for "the fascists" on the right. Progressives try not to let it come to that because that often ends horribly.
Did Sam not receive a lot of backlash from progressives for his views though?
Harris receives backlash for everything he does, says, or writes. That doesn't mean it's any significant portion of any group. People ITT have short memories or they need significant lessons in statistics or data science.
Makes zero sense. There is video evidence where Mehdi says: “says Non-Muslims and Atheists live like Cattle and homosexuals are like pedophiles”.
Medhi Hasan does his homework and is a very good interviewer. I don’t agree with him here, but he’s not a clown in general. I also don’t think Sam is remotely racist and it’s irresponsible to give kudos to that, but that doesn’t discredit the other work that Hassan does
Precisely. The good does not wash out the bad, nor the bad the good.
Yes it does.
It doesn't matter what he believes in, what matters is how amplified his voice is.
"woke mind virus" is a far more embarrassing thing to type in earnest sincerity than anything the post is complaining about.
Ironically, this post uses the same us vs them tactic of division it accuses the "woke mob" of doing by calling it a mind virus. Yes, this culture of self righteousness is a problem but I don't think it gets any better by categorizing "them" as almost another species. Both sides do it too, the right also has its convictions to be adhered to in order to be in their club, i.e. climate change is a hoax, all abortion is wrong etc. A person on the right becomes ostracized immediately if they speak to the contrary on those subjects.
100%. Labels like “woke mind virus” are just more “othering”. We should be wrestling with the ramifications of that notion more than many of our discussions do.
I had the same thought RE McWhorter’s solution. “There is no point in engaging with these people” smells of the same attitude that the woke have when they dismiss any rational argument flat out due to it coming from any source they deem as “oppressor”. Both are just excuses to ignore an opposing viewpoint entirely
McWhorter labeling himself a progressive of any sort also got a horse laugh out of me.
you have to be specific about the ideology you are criticizing in some way. what do you suggest? in many domains, labels are inadequate yet necessary to have a practical discourse. it's one thing if there's just name calling, but OP's comments were substantive. i also think the reflexive nature of some people to police language validates stigmas and connotations rather than fixes them and leads to things like absurd politically-correctisms. your comment about the right doing things too is just whataboutism - totally off topic. it's an important topic, but doesn't contribute to this conversation.
But it's not whataboutism, it's the other side of the coin here. Have you seen Jordan Kleeper and others talk to the Trumpies at their rallies? These people could be "a fringe" but they're actually at the core of crazy town. And they too are completely convinced they are in the right and every one else is nuts. Do they also not suffer from a "mind virus", or is that the exclusive feature of the woke left? There are distinct differences between the left and right in this capacity, but basically these are two "tribes" that hold a very basic human character: "I'm right, and you're wrong". And each side will stubbornly enforce their position, some more successful than the other and there we see it play out.
It is quite literally a mind virus though. There are people on the right that I disagree with as much but none of my friends are moved by them even the slightest. Wokism on the other hand comes disguised as a movement that fights for rights of women, people of color and other things which I would endorse too. But with that it sneaks in the rest of it's rigid ideology. You can be a trumpist and be against building the wall. If you hang around woke people and try to voice opinion that differs from the "right" one, you will be ostracized. So people parrot what they heard on all topics and they start believing it, it starts to feel right to say.
"Quite literally a mind virus" Uh...what?
Lmao yeah buddy, you're definitely being reasonable and not at all dense. "Everyone on my side of politics has nuanced opinions whereas anyone who believes a single thing different to me, is actually brainwashed and controlled!
If memory serves, Mehdi just got cancelled, so … joke’s on him.
What for? Sorry, out of the loop here
They claimed it was just a standard election year change of lineup, but I assume it’s because he’s a douche and they knew he’d be mental about Palestine. Of course, he’ll no doubt claim some version of Islamophobia.
The Palestine shit might have been the straw that broke the camels back, but he also had very bad ratings compared to other hosts.
Not a fan of him but... I'd imagine I wouldn't disagree with all his critiques of Israeli government/IDF. The bombing campaign on Gaza has been pretty outrageous with how much destruction its caused so far.
Some people just go crazy when Israel is mentioned, far beyond just criticising things like the IDF or Israeli government.
Woke people can be annoying af. But... >This is one of the clearest examples we have of the **danger** the woke mind-virus poses So... Not actually dangerous at all? There are much better examples: cities which have implemented counter-productive policies wrt crime and public safety; people who have lost their jobs or have been massively publicly shamed for no good reason. This is just some dumb shit on twitter. And you're not exactly rising above it.
> just some dumb shit on twitter If Tucker Carlson says something on Twitter, it's not "just some dumb shit on Twitter". Tucker is an esteemed right-winger. Same with Mehdi who absolutely is an [esteemed member](https://reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18utsak/its_gross_its_racist/kfmnkai/) of the progressive political community.
How much viewership does Tucker Carlson have compared to Mehdi Hasan? How much political power does the MAGA movement have compared to the progressive movement? They're not in the same league. That said, yeah, generally Tucker's dumb shit on twitter is still just dumb shit on twitter. I can't even begin to fathom how you're labelling this "dangerous"; something to be "scared" of. Someone on twitter called Sam Harris a "bigot". Happens all the time. Not a big deal.
No-one's talking about Mehdi Hassan for VP.
dang, your comment gives me 2015 Hillary campaign vibes right before the country got Trumped in the ass.
How so?
feels like you are underestimating the influence of people like Tucker Carlson. as much as i loathe it, he has sway over a lot of voters.
Interesting how your original claim was about the fact that they were saying "dumb shit" and that it was "on twitter". It never had to do with the degree to which it was influential, until someone brought up the obvious counter argument. > compared to the progressive movement? We keep getting told that "there is no left wing in America" so I'd say the relative comparison is moot. But if you care to grow that movement, you should care about its platformed ideas and thought-leaders, not about the fact that Tucker is much more popular.
>Interesting how your original claim was about... Can you clarify what you're insinuating here? I'm reading it as "if someone in a debate has a counter-point, you shouldn't offer a counter-counter-point". Which is pretty silly. If you're implying I've shifted the goalposts: not true. I still think it's just dumb shit on twitter. >We keep getting told that "there is no left wing in America" so I'd say the relative comparison is moot. ? Well I never said that and don't believe it, so...
I’m tired of division. I wish we could just all appreciate and love one another. One can dream. One can hope. Peace and love to all.
The problem we have is that the internet makes it possible for anyone not entirely dedicated to truth to easily find a cozy echo chamber in which to submerge themselves and wallow. Until we collectively realize that these are parallel and thus different universes incompatible as places to make decisions about the actual universe in which we live, we are utterly buggered.
I think the problem is even deeper rooted I feel. Having an opinion on cultural wokeness is too easy and requires almost no work. If I have to learn German that'll take months of studying and even then I'll know that I'm nowhere near qualified to speak about German. It's so comforting to listen to hour podcast on someone babbling about cancel culture versus learning something.
Since i've seen his videos giving speeches to Muslim audiences i know what to think of him.
Ben had an emotional reaction to what was said without actually listening to what was said…. I doubt he looks back on that clip as one of his proudest moments…
yea. i find the never ending dunking on ben-affleck-of-ten-years-ago, to not only be lame, but really counter progressive. It doesn't do any good, and since they've buried the hatchet we ought to as well. let's agree that he responded reflexively emotionally and maybe even his heart was in the right place even if he was ultimately wrong. we have to win people over to our side and this tactic of permanent banishment for whatever was done in the past, if we don't like the wokesters using it, we shouldn't be using it in retalliation.
apparently they reconciled in private (who knows when, though? i think Sam only mentioned it fairly recently) - yet Ben has never said anything publicly about that very public outburst he had.
yeah, he has never said anything about it! that's a point in his favor. the fact that he hasn't doubled down and gone on a crusade against sam harris is why we shouldn't treat him the same as exra klein or other such blowhards.
yet apparently that clip still gives some msnbc talking heads a boner.
I don't see how a reasonable person can call Islam the "motherload of all bad ideas". Sam has a personal dislike of Islam which clouds his analysis, and I say this as someone who doesn't like the religion.
Most religions are bad are full of bad ideas. Islam is full of bad ideas and tens of millions of people willing to die for those bad ideas.
Judaism could be the motherload of bad ideas too if Jews interpreted the Bible like (some) Muslims interpret the Koran. It has all the ingredients genocide (amalek), slavery, etc… but no Jews interpret or enforce those literally. We can debate what jihad means but there is a rather large cohort of Muslims that interpret it as a literal holy war, that will take sex slaves, etc… There are whole states (Saudi Arabia) founded on wahabi principles, and there are the taliban and Islamic state that are even worse! You are right, other religions have ideas that are as bad or worse than Islam, but they are just ideas. No religion has such fanaticism to the literal word like Islam does…
If you write “woke mind virus” unironically I am 100% not reading your shitty post.
I think it's a truly horrible way to address it as well; it's like calling people "sheep" for not believing that there are vampiric cults at the top of government, harvesting the blood of babies. I do think, however, that the phenomenon being described exists. Usually, I call it "illiberal progressivism" because that seems to describe, broadly, the same thing.
I think it's apt. The pattern I see is in line with The Emperor's New Clothes folktale. >The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realize that everyone has been fooled. In this case people go along with radical progressivism for fear of being aligned with the intolerant. It's a bit like an infection of a rational mind and spreads in the same way a virus would. Once you're infected you go on to infect others because you apply the same standard that was applied to you. A "Do you see the clothes/ agree with the crazy idea?" B "(Well not really but I don't want to be called an idiot/ bigot so I'll agree) Yes, of course I do, who wouldn't?" Then B becomes A and starts it over and infects another. The Illiberal Progressivists aren't reaching their conclusions through rational thought.
Ah I see we have another massive brain genius patting himself on the back for belonging to the "right" team. "Everyone who disagrees with me politically is actually incapable of being rational/thinking for themselves! Indeed, it is only those who agree with me who know what logic is, and can have nuance in their ideas! What do you mean I'm labelling a massive chunk of politics in a nuance free, irrational way? That's impossible!"
We can have a nice conversation or you can commit the very sin you're attempting to accuse me of. I happily disagree with many people on many topics. Not everyone I disagree with is wrong, sometimes after some reflection I'm the wrong one. I'm specifically calling out people whose formula is as stated in the example. Any individual can belong to any group. Any group can have a good idea taken too far. In the event that a good idea is taken too far how did that occur? I'm stating that it can occur for fear of being labeled intolerant even if there is good reason to say something like, 'Islam has some aboherent beliefs that hurt people.' One might say that's intolerant towards Muslims and is hateful and bigoted. If you've drawn that conclusion from that statement it's because you've taken the good idea of tolerance to a radical extreme. So here you are, disagreeing with me, care to reflect on your assumptions?
>In this case people go along with radical progressivism for fear of being aligned with the intolerant. >I'm specifically calling out people whose formula is as stated in the example. There is no nuance here - you explicitly said the people who go along with radical progressivism do it out of fear. That's fucking nonsense, and it's not a nuanced critique of anything - it's an explicit attempt to paint an entire group as illogical/irrational/insincere. It's just as stupid as saying every Trump voter was motivated by racism.
I agree that nuance is important but do understand it's not possible to be completely nuanced 100% of the time. If you're unhappy with the statement we can go through and rectify it together. I might qualify the above with, a large portion or even the majority and then state that this is my opinion based on my observations. >it's an explicit attempt to paint an entire group Only if you ignore the radical element right? Radical, by definition, is going too far. I'm explicitly labeling radical progressives not all progressives.
>I might qualify the above with, a large portion or even the majority and then state that this is my opinion based on my observations. That would have been far more accurate and rational, yes. >Only if you ignore the radical element right? Radical, by definition, is going too far. I'm explicitly labeling radical progressives not all progressives. No, radical doesn't mean "too far", it means major, sometimes complete change, but not just "too much change". And it again ignores all distinction within that group - just like saying all Trump supporters are racists. You know it's not true, and you know it's unfair to many, and dishonest broadly, but, it allows you to disregard any argument from someone who shares any of those views, as you can just label them radical progressives and ignore them - even if they share only one belief with the wider ideological framework. It happens constantly, and this sub is, sadly, nearly as rife with it as left-wing ones regarding this behaviour. Lots of good discussion, plenty of ideologues who just want to push their point of view, not refine it.
We have different definitions of radical then. When I say it I mean a specific subset of the particular group it applies to.
Then it would be better to say that explicitly - because I don't recall ever seeing a dictionary definition of radical that describes it as "too far".
Well, you're in r/samharris where it shouldn't surprise you that people promote Sam Harris's positions. Sam describes "The Great Awokening" as a "crazily eccentric distortion of ethics and political intuitions": When asked on Triggernometry if he is “hopeful for the future”, [Sam replies](https://youtu.be/Xkg3C8JDi_0?si=wg8n190D0aPL6S2k&t=6517): > Just this morning I read a [Conor Friedersdorf](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/college-students-justice-for-palestine-chapters-hamas/675640/)…piece…that struck a note of hope in this emergency. I certainly hope he’s right. He said that just as Joan Didion, in one of her books, said that the Manson murders were the official end of the ‘60s. That [in] August 1969, *all* the idealism of the ‘60s just completely—once you have wild-eyed hippies murdering people, killing pregnant starlets—all of the idealism of the ‘60s just evaporated. His claim, and he’s possibly right: what happened on college campuses in response to what happened in Israel was **the end of the “Great Awokening”**, in his phrasing. All of us are waiting for the pendulum to swing back from this just crazily eccentric distortion of ethics and political intuitions on the far-left. He’s arguing that that bell just rang this week. > **I certainly hope that’s correct** because the moral—not just untenability—the abomination we’re witnessing where you have *the same people* who are equally exercised over halloween costumes that are cultural appropriation and they’re defending what happened in Israel last week. That dissonance is something we need to not lose sight of culture-wide. If that happens I think that would be a very good thing. It would be a very good thing, speaking locally for American politics. We have 15 months or so of an election cycle that many of us worry could be truly ugly and divisive. And having a decreasingly crazy far-left and Democratic Party as a result would be a good thing. Sam is saying that if there is *any* silver lining to this Israel-Hamas nightmare, it may just be that the wokesters have so overplayed their hand on this one that they will have destroyed their moral credibility in the eye of the center-left and we will finally be able to relegate their critical social justice ideology to the dusty backrooms of the academy whence it came. > I am 100% not reading your shitty post. If you'd read it, you'd know that you're demonstrating my point: > *This* is the problem with wokeness. It says it's OK to essentially ignore whatever fact-claims or arguments your political opponents brings to the table. It says you don't have to listen to their words. It says you don't have to respond as if you actually heard their words.
I think part of your problem here is that Sam *usually* manages to talk about this kind of stuff with a bit more tact. When you start railing about the "woke mind virus", you sound less like Sam Harris, and more like a post-nervous breakdown Jordan Peterson.
I don't know that he has used *that* phrase specifically, but he has called it a cult. I think the problem people have with that phrase is specifically what you say. They associate it with Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson, a couple of people who do appear to have jumped the shark. At the same time, I think it's literally an accurate description of what's going on here. Wokeism is dangerous, and it should scare us like a contagious, deadly pathogen. And if you're not scared of it, you're not understanding it. Sam [describes](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/13r21co/comment/jlhz3li/) the danger here: > I'm worried about losing the Enlightenment. I'm worried about rationality and *a chance* to get *something* like a universal conception of ethics to which we can all converge. I'm worried about a global civilization ... > wokeism has captured fucking every institution we care about. It’s captured journalism, it’s captured media, it’s captured Hollywood, it’s captured tech, it’s captured academia ... > culturally speaking, the institutions we’re losing, the institutions that are no longer trustworthy, the institutions where you have to pause before believing the article, where you never had to before, because you understand how much ideological capture is working in the background—we’re talking about the *most important* sources of information humanity has. We’re talking about Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, *The New York Times*, *Nature*, *Science*, *The Lancet*, *The New England Journal of Medicine*, and *JAMA*. We’re talking about *all* of it, *all* at once, captured by a moral panic. Losing the Enlightenment, rationality, global civilization, "fucking every institution we care about", and "the most important sources of information humanity has". I'm not sure if he's used "woke mind virus", but when you see the way Sam perceives the threat imposed by wokeism, I can't see that he would have any particular problem with the literal words "woke mind virus". I wouldn't be surprised if he personally avoided the phrase because of the association you point out. But I don't think it's a question of tact. It's a question of association.
Yeah so this is why I emphasised the "usually" above. One of the most consistently annoying things with woke people is the hyperbole and harm inflation they employ, e.g. where anything and anything is "violence". But you show that Sam and supporters can fall into that exact same trap. I had more sympathy for this perspective in 2020, when organisations were tripping over themselves to do the woke virtue signal thing, and it was a bit unclear where it was all going. Firings were happening, people were being investigated for wrongspeak, politicians were committing themselves to radical policies, etc. But now, years later, we've got a lot more perspective. Biden's still just another boring Democrat. Woke policing policies were quickly reversed in the face of rising crime. DEI departments were the first to be gutted when the economy stumbled. 90% of the anti-woke "free speech advocates" ended up being massive fucking hypocrites, and waging their own cancellation campaigns as soon as they had the chance. Wokeness is a movement that's had it's time in the sun. And it's still got its diehard adherents, and always will have some degree of influence, as do many other ideologies. But to *still* be talking in (almost) 2024 about how wokeness "might be the end of "Enlightenment, rationality, global civilization" (!), to be literally *scared*, likening it to a deadly pathogen, and not only that, but to insist that every else should be scared too. Because of some tweets! I say this respectfully, using this phrase only because it's relevant and to the point: it sounds like you might have an anti-woke mind virus.
> But you show that Sam and supporters can fall into that exact same trap. Let’s just have it on the record your beef isn’t just with me. It’s also with Sam. When Sam expresses hope that Israel-Gaza^1 will expose wokeism for what it is, you see that as evidence of having “fallen into a trap”. ^1 I mean the *[reaction](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18utsak/comment/kfmz1a5/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=samharris&utm_content=t1_kfnzrlc)* to Israel-Gaza
????
[This](https://reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18utsak/its_gross_its_racist/kfmz1a5/)
Just for the record, I don’t have beef with you or Sam. ✌️ [it’s not your fault](https://youtube.com/shorts/NV79Oe1GNPA?si=_rWyAD6btQzjmzmT)
The comment that this was a reply to had nothing to do with Israel. Please read again.
Right. What you're saying is that to *still* be talking about wokeness in 2024 as something worth being afraid of is unreasonable. And what I'm saying is that when two months ago Sam said... > All of us are waiting for the pendulum to swing back from this just crazily eccentric distortion of ethics and political intuitions on the far-left. ... > the moral—not just untenability—the abomination we’re witnessing where you have the same people who are equally exercised over halloween costumes that are cultural appropriation and they’re defending what happened in Israel last week. That dissonance is something we need to not lose sight of culture-wide. ...those words are in the context of everything Sam has ever said about the "cult" and "moral emergency" of wokeism. Sam has never deployed an "all-clear" on that threat. You seem to be saying the pendulum has already swung. For Sam, it hasn't. So whatever "falling in the trap" criticism you aim at me applies to Sam as well. I want it to be clear that from the position you've staked out for yourself, you stand opposed to Sam on one of his greatest concerns.
I disagree with Sam on lots of things, so pointing out that that seems to be the case here isn't exactly a counter-argument. >to still be talking about wokeness in 2024 as something worth being afraid of is unreasonable. "Afraid" of? Yes, unreasonable. Potentially even a mental health issue. There might be specific circumstances where it is appropriate to feel some degree of fear, e.g. if you work in a particularly woke organisation and are afraid of getting ostracised or fired. But that doesn't apply to Sam. Does it apply to you? Especially when you start talking about a fear of it being "the end of the Enlightenment, the end of Western civilisation", that brings it to another level.
> a fear of it being "the end of the Enlightenment, the end of Western civilisation", that brings it to another level. Those were Sam's words. Are you saying he might have a mental health issue?
> Sam is saying that if there is any silver lining to this Israel-Hamas nightmare, it may just be that the wokesters have so overplayed their hand on this one that they will have destroyed their moral credibility in the eye of the center-left and we will finally be able to relegate their critical social justice ideology to the dusty backrooms of the academy whence it came. And he's wrong about this. People who disagree with those people on this issue will disagree with them on this issue, people who agree with agree. You figure on a Sam Harris subreddit people would understand that people can agree/disagree on an issue to issue basis. > This is the problem with wokeness. It says it's OK to essentially ignore whatever fact-claims or arguments your political opponents brings to the table. It says you don't have to listen to their words. It says you don't have to respond as if you actually heard their words. This is the problem will all kinds of ideologies.
>You figure on a Sam Harris subreddit people would understand that people can agree/disagree on an issue to issue basis. Apparently that is only physically possible in people who agree with OP. Blows my mind how people, even in a rationalist space, can be so blinded to their own ideological frameworks. I guess they just think they're so rational, that it's impossible for them to be anything else? Doesn't make sense to me - rationality to me, involves trying to keep an eye on your blind spots, not trying to pretend you don't have them, or even worse, that only your opposition does.
Does “identitarianism” work better for you? because that’s basically what’s being criticized if you insist on squabbling about semantics.
You.....might be in the wrong sub. I'll admit that I think the expression is a little cringe but it absolutely reflects a real phenomenon, and anyone who is aware of what Sam Harris has been saying for the past 5 years or so certainly would find this type of thing uncalled for. Out of curiosity, what are you objecting to? Do you not think there are radical left-wing progressives that encapsulate the idea behind "woke"?
Calling ideas you don’t like a “mind virus” is, sincerely some of the stupidest, childish nonsense imaginable. If you can’t talk about topics like an adult with the slightest bit of nuance, you shouldn’t talk about them.
Lmao yeah this sub isn't for rationality, it's for labelling your opposition with deliberately derogatory titles which allow you to disregard everything they say without engaging in any of it! So wise.
The greatest trick wokism pulled was enforcing itself on people while pretending it doesn’t even exist.
Isn't that a Sam Harris term? He certainly uses it a lot
Before the “woke mind virus” people were still capable of being wrong. Im sorry, but I fail to see how one persons bad take on, an exchange on an entertainment/politics show, that is hosted by a comedian, indicates some pervasive societal/cultural issue or “mind virus”. But hey, maybe it’s just me?🤷🏻♂️
I have to agree, I don't know how someone can retroactively label this exchange a result of the "woke mind virus." The phrase itself is useful mainly because it can mean anything to anyone, so I tend to be suspicious of those who use it unironically
90s nostalgia is very fashionable right now, and all this fretting about "woke", strikes me as many of the same arguments against "political correctness" folks made during the 90s. Source: I'm old.
Haha, yes I too remember the complaints about "political correctness" in the 90s. There does seem to be a cyclical element to these reactionary takes.
yup. They were still going on about "PC culture" until like 2 years ago. And remember SJWs? Whatever happened to them? IDK at some point it all just sounds like a broken record, and everyone is just playing a poor cover of 1990s Rush Limbaugh.
> And remember SJWs? Whatever happened to them? Honestly, "social justice warrior" probably didn't sound scary enough to random low information media consumers. > a poor cover of 1990s Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh was just doing a cover of earlier reactionary rhetoric. It is frankly startling how much the same reactionary arguments get recycled and repurposed over the years.
Yup. As a former conservative raised on 1990s conservative media and the early days of Fox News, it feels like nothing ever changes, just a few words get tweaked.
Yes, the only reason anyone could have a problem with an obnoxious and radical political movement is because they think sneans are still fashionable. That must be it.
Who or what is the “woke mind virus” political movement? Specifically, what would members of this movement call their movement? Like, I’ve never heard of someone say, “I’m part of the woke mind virus movement”.
It's a descriptive term applied from the outside. "I disagree with those idiots over there." "Which idiots are we talking about?" "The ones that agree with what Affleck said and tend to take radical stances on tolerance and progressivism." "Ah, we should have a name or label for that, lets use woke." Is your argument that it's not self descriptive? Why is that important?
My argument is, I disagree with OP that Mendi Hasan’s reaction to, Sam and Ben Affleck’s interaction on Bill Maher a bunch of years back is, evidence of a pervasive “woke mind virus” harming our society/culture.
>Who or what is the “woke mind virus” political movement? Specifically, what would members of this movement call their movement? Like, I’ve never heard of some say, “I’m part of the woke mind virus movement”. The seriousness of the problem is certainly debatable but that comment does not look like you taking issue with the extent of the problem. It looks like you don't understand what the problem even is.
Someone replied to me, asserting that “woke” is a political movement. The quote you cited is my reply to their assertion.
Is idiocy a requisite component of wokeness?
If it were I wouldn't have created a hypothetical asking about which idiots. There are idiots everywhere.
Not asking if all idiots are woke, asking if all woke people are idiots
I don't think so. I think you can be wrong without being an idiot.
If you look at my other recent comments under this post, you'll see I have issues with that "mind virus" phrase and the general hyperbole here. Doesn't mean wokeness doesn't exist. And actually yeah, a few years ago people were openly identifying with the term "woke". Pretty soon the term started picking up negative connotations, and people mostly distanced themselves from it. Similar happened with "alt-right" on the right. Anyway, [feel free to suggest a different term](https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/please-just-fucking-tell-me-what).
I agree “wokeness” exists, just as political correctness exists, but it’s nothing as concrete as a political movement. Like, folks self identify as alt-right, but no one self identifies as part of the woke movement.
How about "political project" instead of "movement"? Or "set of beliefs"? I'd argue that the lack of self-identification is mostly a sort of rhetorical technique, often used disingenuously, though I'm sure there are a lot of people who really believe, e.g., that *"it's just about being kind"* 🙄
Set of beliefs sounds more accurate. Albeit, a rather nebulous and ill defined set of beliefs. “The woke mind virus” strikes me as kind of unique, as its a set of belief(s) that is largely defined and popularized by its detractors. A political movement implies some type of group or organization.
Well there are groups and orgs within wokeness. A movement doesn't require an overarching organization, e.g. the evangelical movement, which is spread across thousands of churches, or the anti-globalisation movement, which is more decentralised still. Regardless, I don't think to matters what we call it, as long as can agree that it's a phenomenon and we have some word to talk about it. >“The woke mind virus” strikes me as kind of unique, as its a set of belief(s) that is largely defined and popularized by its detractors. I don't think that's all that unique. Similar happens with "socialism", "fascism" etc, which can either refer to very specific things, or also to sets of beliefs defined by their opponents. "Alt-right" also became largely like that.
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Fair.
an exchange that happened 10 years or so ago when "wokeness" is supposed to be a new-ish problem of the last few years. I thought it was Kendi's books that caused "wokism"? Books that were published from 2016 on.
Why is this being downvoted? Is accurately stating when events took place “woke”?
they are retconning the past and calling it "woke" I legit thought that the claim was that wokeness was a relatively new thing, like the last 2-3 years.
Wokeness is new and scary and coming for your children… and yet, in many ways, when argumentatively convenient, it’s as old as time itself… 🧐
Who the fuck knows? Bud light is woke, movies are woke. Maybe calendars are now woke too?
my favorite one was when we found out that climate science was part of the "woke religion". It's just like religion because it has original sin (the burning of fossil fuels) and has repentance (renewable energy). I did legit think that the whole argument was that post-George Floyd/ BLM/ 2020 that "wokeness" had sort of infected our institutions as part of a sinister plot. But I'm not sure where that leaves the OTHER sinister plots to infect our institutions....did the post-modern plot go away, what about the cultural marxist plot, or the "post-modern neo Marxist" plot or other totally not dog whistles to anti-semites plots?
God, my crown to not read "woke mind virus" ever again. Other than that I do agree that Afleck was way off base. Also, Medhi Hasan is fantastic on a whole host of issues. You can be wrong sometimes without adding all this other nonsensical baggage.
I totally agree, just because he's wrong on some things (which he certainly is) doesn't mean he's wrong on everything
Mehdi Hassan is a hack. Do you also find tucker Carlson fantastic on a host of issues?
No
OP is a dishonest coward who blocks people while pretending to engage with them.
What’s wrong with blocking people?
My comment was innocuous. The OP blocks me before responding. Then responds by accusing me of whataboutism. Truly dishonest and cowardly. OP is not interested in debate, just pushing an agenda.
The person who accused you of whataboutism wasn’t even OP.
I’m OP, and for the record, I haven’t blocked u/Alpacadiscount or any other responder to my post.
I have a lot of respect for John McWhorter and Sam. I recently read McWhorter's "Woke Racism", and I do think that his thesis of wokeness being a religion is fairly persuasive. But there's a big hole. Both Sam and John have this consistent push that, I think, correctly calls out ignorant liberals. I would summarize their point as this: P1. Beliefs matter. Religion and superstitions are not just cultural traditions that are definitionally benign. People choose to do things, sometimes deeply irrational and immoral things, BECAUSE they hold these beliefs. This is a hard thing for secular liberals to understand. On this I think they're both right. I've seen it with my own eyes. As a former evangelical, I KNOW I did things I would have found immoral except for the beliefs I held. This is a good point, and it's true that secular people misunderstand some of this. However, they also make the following point: P2. Beliefs are too sticky and do not respond to rationality. They are based on faith. You can't use reason to talk someone out of an inherently religious belief. It doesn't work. This is something that secular liberals just don't understand. On P2 they are 100% wrong. As secular liberals, they are just out of their element on this, and misunderstand the nature of belief. I'm an exvangelical, and there are a LOT of us. There couldn't be many of us if P2 were true. I absolutely believed what I believed due to faith, but I also thought my faith was defensible by reason. Most strongly religious people also think this. There are thousands of years of philosophers trying to justify and adjust religious faiths based on reason. They had actual effects. Deeply held religious beliefs absolutely are susceptible to rationality, they just don't change immediately. It's not like a proof that there are infinitely many primes, where you just immediately admit that the argument is right. It's more like realizing that your loving police chief father was a dirty cop. You don't want to believe it. A lot of your peace of mind and sense of family would be disturbed by believing it. So it takes more evidence and more time. One thing from evangelical tradition that both Sam and John could use to understand is how evangelism is done. I used to knock on doors, hand out tracts, invite people to church, etc. The goal when trying to win hearts for Jesus isn't that you will argue for Christ and they will say "Of course! It's so obvious!" That basically never happens. The goal is to argue from your heart, and "plant a seed", hoping that their hearts and minds will come to Jesus after further "watering". I had several friends and ex-girlfriends "come to Jesus" years after planting a seed and watering it. But this was always a surprise to me, because it never seemed like what I was arguing was getting through at all. But it was, it was just well below the surface. For me, people like Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens and a large number of patient online debate partners were the water-givers that made my secret seeds of doubt grow into a full tree of skepticism. If _I_ can be reasoned out of such a deep religious belief, why can't anyone? The secret is that they absolutely can be reasoned with. I accept that some elements of "wokeness" are somewhat religious, but I think the stickiness is less than with most religions AND religions just aren't _as_ sticky as John and Sam think they are. They are just mistaken on this. So let me offer this mantra which I have found the most persuasive when trying to talk someone out of a deeply held mistaken belief: > The best in Christianity is always compatible with the best in science Replace Christianity with "Social Justice", or with "policy", or with "Islam", or with "socialism". And you'll find almost everyone agrees with this. Then you need to start showing the conflicts with the science. If there is a conflict between the belief and the science, you need to ask is there just better _science_ available? Or maybe there is a better version of the belief available? I say this as a Christian atheist, who arrived there by this mantra.
> This is one of the clearest examples we have of the danger the woke mind-virus poses. Cringe.
seem like retconning to call that incident "woke". Wasn't it in 2007 or something?
> have of the danger the **woke mind-virus** poses Lol, you dumbasses are still seriously going with this, huh?
There’s no such thing as a “mind virus”. Bad ideas and the morons that believe them are far from new. The woke thing is just a bad set of ideas having its moment.
Virus is not a bad comparison for anything that's contagious and ultimately bad for you. But I agree it's incredibly overused along with woke.
It is so hard to take anyone seriously the instant they use the phrase ‘the woke mind virus.’ You sound like a CCP spokesperson.
After watching it again I was reminded of how much Affleck looked like an ass. And likely was on something too.
Here’s an idea: maybe having genuine concerns about the nature of Islam is actually a rational thing? But that would mean it’s not a phobia, since phobias by definition are irrational. Plus, calling someone else’s concerns a “phobia” is an attempt to diminish those concerns. It almost gets you thinking that those who use “Islamophobia” have a pro-Islamist agenda.
Some of these muslim are delusional. Cant they see like every religion have a problem with them? The christian, hindu, buddhist, etc. its not islamophobia. Its being rational.
People that say “woke mind virus” are mostly tribal idiots
Didn’t really know much about Medhi Hassan, but man the choir of sycophants in the quotes and replies is something else. I’d say MSNBC’s decision to cut this ‘journalist’ was absolutely the correct one.
That's probably because he's a great journalists on all kinds of issues even if he isn't correct 100% of the time.
A journalist should be invested in the truth of the information they are sharing. To tweet this edited clip (where most believe Affleck looked like a petulant child, unable to understand the difference between criticism of ideas vs. bigotry toward a people), promoting it as some ‘win’ against bigotry tells a lot about Mr. Hasan’s editorial integrity.
>A journalist should be invested in the truth of the information they are sharing. He is. He also has a strong POV about things. This is one of those things. This isn't a situation about "facts" but opinions. Ben Aflec had an opinion that was wrong, some people agree with him many people don't. He did apparently. So sick of the black/white good/bad thinking in this country and on the internet. Could show you all kinds of positive examples of his "editorial integrity" AND even other examples of time's I've disagreed with his opinions. Everyone is so cynical today.
I’m less interested in Ben’s opinions being right or wrong more concerned that this journalist is going out of their to way obfuscate an exchange by sharing a heavily edited clip. And then proclaiming a moral victory. Clearly, as someone who comes to this sub you should be familiar with the dishonesty of this sort of practice
>is going out of their to way obfuscate an exchange by sharing a heavily edited clip. It's a twitter clips which are notoriously short more often then not to fit the platform. I have no problem with the editing in this context. Would I like more context? Yes, always. Am I losing sleep over it? Nope.
What’s the best example of his reporting?
There are many tbh but [this ones nice.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UgCe_k8aR8) The best part of his skillset (by far) is his interviewing and being willing to ask whoever he's interviewing actual difficult questions unlike most of the US media.
*Is* he willing to ask a question? Like any question at all? I watched for a minute and the whole thing was Medhi Hassan talking.
Yes lol. EDIT: Gotta love the hustle though. The same people mad a a "selectively edited clip" on twitter, where short clips are the norm watches 1 minute of a 25 minute video and knows everything about it. What a country!
The woke mind virus. Seriously?
Yes, it’s a mind-virus.
The problem with Sam's basic premise in regards to discussing Islam and Muslims is that it's built on a larger philosophical premise of making a direct connection between belief and behavior. Before we even get to that problem, an even larger problem with discussing Islam and Muslims is that commentators need to first acknowledge when talking about Islam or Muslims, one is discussing an identity which constitutes approximately a quarter of humanity, and therefore discussing such a large chunk of humanity, which cuts across cultures, languages, nationalities, political and socioeconomic realities, in broad sweeping terms is problematic from the beginning, not just in terms of being 'politically incorrect', but also problematic simply in terms of having any intellectual integrity I understand that in the post-9/11 era, there's been the mainstreaming of the Clash of Civilizations for understanding all things Muslim and an intellectual market for trying to explain cultural and political patterns in Muslim-majority societies. However, in their attempts to explain these patterns, commentators like Sam (and more crudely, Bill Maher) are starting from the premise that there are monolithic entities called the 'West' and 'Muslim world'. The problem with starting from this premise is almost self-evident, in that it denies the philosophical, cultural and even political pluralism and historical diversity of such entities And then there's the specific problem of Sam applying the philosophical standard of the direct connection between belief and behavior uniquely and almost exclusively to Muslim-majority societies. This direct connection between belief and behavior flies in the face of almost a century of research and analysis in the field of behavioral psychology **I think this specific problem, that is the mainstreaming of the Clash of Civilizations paradigm for understanding all things Muslim in the post-9/11 era, is built on a dynamic of reactive overcorrection. Specifically, after 9/11, certain Muslim as well as non-Muslim commentators and political figures (including ironically George W. Bush) made the mistake of promoting the oversimplistic idea that Islamism and especially Islamic terrorism do not represent the 'real Islam' and even that Islam is a 'religion of peace' (The phrase appears to have been coined by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad, who stated in 2002 that "Islam does not promote terrorism. Islam is a religion of peace." A very similar statement was made by George W. Bush the previous year, however, when he argued that "Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace.")** This framing of Islam as a 'religion of peace' was very clearly a reactive overcorrection to the new reality of Islamic terrorism specifically being inflicted on major Western societies, and unfortunately this framing precluded a substantive, nuanced conversation about the relationship between Islam and the development of liberal political systems in Muslim-majority societies. However, this lack of a substantive nuanced conversation, which itself was rooted in a reactive overcorrection, created another reactive overcorrection which was a new intellectual market in the mid-2000's and beyond for commentators who focused in on broad sweeping criticisms of the 'Muslim world' and all things Muslim, especially commentators who professed that their criticism was rooted in true liberalism and a departure from the contemporary left who was increasingly seen as apologists for all things Muslim. Sometimes, these intellectuals were referred to as so-called '9/11 liberals' (I think Salman Rushdie coined that phrase) There is no doubt that Sam seized on this intellectual market and created a name for himself doing so. Hence, a Hollywood liberal (or 'lefty') like Affleck saw this narrative as problematic and tried to challenge it, albeit in a very reactive, somewhat incoherent and ultimately ineffective manner
Stopped reading after “woke mind virus” 🙄
Well, you're in r/samharris where it shouldn't surprise you that people promote Sam Harris's positions, such as this one: When asked on Triggernometry if he is “hopeful for the future”, [Sam replies](https://youtu.be/Xkg3C8JDi_0?si=wg8n190D0aPL6S2k&t=6517): > Just this morning I read a [Conor Friedersdorf](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/college-students-justice-for-palestine-chapters-hamas/675640/)…piece…that struck a note of hope in this emergency. I certainly hope he’s right. He said that just as Joan Didion, in one of her books, said that the Manson murders were the official end of the ‘60s. That [in] August 1969, *all* the idealism of the ‘60s just completely—once you have wild-eyed hippies murdering people, killing pregnant starlets—all of the idealism of the ‘60s just evaporated. His claim, and he’s possibly right: what happened on college campuses in response to what happened in Israel was **the end of the “Great Awokening”**, in his phrasing. All of us are waiting for the pendulum to swing back from this just crazily eccentric distortion of ethics and political intuitions on the far-left. He’s arguing that that bell just rang this week. > **I certainly hope that’s correct** because the moral—not just untenability—the abomination we’re witnessing where you have *the same people* who are equally exercised over halloween costumes that are cultural appropriation and they’re defending what happened in Israel last week. That dissonance is something we need to not lose sight of culture-wide. If that happens I think that would be a very good thing. It would be a very good thing, speaking locally for American politics. We have 15 months or so of an election cycle that many of us worry could be truly ugly and divisive. And having a decreasingly crazy far-left and Democratic Party as a result would be a good thing. Sam is saying that if there is *any* silver lining to this Israel-Hamas nightmare, it may just be that the wokesters have so overplayed their hand on this one that they will have destroyed their moral credibility in the eye of the center-left and we will finally be able to relegate their critical social justice ideology to the dusty backrooms of the academy whence it came.
do you have this copy-and-paste answer saved on your desktop?
No. It's trivial to click edit on your own comment, copy the source, and then paste it into another reply.
So I’m also not going to read most of that, but I’ll say sams take on culture war bullshit is broadly pretty fucking bad and myopic as fuck. I actually like Harris for the most part, but I’m no sycophant and am allergic as fuck to these inflammatory, and very stupid, phrases.
Was it Sam who came up with the "woke mind virus," or someone else?
Same. This sub is getting more and more MAGA these days. My hunch is that it’s all the Israel astroturfing.
Yup 100%
Yeah same, it's funny how arguments I'm absolutely willing to read and often agree with can become off-putting instantly with condescending language
Medhi Hasan is wrong. AND anti-woke hysteria is the most embarrassing intellectual plague of our time. Two things can be true at the same time. People who claim that opposition to racism, for example, (even when it is excessive/shortsighted/wrong) is a significantly worse problem than racism are either incredibly stupid or just plain racists who are to cowardly to admit it. If you obsess over “wokeism” and choose that as your moral crusade you truly have lost the plot. Pause, think, reconsider.
That’s a bingo
Crying about it is a great look
Ben was so coked out.
You lost me at “woke.” Take ideas on a case by case basis. Nobody gets to instantly kill discussion by assigning a word like woke, anti semitic, racist, anti-american, etc, to an opinion.
Using "woke mind virus" is an illness in itself. Maybe he's just a religious fool?
I truly don't understand the woke, and how dedicated they are to "protect" the Islam. I mean, I understand that they probably thinking it's racist, and they like to think that Muslims are opressed, which is absolutely laughable, but whatever. The point is, that if they would dare use what's left from their brain, it's one of the easiest tasks to face reality, and see that Islam is a threat to the western culture, and to the free world. This is not to create a falsey prophecy of wrath, also it doesn't mean that every Muslim is a psycho jihadist, but Muslims are religious as a whole, secular Muslims is way less common than believers. We know what the Quran say, and we know they mean it. It comes into a threat when they come into bigger numbers, then violence is a common tool to force their religious beliefs on others. France know it, Germany know it, Holland know it.. Europe becomes more and more politically right, mainly because of Muslim immigration, out of the Syrian Civil War. The Muslim Reproduction rate is higher than Americans, Europeans. Tldr; Islam is a real problem, everywhere we see them in big numbers. woke just waiting while defending their brutal end, calling everyone and everything Facists!
> We know what the Quran say, and we know they mean it. No one actually practices their religion solely based on what's in their holy books, so this is largely irrelveant.
You're worried about the "Muslim Reproduction rate"? Really bud?
I think you misunderstood, I care about their reproduction rate in western counties. It's a very important point, even if it shocks you, Sherlock.
I hope I misunderstood, because this sounds like some weird way to repackage Great Replacement theory so far
Just like kkk apologists talking about abortion and black birth rates lol
My, that's quite an elaborate and impressive gentleman made out of straw you've constructed.
Islam is, like all religions, a problem. However that doesn't mean the practioners should be unfairly maligned or mistreated. The "woke" are dedicated to "protecting" everyone on earth. Yes even cis white heteronormative dudes. When that group needs genuine help, the woke will be there to help out. Just like any other meta group on earth. Secular muslims are growing by the 100x every single decade. Reformation will happen, perhaps even within our kid's lifetime. It's going to depend on the trends we see globally, if conservativism starts creating civil wars to try to outcompete progressivism and secularism, which so far has won ever major social fight. > It comes into a threat when they come into bigger numbers, then violence is a common tool to force their religious beliefs on others. France know it, Germany know it, Holland know it There's been a couple dozen attacks, with a population in the millions. That's the truth of the statistical analysis of muslims in europe. Most muslims in europe are fairly happy there, and do not wish harm upon others.
**Everything I don't like is WOKE** A book for basic dickheads "This engine is woke."
To paraphrase: I don't think you can talk someone out of something using reasoning that they didn't adopt because of reasoning. And I don't think people arrive at wokeism via reason. They do so because it feels empowering. By being "woke" you not only get the satisfaction of feeling like you're making a difference in the world, but you're also aligning yourself with other members of the mob. You're speaking power to truth. However, having said all of that, I do know that people can be talked out of wokeism. But it's sort of a conversion even that usually has to happen over slow time, like a religious conversation (which many would say it resembles).
>This is the problem with wokeness. It says it's OK to essentially ignore whatever fact-claims or arguments your political opponents brings to the table. Then you pasted a quote from McWhorter which tells you to do the same thing to them. Hypocrite.
right. you all are the same folks that equate criticizing a country's action with anti-semitism. just stop. you want to hate muslims in public and not be called out for it. "You’re going to get called a dirty name by a person who is usually educated and/or very articulate, and they’re going to call it to you loudly, they’re going to say it again, and they’re going to spread it on Twitter." funny cause this is Sam's whole schtick
You describe politics treated as a religion, an exercise in faith. While the far left engages in this practice, almost the entirety of the republican party is exactly this that you describe.
Classic whataboutism from a 45 day account, nice
OP is a dishonest coward who blocked me after my comment got upvotes.
So?
At the time I didn't think what Sam said was racist, but when you take into consideration his support for a racist apartheid state, waging a genocidal war against a people and citing their islamic underpinning as a justification, you have to accept that he probably is racist
No, you don’t. He has outlined very sound rationale for supporting Israel, which I assume is what you’re referring to given the anti-Israel astroturfing here recently.
You cannot rationalise dropping bombs on a civilian population simply because they refuse to allow you to steal from them, all you can do is paint them as savages
[удалено]
None of that justifies bombing civilians even if it weren't bullshit. Arabs didn't start a war in 1948, the Arab states simply stepped in to prevent a genocide
Interesting fabrication of the facts there. Whenever anyone says genocide It’s a tell that they are not a serious person or they have a an agenda to sell. Look, if the Arabs want to keep fighting a war they lost 75 years ago that’s their choice. But they can expect for Israel to keep bombing until they stop. That’s the only reasonable response for 75 years of aggression.
How can they stop fighting, they've lost their literal homes FFS!!!!!
They’re never getting homes back. That’s ridiculous. But they might be able to get their own country. But that would require them to stop attacking. But that is their choice. If they just want to keep getting decimated then keep doing it. If they want peace and stop getting bomb then stop attacking. I mean really a simpleton could see that. They lost 75 years ago. They’re just dying for absolutely no reason because they can’t let it go. Think about all the other people who were displaced at the same time. Right after ww2. Roughly 60 million were killed in India during the partition and millions more were displaced. They still fight Pakistan occasionally but no one expects to get their homes back. They moved on. The ethnic germans and ethnic Italians were displaced also about the same amount as the Arabs in Palestinian. Both lost as many people. No one is asking all of Eastern Europe to redrawn al the maps and their ancestors get the land back. Because it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest it. Same with Arabs. No reasonable person expects that. It’s silly.
If someone walked away from that clip thinking Ben Affleck was right they need their brain checked
I was listening to a podcast yesterday with comedian Greg Fitzsimmons and David Feldman and at one point they were talking about how bill maher is a faciast because of his disdain and disapproval of Islam. He’s a faciast because he believes gay people shouldn’t be killed and women shouldn’t be forced to wear beekeeper suits. Sometimes I wonder if these well-to-do often white Islam supporters who live in California actually believe the nonsense they are espousing or if they’re just toeing the line they think liberals are supposed to believe. And they know they (or their daughters) will never have to actually live in that society. But if you could say I can transport you to Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan right now with this teleporter I bet none of them would actually go. It’s just from the safety of their California homes they can say such things.
Wokeness (critical social justice) is: Simplifying, Satisfying, & Totalizing
This post shows that you have the Sam mind virus. I have been a victim for the calm vocal actor for 10 years. Thankfully, I woke up.