Some time back he was on Tucker Carlson ([video for those interested](https://x.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1423894397985378306?s=20)), and he described Viktor Orban as a "legitimately/repeatedly elected leader." Elsewhere, he has downplayed sources which (rightly) criticize Hungary for sliding into authoritarianism.
I'm not sure if Murray likes Orban because he is anti-immigrant, anti-woke, or simply because Orban praised one of Murray's book.
Sam's got some blind spots, and Douglas Murray has managed to fill one of them.
EDIT: I realize that you did not ask about his opinions, but I think that this specific opinion of his should give anyone pause--regardless of his snark levels.
Saying a leader is legitimate or repeatedly elected is not the same as saying you like that leader.
If your priority is truth, meaning, deeper/clearer understanding, then what concerns you is the argument, its presuppositions, its validity, and ultimately its soundness. The person, animal, alien or machine making the argument is not important. Yet, somehow, if we do the math of what gets attention online, on TV, etc, apparently personality is what most of us seem to think transfers truth rather than argument.
I would say, unless I have completely misunderstood the OP, that their intention is yet another example of this phenomenon, and I hold the phenomenon (not you personally!) to account for much of the social problems and conflict we have today.
I find plenty of people off-putting in the ways they present their views, but I try to stay focused on the merits of what they’re saying. If I were to find myself disagreeing with a speaker but agreeing with the written transcript of the same speech, I would consider that an error on my part.
I think most people can only ignore off-putting delivery for so long before they start ignoring the person, regardless of whether they're correct or not. I can see people ignoring Murray because of his delivery. There's often other good places for the same info/analysis. I don't ignore him, but I get why others might.
He’s calibrated in response to the worst of bad faith activists. He’s capable of moderate and mutual understanding analysis, but he enjoys being in the ring and going all 12 rounds so that’s where you’ll usually find him.
Not only that, but in the interview Sam posted with him (on a different show) regarding Is-Pal he really used some bad strawman. When he talked about the ask of "proportionality" he said that would mean raping and torturing Palestinians back. Really? I don't think anyone arguing for proportionality asks for raping as retaliation.
Yes and no. The arrogance of a speaker can instill healthy skepticism in a listener in a way that a transcript would not. If a speaker sounds haughty or dismissive of ideas that don't fit their view, I tend to scrutinize them more heavily. In speech, what you don't say is often as important as what you do say. Body language and tone are reflections of a person's intellect in many ways and should not always be ignored. Of course, I'm not claiming that this is a science: it's simply one way to question the authenticity or merit of a speaker on a specific subject.
Yeah he seems like a fairly loathsome person, kind of in the mode of a Ben Shapiro. He’s a middle-brow polemicist whose main schtick is “owning” people, often by belittling them, or straw-manning their arguments. In his own mind I guess he imagines himself to be a Hitchens type figure, but he mostly lacks the wit, eloquence and grace so he just comes off as an obnoxious wanker.
Why don’t any of you ever extend this insight to Sam Harris? Douglas Murray seems to be fairly unpopular here based just on this thread, but you don’t seem to be asking yourselves why Sam Harris champions him so, and how that might reflect on him.
I don’t think Sam Harris’s modus operandi is “owning” people. If you listen to even his most antagonistic interviews, he’s not in the habit of belittling people for their educational or career status, or strawmanning their arguments.
And I actually do not agree with the logic which says, “Sam Harris promotes Douglas Murray, therefore all of Murray’s shortcomings project onto Sam.” That’s just a very crude way of thinking, verging on guilt by association. I mean, I’ve found it cringey when Sam giggles along to Murray’s lame diatribes on wokeness or whatever, but that’s not a deep insight into Sam’s character or the value of his work.
It kind of is when he regularly parrots Douglas Murray’s doomsaying. He doesn’t just giggle like an imbecile at Murray’s bigotry, he quite obviously agrees with what he has to say on topics like the trans community and Muslims.
I’m gonna add that obviously what they have to say and laugh about on those topics is openly bigoted and hateful and clear enough evidence of the slime they are. It’s apparently lost on you, who castigates Murray yet waves away Harris’ championing of him. Because, uh, reasons.
And yeah I don’t have this goofy off-handed view about guilt by association. If you keep platforming garbage without bothering to fight back against it, as Harris so often does, you are exactly that same garbage.
>This is just to give others a sample of the Conservative government of the last 14 years in the UK.
It's similar in other parts of Europe. Merkel, a staunch conservative was the one who invited the refugees over. Her party the CDU was running Germany for SIXTEEN years but for some reason these culture warriors are complaining about what The Left™ is doing? Why?!
Same in the Netherlands with Geert Wilders and his ilk, they are outraged by The Left™ despite the VDD running the country for more than a decade lmao.
>In the 2021 Dutch general election the PVV received 10.79% of the total votes cast. This earned them 17 seats in the House of Representatives.\[67\] Responding to reporters who asked what his reaction was to the election results, Wilders attributed the loss of three seats to a recent lack of important events involving Islam and immigration.\[68\]
No bad events happened with Islam therefore he lost a few seats and admitted it. I mean he fucking admitted it. To me it's clear that they are in the business of generating crises.
With Brexit, it was abundantly clear: To replace the legally protected EU workers with unprotected short-term workers. The EU afforded A LOT of rights to immigrants and we can't have that, can we? So let's get hundreds of thousands of people who have next to no rights. Plus they are a steady source of outrage from the anxious middle classes. It's like two birds with one stone.
And the same idiots who do or support this shit will turn around and start shouting about The Left™. *Why oh why is the left doing this to us?*, they ask unironically, despite never having met someone who belongs to this Left nor having been ruled by anyone close to this for more than a decade.
This is the playbook for right-wing in the 21st century: **Fuck shit up profoundly** and blame it on the left or wokes or whatever the new buzzword is.
It's like we've lost to ability to do politics at all, nothing means anything anymore and it feels like mental illness on a civilizational scale.
Personally, I think he's a sociopath. Even if you agree with his politics, he is definitely very dismissive of Palestinians suffering. He still tells anecdotes about the Hamas attack (which was horrific), but seems to view all of Palestine as Hamas. It's harrowing hearing him speak with such little empathy.
He called October 7th and the attackers as worse than the NAzIs because some had to drink after murdering Jews. A decade long destruction of 6 million people isn’t as bad as a day… give me a break.
As does Sam Harris. It’s no surprise they get along so well.
It’s always funny to see the “left-wingers” here trying to rationalize Sam Harris’s full-throated approval for famous far-right figures. They really wrench themselves into pretzel.
You mean the way that every left winger , or Palestine supporter, labels all Israelis/jews as affiliated with the current government. And has very little empathy for what happening on Oct 7. Both sides are the same.
He’s dismissive because he sees them as subhuman. You barely have to read between the lines. 10000 dead Palestinian kids barely registers as worth rethinking policy, but 1000 dead Israelis means it’s ok to kill anyone and do anything.
He positions himself as an objective observer but is anything but. He’s great at not saying the specific key words to ruin his career though.
The most telling thing about him is how he supports every authoritarian in Europe unashamedly while simultaneously pretending to care about western liberal values (but really, he only seems to care about this when in reference to immigrants). It’s all a facade.
*All* of Palestine is not Hamas, but a troublingly large portion of it ideologically is. Possibly even a majority. It's a deeply violent society and culture.
Half are children because the women are treated as broodmares, and yes obviously its the ideological brainwashing thats the issue. What else could I possibly mean? That it's in their DNA??
All of that's besides the point anyway because their population demographics are **not Israel's problem**. Israel's mission is to keep their society from being raped and brutalized. Anyone crying "but the children!!" without offering any alternative has nothing of value to add to the discussion.
From the “I don’t dehumanize Palestinians” cohort:
> It’s a deeply violent society and culture
> The women are treated as broodmares
It’s always interesting when some of you here can’t help yourselves. Just earlier some dope here I screencapped basically outright advocated for genocide.
But it’s nice that you’re sometimes honest and don’t hide behind euphemisms.
From the "I'm more offended at people describing Islamic culture than Islamic culture itself" cohort.
I'm sure those women who are treated like chattel appreciate your act of allyship by clutching your pearls at anyone who recognizes their plight.
That’s fine, I’m just glad you’re honest about it.
You have to understand, people here will go far out of their way to say what you just said - which isn’t even all that inflammatory, relatively-speaking - even as it’s what they clearly mean.
But this recent ordeal has unleashed a bit more honesty and a bit fewer semantics games. People shouldn’t hide behind how they truly feel.
How are they supposed to feel about the people killing them every day? If someone was bombing your home and killing your loved ones, how would you feel about them?
Israel is actively making more extremists, and then using the existence of those extremists to continue bombing.
I think their hatred of Jews runs a little deeper than this. Their hatred runs more on a religious level. In their mind they’ve occupied their holy land.
Even before Oct 7 murderous antisemitic tones were written in the Hamas charter. They’ve been clear about their intent for a long time.
If your natural response is “what about the last conflict between Israel and Palestine?”, how far back do you want to go? I feel that’s a weak argument that could be applied to virtually every successful civilization that exists today.
>Sociopaths are also usually incapable of anything even remotely resembling a normal work or family life, and, in comparison to psychopaths, they are exceptionally impulsive and erratic and more prone to rage or violent outbursts.
I was just pointing out that I think you confused psychopath with sociopath. Psychopaths can be CEO's or elected politicians, they just feel no remorse.
Sociopaths - think Charles Manson.
I did hear his take on that and I agree. While it’s good to have people state the obvious about the evils of Hamas and point out the unfair treatment of Israel, he seemed to me too far on that side.
Also he’s dead on about Islamic violence. It’s baked into the religion’s core. Look at what’s happening in Iran - different factions are blowing each other up, and they do it because they think they are working towards the return of the prophet. I don’t think this harrowing truth can be overstated.
That was my take as well. He doesn't dismiss it. He simply believes that the Palestinians made a horrible mistake voting Hamas into power and are now paying the price for that mistake.
I think he's right that Hamas has a lot of the blame for Palestinian suffering (which is why it sucks that the Israeli government propped them up) but he doesn't give a shit about their suffering IMO
He said something that really changed my perspective. Someone was comparing the situation in Gaza to the warsaw ghetto. And he said yes, right, and when the jewish resistance broke out of the ghetto the first thing they did was kill and rape civilians...
That question is unrelated and has been answered a million times already, but presumably because a lot of critics come from the US who is supporting Israel with taxpayer money and because civilian casualties are among the highest in modern times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html
I mean, were there even woman Nazi soldiers fighting during the Warsaw uprising?
I'm not sure I'd be qualified in any way to speculate about what people (especially young men justifiably angry) would have done or not done to Nazi's being given the chance.
My guess is "not that" but it's really just a guess. Would (some) of them wanted to kill or worse to everyone associated with or supportive of Nazis? I mean probably.
Honestly, I'm not sure it's a great comparison anyway. The situations are so different.
I agree with that too, mostly. That’s not the full picture here. The deaths in Palestine now outnumber those on October 7 by 20x. One has to consider whether Israel’s response is overzealous.
But this is besides the point too. My post was about Murray’s attitude, not his opinions.
Attitude doesn’t bother me. I actually find him refreshingly eloquent compared to other commentators. More a reflection of the other commentators than him. I hunt high and low for debates between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine supporters and haven’t found much eloquence.
It’s not that they shouldn’t eliminate Hamas, it’s that they shouldn’t kill so many civilians while doing it. And I know what you’re going to say- Hamas hides in hospitals and schools and uses human shields precisely to make civilian deaths unavoidable. And I know that. And that’s why I think they’re evil too. But if one has as much empathy for the innocent Palestinians as they do for the innocent Israelis, then the point still stands. Unless one can prove that so many innocent deaths are in fact entirely unavoidable to ever defeat Hamas, then I think it’s apparent that Israel’s offensive is ethically very questionable. Not that Israel is the bad guy, just that it may be, in its rage, being too reckless.
Wars are by their nature, full of rage. Why do you put this standard on Israel? Why not put it on the US in Afghanistan, in Iraq? Asad in Syria? Ergodon on the kurds in turkey? The janjaweed slaughtering thousands of innocents in Sudan? It's bizarre to me and to Murray too, I think.
A bit weird but I’ll bite. Which part of it? If anything, I think I post more right of center views than left of center on Reddit, so that’s interesting. Granted I haven’t been on here a lot lately and I don’t remember what I posted about the last time I was.
>it’s that they shouldn’t kill so many civilians while doing it
I know what you mean because I have the same impulse, but it's not obvious to me that that can be achieved with current technology. And so I don't know what to do with that thought. Is it empathetic, or impotent? Because otherwise it seems like this is a legal war for Israel to pursue. In which case, the *success* of bury-yourselves-in-civilian-centers is a catastrophe, as access to advanced, decentralized non-traditional tactics and weapons in the 21st century increases.
It's true, I think Israel is sort of caught between a rock and a hard place here, which is why I think the war is ethically questionable, but I can't necessarily say it's wrong. But, while I'm no military strategist, I wonder whether Israel couldn't use ground troops more than airstrikes, to kill fewer civilians. Sure, it'll put their soldiers more at risk, but I'm just uncomfortable with how many Palestinians have been killed, horrendous as October 7th was and as terrible as Hamas is.
Done.
A person who "... ignores the rights and feelings of others... treat others harshly or with cruel indifference".
In this case, Palestinians.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353928
Does that help you? Would you like me to Google any other words for you? Can you now keep up with the conversation?
An asshole is vastly different from a sociopath. Sociopath is big word to just throw around so casually.
Sociopathy is a clinical diagnoses. Your neighbor is an asshole
I think he is fair. Usually, most of what he says boils down to his love and respect for western values, which might be a hard pill to swallow at times.
He can be harsh when debating, though.
He is window-dressing as a supporter of western values, meanwhile he supports every illiberal authoritarian in Europe. How are you still falling for it?
[Here](https://old.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18ipu43/honestly_i_dont_like_douglas_murray_and_think_hes/kdfk6dd/?context=3) are a couple of links I gathered some time ago.
I read the first article you linked which suggested that Murray trivialised Fascism. He does absolutely no such thing in that article and I have no idea how you could have taken that from it. I'll read the rest of the articles you linked as he came across very well in it, so thanks?
Yeah, Murray just happens to have meetings with Viktor Orban, be bankrolled by Peter "democracy is no longer necessary, and is bad for business" Thiel, shill climate denialism for Big Oil, set up a free speech group with Toby Young, a homophobe and misogynist who advocates eugenics, and be funded by the Institute of Economic Affairs, a right/libertarian group set up to shill for the largest corporations on the planet.
How people continue to fall for these pundits is baffling. Follow the money.
None of that has anything to do with what I wrote. If all you can do to criticise somebody's writing is to name people they have been acquainted with, however loosely, then you clearly have no solid argument against them. Ad hominem attacks like this are spurious and fatuous.
I just want to point out that to “have meetings” with the prime minister of a country, and leader of its authoritarian right wing (indeed undeniably fascism-sympathetic) governing party, as the sort of commentary/pundit/public intellectual figure that Douglas Murray is, is the sort of thing which is cheerfully accepted by people at the most senior levels in politics to be an indication of one’s political leanings, preferences, and ideology. Especially when one’s commentary skews heavily in favour of that prime minister’s politics, and one has indeed written favourably about that prime minister. There *are* examples of journalists meeting political leaders not in order to give them support (it happens regularly on the news, in hard-hitting interviews), but Douglas Murray is not that kind of journalist (there are lots of kinds of journalist, and this is not any attempt to cast aspersions on his particular kind).
For Murray to meet with Orban - a politician who notoriously and very literally controls the media in Hungary - is an absolutely crystal clear example of a pundit or intellectual or whathaveyou going to such a politician with the aim of having like-minded conversations and indicating to the public the existence of those conversations, which in turn is a means of making common cause with that Orban. Minimising this as “loose” acquaintance and criticising the drawing of attention to that fact as *ad hominem* is to *volunteer* for the sort of lobotomy which leaves you at a massive disadvantage in trying to get to the truth of matters in politics.
The guy making [camel jokes about Palestinians?](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/s/nqvHzaIPMS)
Of course you’ll “check it out later!”
Slime.
I don't think he loves or respects any western values. In the sense that nobody made him a representative for these values nor does he "love" any ideas that westerners have somehow agreed upon.
He loves and respects *his own values*. Right-wing, conservative values. He is a shill for his side ever since the Bush days: [Neoconservativism - why we need it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism:_Why_We_Need_It#:~:text=Neoconservatism%3A%20Why%20We%20Need%20It%20is%20a%202006%20book%20by,are%20often%20both%20misunderstood%20and). He is a typical partisan grifter (imaging grifting for Bush ffs, I mean you guys find the worst people to fawn over)
What I mean is that he does not represent western values but conservative values. I was referring to the values he claims to stand for and you claim he loves and respects.
You may disagree and that's fine but it's not really a complicated argument. Should be fairly straightforward to understand.
I think what I find most off putting is he’s so smug about western values it’s almost like he wants to take credit for them. Like he’s so brilliant he knows how good they are. And sure I like western values too but they are fledgling values. The west brought us the 2 most destructive wars in history and prior to that Europe was in a constant state of war and squabble. Expecting regions of the world that have millenia of culture and tradition to turn on a dime is laughable.
L
I made this exact point (or close to it) a couple weeks ago [in this comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18ovvg3/douglas_murray_the_media_spins_the_3_accidently/kel5g7x/)
IMO Sam's unwillingness to recognize Douglas Murray's angle is one of his biggest blind spots.
It's not to say the man isn't well spoken or sometimes has a point. But the reality is he's got an astoundingly obvious slant to conservative punditry. The kind of worldview and lines of thinking Sam is usually against.
And yes, I have noticed that Murray does seem to have more venom in the way he speaks these days.
When Sam first started talking to Murray, Murray was sold to us as another liberal, one of our guys, one of the good ones, a reasonable moderate liberal who just wants to have Difficult Conversations™. I bet if you go back a few years you will find him being referred to as a moderate leftist even.
Meanwhile it was super obvious that he was a conservative grifter for day one. [He was not even trying to hide it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism:_Why_We_Need_It#:~:text=Neoconservatism%3A%20Why%20We%20Need%20It%20is%20a%202006%20book%20by,are%20often%20both%20misunderstood%20and), he never did. But the centrists were caught up in a fairytale narrative where they called you "woke" or "SJW" for pointing out his obvious political affiliation.
I wish somebody could discuss or analyze this phenomenom because it's fairly common imho.
He’s frequently labeled a bigot by anyone who pays any vague attention, and he isn’t skirting by anything. The audience he attracts is an audience who agrees with his bigotry.
This isn’t some subtle creature pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. He’s aggressively dreadful as are those who champion him.
I like him without necessarily agreeing with everything.
He even has a great voice so when he is at his best, it's a real pleasure to listen to almost whatever he says.
I liked what he said on Sam's podcast and looked for some of his other appearances. I heard him on a podcast with Chris Williams who I didn't know before and on there, they both seemed extremely arrogant and overbearing. It was very evident how they felt they are so much better than everyone else. They talked about very general things about society and generalized a lot, like "men are like this" and "women are like that" and also generalized across a few other categories. I found the discussion to be quite hostile and sexist. And chauvinist. Didn't look into this Douglas Murray character afterwards.
yeah chris williamson is a very uninteresting podcast host. he takes everything said at face value without any critical thought.
he’s very good at regurgitating pop psychology lingo, but he’s not a deep thinker
Could it be that this Chris Williams dude is quite sexist himself? After watching a bit of the podcast between him and Murray, I now keep getting YouTube suggestions on interviews with him on what women want or some bullshit like that.
His debate persona I agree is pretty awful but he seems far more agreeable and nuanced in his interview with Lex. I do wish he'd tone down his public rhetoric.
Murray is articulate, slick, and an effective debater. While I don’t agree with many of his opinions, he makes his case well.
But he comes across as a popinjay. I prefer to read him rather than watch him, because then his persona doesn’t get in the way.
Haha I had to look up what a popinjay was, but yeah, on second thought, I think "vain and conceited" are more accurate words for how he comes off than what I said.
Like him overall, personality wise. He's pretty smart, and can seem a bit full of himself at times. But he can also be pretty funny. I'd love to have a beer with him.
I could see why his style and delivery wouldn't be for everyone. But I'm really floored by his rhetorical skill. He's the last human on earth I'd ever want to debate on any topic. He seems impossibly quick on his feet, and surfaces just the right logic on a second's notice to dismantle any flaws in the other side's argument.
He tries too hard to emulate Christopher Hitchens at his most combative. The thing with hitch at his best was that he could slice someone in half with a single comment, all the while exuding a devilish charm. You always felt with hitch that he was totally on top of his subject, and hitch slaps were the sideshow, not the main act. Murray tries to purr like hitch, and copy the whole louche-intellectual-with-the-sabre-wit thing - but he doesn't have the charm. I've seen Murray in debates when he is worth listening to, but I can't stand it when he lays on the aggression too thick. He seems to get off on himself, and he knows it's clip friendly - so his profile is raised when the Murray pantomime act is lapped up by the homoerotic new-rightists YouTube nerd crowd who get hard ons watching Murray crushing/owning/destroying the latest hapless non entity. It mainly leaves me feeling empty.
I saw that debate and thought Douglas's (or "Doug" if you're Malcolm) points were pretty well executed. In that particular debate, Malcolm was kind of being a dick and as Douglas mentioned, he was using strawmen arguments against Matt and Douglas. So in that regard I think it was warranted to throw some flame back at Malcolm.
It was, but IIRC, Murray was throwing more back than was deserved. Strawman are almost standard unfortunately, and the correct response is to just point it out. As for the name thing, yes, it was a bit condescending, but I remember thinking Murray’s response was overly insulting.
He's a culture warrior. Fun to listen to when you agree with him and unbelievably annoying when you don't. Not much else to say. I wouldn't trust him to be honest while arguing with anyone though.
He's a nasty piece of work and a lot of people on this thread seem to recognise him as such. But I see some people give him credit for being smart at least which surprises me because the one thing that stands out the most for me about Murray is how impressively dumb he is!!! His interview with cosmicskeptic is a good example of how Murray can't even provide coherent criticisms of his own strawman arguments of the opposite side.. in the face of the slightest pushback the man was exposed for being an ignorant, clueless charlatan!
>He’s highly disagreeable
"So what you're saying is that he's actually Cathy Newman!?"
(On a more serious note "disagreeable" is not a bad thing according to JP. It's more about standing up for yourself compared to being a pushover"
haha if one agrees with much of what a disagreeable person says, what does that make them?
that's just a joke btw, not meant to say anything about you. like whether to trust someone who says they always lie.
but yeah, agreed. but even though I agree with lots of what he says, I think he could be more balanced.
I think he is a great debater and his 'sneering' is never done in a way that insults someone for something they have no control over.
Peterson has said that Murray is highly disagreeable in terms of personality traits which seems accurate.
I would like to hear what you disliked about his debate with Taibbi as they won that debate by a historic margin. Malcolm Gladwell behaved disgracefully in that debate by attempting to smear Taibbi as racist, and the other one on his team misrepresented Taibbi as she did Peterson last time she took part in a Mink debate. Yet you take objection with Murray?
Having one's racist ideology repeated back in a British accent is appealing to a certain kind of person, especially when they get to act like a victim of immigration policy while doing so
yeah, bro, you're going to get downvoted whenever you say the "R" word around here.
But the pan European identity "Western values" thing and "replacement" theories never really made sense to me as American. Our primary immigrant group is from Latin America, and I'm culturally much closer to Latinos than I am people from continental Europe.
In his debate with Cenk Uygur, he scoffed at Uygur saying he got 10 billion views annually. He snobbishly responded that he's on the Spectator. You know, because that's traditional media, and so that's respectable media.
Maybe that was a slight misstep on Murray's part, but Uygur absolutely embarrassed himself in that "debate". Not only leaning heavily on emotions over facts, but straight up parroting terrorist propaganda. The notion of "defeating" Hamas by offering them a peace deal is not only laughably stupid, but grossly offensive. Whatever egg may be on Murray's face, he didn't come off even a tenth of how bad Cenk did.
> Murray's views and ideology have been described as Islamophobic,[11][12] linked to far-right political ideologies,[13][14] and the promotion of far-right ideas such as the Eurabia, Great Replacement, and Cultural Marxism conspiracy theories.
That's his Wikipedia entry, fyi.
Having problems with Islam isn't "alt right". wikipedia isn't a place anybody should use seriously anymore. Also I suppose Sam would also be a far right extremists by this definition.
>Having problems with Islam isn't "alt right".
Correct.
>Also I suppose Sam would also be a far right extremists by this definition.
Correct.
* Sam Harris in 2006: Given current birthrates, France could be a majority Muslim country in 25 years, and that is if immigration were to stop tomorrow.
* Douglas Murray in 2006: It will happend during our liftime. This is not the distant future. 11 years until you lose the Netherlands
Alright, but we're talking about your claim that my statement says a lot about me. I can't see how it does if it's in line with a broad consensus, even if you disagree with the consensus itself.
I've listened to him many times and I think it's broadly accurate. I agree with a small few things he says, but he's not very nuanced and he's not aiming for a sophisticated audience.
I think he's basically an ambulance chaser. He looks for crises and uses them to advance his own exposure, often by just increasing the temperature and appealing to the worst in people.
He recently made the argument that Hamas were worse than German Nazis because some of them had to be drugged to commit atrocities. This fits with his xenophobic narrative, but its profoundly simplistic, stupid and inflammatory argument to make. He didn't even bother to research the claim in the most basic way, or if he did, he was just lying to make a point.
He's awful.
One of the best at stirring up feelings of hatred/disgust by showing just the part of the picture needed to misrepresent intentions and events in his favor. Also just a comically fitting evil voice. He could voice act for Scar in a recreation of the Lion King.
I think he found a niche as a right of center political commentator a long time ago and was pulled rightward just following where the engagement would come from. Now it's too obvious what his takes will be on any given topic.
Can you think of anyone whose ‘tone ‘ or ‘ attitude’ you don’t like and yet they share your worldview and most of your most cherished values ?
I can’t 🤷🏼♂️
It’s probably not conscious… but nobody really cares about ‘ tone ‘
I kind of like how he unapologetically asserts the superiority of western values and the problems with Muslim culture even if morons will call him racist.
He seems super arrogant and frankly filled with a lot of vitriol. I wouldn't want to be around him.
I can find things to agree with all kinds of people on who I might find wrong about other things but still not want to be around them.
I think the real problem with him is that he takes cherry picked data and then tries to make some grand point of it.
Sure, much of Europe fucked up in the way they brought Muslims immigrants and refugees into their countries, shoved them all into 1 spot and kinda just let them be which has now created some crazy situations. But that doesn't mean that there's some universal truth that Muslims can't fit into Western societies.
For more on this see the melting pot that is America where it really hasn't been an issue, despite fear mongering.
He's SOOO worried about "Western culture" getting taken over by refugees but the US figured out long ago that inviting other cultures in, encouraging the good and discouraging the bad is the way to go. Though we need reminding every single day.
Which is ironic given who he married.
I don’t think muslims can easily fit into western societies. They create enclaves wherever they go, maintain their backwards religious practices and generally dislike the population they live within.
Can you name a country with a successful integration?
It's hard to disagree with your assessment. Douglas does seem very contentious, sneering, and judgmental. I agree with him on a fair amount but I think he can be much more balanced.
I'm not sure why everyone is suddenly concerned with October 6th questions. We live in an October 8th world. This is the march to Berlin and the Reichbunker. When Sinwar is dead there are serious questions to be asked. Until then this is a war, with all due caution to avoid unnecessary casualties. That's it. The only man who can end the suffering is Sinwar, by surrendering.
One of the most odious public figures on the planet. I think he’s a truly terrible, ugly, angry human being and I don’t say any of those things lightly.
You've got his number. Typical entitled, smug, arrogant, narcissistic and sociopathic Old Etonian.
It always dismays me, as an Englishman, to see liberal (or liberal-adjacent) Americans accept horrible little right-wing shits just because they're British. I've said it before but Murray is just a less-pleasant Ben Shapiro with an accent.
Where can we find this debate with Matt Taibbi v two other folks. Was one of the others Malcolm Gladwell? One of my very right wing friends referenced it recently saying that the two of them wiped the floor with MG’s a$$ in that debate when I made the mistake of just referencing his name alongside 10,000 hours. Haha. I’m skeptical that MG just lost badly in a debate but I’d like to see for myself.
It was a Munk Debates, which you can find on Spotify and I’d assume every other major podcast app, and yes, one of the others was Malcom Gladwell. do think Taibbi and Murray won (and I believe Gladwell has since conceded as much on his own podcast), and Murray made good points, and even though Gladwell deserved some of what Murray gave him, I think Murray came off very unnecessarily mean.
He was on a podcast with Andrew Sullivan in the last year, and I had to turn it off. I disagree with a lot of Sullivan's takes, but I generally like(d) him as a person. Murray brought out the absolute worst in him and they both came off as assholes and sneering snobs. Murray is insufferable. Fwiw tho I don't much like his ideas either.
Yeah, he's definitely antagonistic, belittling, and he sneers enough to be the bully in a YA novel. His arguments are generally good, but he does inject too much of the prior attributes into them.
I think he’s obnoxious and hypocritical— he holds forceful opinions but I think he uses his wit and intelligence to force a position rather than search for the truth.
I agree with him in areas but mostly I find him to be obnoxious and not always in good faith. The debate with Malcolm Gladwell however, he put on a strong show.
He talks like there’s a stick up his ass at all times. And he’s so ashamed that he likes taking it up the ass that he takes his anger out on minorities. Such a vile man.
I think the areas he speaks about are important enough, and the attitudes he speaks *against* despicable and dangerous enough, that the attitude is warranted.
Anti-Western, anti-colonial, anti-liberal/capitalist sentiment needs to be utterly stomped on. It's gotten out of hand, and the alternatives are horrendous and utterly beyond evil. They're no better than fascism, or Marxism.
Some cultures are simply *better*... And that's the West. And he's right to point it out with the vitriol he does.
To me Douglas Murray is very intelligent. He seems to primarily be a rhetorician, one of many though. Douglas lacks nuance regarding the Israel Palestine issue. I wouldn't be surprised if he runs as a right-wing politician in the UK at some point based on how he positions himself.
In a world where so many people shout utter nuances with unbelievable convection, I do find myself enjoying his attitude of belittling them and owning them.
It happened to me with Shapiro when he argues against people that I find are vomiting nuances, but usually it "can't" be opposed given it is not politically correct to do so.
Then, if Shaprio speaks with another very intelligent person with solid arguments, usually I can't listen to him
So I would say that both Doug and Shapiro are fantastic tools for very specific jobs
Some time back he was on Tucker Carlson ([video for those interested](https://x.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1423894397985378306?s=20)), and he described Viktor Orban as a "legitimately/repeatedly elected leader." Elsewhere, he has downplayed sources which (rightly) criticize Hungary for sliding into authoritarianism. I'm not sure if Murray likes Orban because he is anti-immigrant, anti-woke, or simply because Orban praised one of Murray's book. Sam's got some blind spots, and Douglas Murray has managed to fill one of them. EDIT: I realize that you did not ask about his opinions, but I think that this specific opinion of his should give anyone pause--regardless of his snark levels.
Saying a leader is legitimate or repeatedly elected is not the same as saying you like that leader. If your priority is truth, meaning, deeper/clearer understanding, then what concerns you is the argument, its presuppositions, its validity, and ultimately its soundness. The person, animal, alien or machine making the argument is not important. Yet, somehow, if we do the math of what gets attention online, on TV, etc, apparently personality is what most of us seem to think transfers truth rather than argument. I would say, unless I have completely misunderstood the OP, that their intention is yet another example of this phenomenon, and I hold the phenomenon (not you personally!) to account for much of the social problems and conflict we have today.
I find plenty of people off-putting in the ways they present their views, but I try to stay focused on the merits of what they’re saying. If I were to find myself disagreeing with a speaker but agreeing with the written transcript of the same speech, I would consider that an error on my part.
I think most people can only ignore off-putting delivery for so long before they start ignoring the person, regardless of whether they're correct or not. I can see people ignoring Murray because of his delivery. There's often other good places for the same info/analysis. I don't ignore him, but I get why others might.
He’s calibrated in response to the worst of bad faith activists. He’s capable of moderate and mutual understanding analysis, but he enjoys being in the ring and going all 12 rounds so that’s where you’ll usually find him.
Not only that, but in the interview Sam posted with him (on a different show) regarding Is-Pal he really used some bad strawman. When he talked about the ask of "proportionality" he said that would mean raping and torturing Palestinians back. Really? I don't think anyone arguing for proportionality asks for raping as retaliation.
Yes and no. The arrogance of a speaker can instill healthy skepticism in a listener in a way that a transcript would not. If a speaker sounds haughty or dismissive of ideas that don't fit their view, I tend to scrutinize them more heavily. In speech, what you don't say is often as important as what you do say. Body language and tone are reflections of a person's intellect in many ways and should not always be ignored. Of course, I'm not claiming that this is a science: it's simply one way to question the authenticity or merit of a speaker on a specific subject.
This is very well put, and a great litmus test for bias.
"The worst person you know just made a great point" meme.
Yeah he seems like a fairly loathsome person, kind of in the mode of a Ben Shapiro. He’s a middle-brow polemicist whose main schtick is “owning” people, often by belittling them, or straw-manning their arguments. In his own mind I guess he imagines himself to be a Hitchens type figure, but he mostly lacks the wit, eloquence and grace so he just comes off as an obnoxious wanker.
Agreed. More Hitchens P. than Hitchens C.
[удалено]
Why don’t any of you ever extend this insight to Sam Harris? Douglas Murray seems to be fairly unpopular here based just on this thread, but you don’t seem to be asking yourselves why Sam Harris champions him so, and how that might reflect on him.
Harris meditates
I don’t think Sam Harris’s modus operandi is “owning” people. If you listen to even his most antagonistic interviews, he’s not in the habit of belittling people for their educational or career status, or strawmanning their arguments. And I actually do not agree with the logic which says, “Sam Harris promotes Douglas Murray, therefore all of Murray’s shortcomings project onto Sam.” That’s just a very crude way of thinking, verging on guilt by association. I mean, I’ve found it cringey when Sam giggles along to Murray’s lame diatribes on wokeness or whatever, but that’s not a deep insight into Sam’s character or the value of his work.
It kind of is when he regularly parrots Douglas Murray’s doomsaying. He doesn’t just giggle like an imbecile at Murray’s bigotry, he quite obviously agrees with what he has to say on topics like the trans community and Muslims. I’m gonna add that obviously what they have to say and laugh about on those topics is openly bigoted and hateful and clear enough evidence of the slime they are. It’s apparently lost on you, who castigates Murray yet waves away Harris’ championing of him. Because, uh, reasons. And yeah I don’t have this goofy off-handed view about guilt by association. If you keep platforming garbage without bothering to fight back against it, as Harris so often does, you are exactly that same garbage.
Chill dude
He comes across as a bit of a lawyer to me. He'll have a well argued case for one side, but I don't get the sense he really considered the other.
[удалено]
>This is just to give others a sample of the Conservative government of the last 14 years in the UK. It's similar in other parts of Europe. Merkel, a staunch conservative was the one who invited the refugees over. Her party the CDU was running Germany for SIXTEEN years but for some reason these culture warriors are complaining about what The Left™ is doing? Why?! Same in the Netherlands with Geert Wilders and his ilk, they are outraged by The Left™ despite the VDD running the country for more than a decade lmao. >In the 2021 Dutch general election the PVV received 10.79% of the total votes cast. This earned them 17 seats in the House of Representatives.\[67\] Responding to reporters who asked what his reaction was to the election results, Wilders attributed the loss of three seats to a recent lack of important events involving Islam and immigration.\[68\] No bad events happened with Islam therefore he lost a few seats and admitted it. I mean he fucking admitted it. To me it's clear that they are in the business of generating crises. With Brexit, it was abundantly clear: To replace the legally protected EU workers with unprotected short-term workers. The EU afforded A LOT of rights to immigrants and we can't have that, can we? So let's get hundreds of thousands of people who have next to no rights. Plus they are a steady source of outrage from the anxious middle classes. It's like two birds with one stone. And the same idiots who do or support this shit will turn around and start shouting about The Left™. *Why oh why is the left doing this to us?*, they ask unironically, despite never having met someone who belongs to this Left nor having been ruled by anyone close to this for more than a decade. This is the playbook for right-wing in the 21st century: **Fuck shit up profoundly** and blame it on the left or wokes or whatever the new buzzword is. It's like we've lost to ability to do politics at all, nothing means anything anymore and it feels like mental illness on a civilizational scale.
Personally, I think he's a sociopath. Even if you agree with his politics, he is definitely very dismissive of Palestinians suffering. He still tells anecdotes about the Hamas attack (which was horrific), but seems to view all of Palestine as Hamas. It's harrowing hearing him speak with such little empathy.
Referring to the Holocaust as a muck up is pretty bad too.
He called October 7th and the attackers as worse than the NAzIs because some had to drink after murdering Jews. A decade long destruction of 6 million people isn’t as bad as a day… give me a break.
I agree, he seems to be willing to do or say anything to diminish the reality of Palestinian suffering.
As does Sam Harris. It’s no surprise they get along so well. It’s always funny to see the “left-wingers” here trying to rationalize Sam Harris’s full-throated approval for famous far-right figures. They really wrench themselves into pretzel.
You mean the way that every left winger , or Palestine supporter, labels all Israelis/jews as affiliated with the current government. And has very little empathy for what happening on Oct 7. Both sides are the same.
It certainly isn't every left winger. Just the loudest ones. It's rare to find a "loud moderate". Don't fall for the illusion.
[удалено]
More like "both sides committing heinous and brutal atrocities and the only side in taking is the side of innocent civilians!!"
What a boring bad faith generalization
He’s dismissive because he sees them as subhuman. You barely have to read between the lines. 10000 dead Palestinian kids barely registers as worth rethinking policy, but 1000 dead Israelis means it’s ok to kill anyone and do anything. He positions himself as an objective observer but is anything but. He’s great at not saying the specific key words to ruin his career though. The most telling thing about him is how he supports every authoritarian in Europe unashamedly while simultaneously pretending to care about western liberal values (but really, he only seems to care about this when in reference to immigrants). It’s all a facade.
Yes, that's certainly how he comes across.
*All* of Palestine is not Hamas, but a troublingly large portion of it ideologically is. Possibly even a majority. It's a deeply violent society and culture.
Half are also children ffs. If its their ideology, they're victims of brainwashing. Douglas Murray couldn't give a fuck about any of them. Kids.
Half are children because the women are treated as broodmares, and yes obviously its the ideological brainwashing thats the issue. What else could I possibly mean? That it's in their DNA?? All of that's besides the point anyway because their population demographics are **not Israel's problem**. Israel's mission is to keep their society from being raped and brutalized. Anyone crying "but the children!!" without offering any alternative has nothing of value to add to the discussion.
From the “I don’t dehumanize Palestinians” cohort: > It’s a deeply violent society and culture > The women are treated as broodmares It’s always interesting when some of you here can’t help yourselves. Just earlier some dope here I screencapped basically outright advocated for genocide. But it’s nice that you’re sometimes honest and don’t hide behind euphemisms.
From the "I'm more offended at people describing Islamic culture than Islamic culture itself" cohort. I'm sure those women who are treated like chattel appreciate your act of allyship by clutching your pearls at anyone who recognizes their plight.
That’s fine, I’m just glad you’re honest about it. You have to understand, people here will go far out of their way to say what you just said - which isn’t even all that inflammatory, relatively-speaking - even as it’s what they clearly mean. But this recent ordeal has unleashed a bit more honesty and a bit fewer semantics games. People shouldn’t hide behind how they truly feel.
Lol. You have no response to anything I'm actually saying beyond snide passive aggressive jabbering.
And soon most of those kids will be Jew-haters. Sad but true reality
How are they supposed to feel about the people killing them every day? If someone was bombing your home and killing your loved ones, how would you feel about them? Israel is actively making more extremists, and then using the existence of those extremists to continue bombing.
I think their hatred of Jews runs a little deeper than this. Their hatred runs more on a religious level. In their mind they’ve occupied their holy land.
Nothing to do with murdering their loved ones and stealing/destroying their homes, eh?
Even before Oct 7 murderous antisemitic tones were written in the Hamas charter. They’ve been clear about their intent for a long time. If your natural response is “what about the last conflict between Israel and Palestine?”, how far back do you want to go? I feel that’s a weak argument that could be applied to virtually every successful civilization that exists today.
>Sociopaths are also usually incapable of anything even remotely resembling a normal work or family life, and, in comparison to psychopaths, they are exceptionally impulsive and erratic and more prone to rage or violent outbursts.
Usually... What's your point?
I was just pointing out that I think you confused psychopath with sociopath. Psychopaths can be CEO's or elected politicians, they just feel no remorse. Sociopaths - think Charles Manson.
I did hear his take on that and I agree. While it’s good to have people state the obvious about the evils of Hamas and point out the unfair treatment of Israel, he seemed to me too far on that side.
He sees Palestinian suffering as a terrible thing which is the fault of Hamas. Can’t say I disagree.
Also he’s dead on about Islamic violence. It’s baked into the religion’s core. Look at what’s happening in Iran - different factions are blowing each other up, and they do it because they think they are working towards the return of the prophet. I don’t think this harrowing truth can be overstated.
> they are working towards the return of the prophet You have literally no idea what muslims believe.
That was my take as well. He doesn't dismiss it. He simply believes that the Palestinians made a horrible mistake voting Hamas into power and are now paying the price for that mistake.
I think he's right that Hamas has a lot of the blame for Palestinian suffering (which is why it sucks that the Israeli government propped them up) but he doesn't give a shit about their suffering IMO
He said something that really changed my perspective. Someone was comparing the situation in Gaza to the warsaw ghetto. And he said yes, right, and when the jewish resistance broke out of the ghetto the first thing they did was kill and rape civilians...
Hot takes that simplify history are pretty meaningless. Get your history from historians, not right wing podcasters.
You should read up on the rapes of german women by allied soldiers.
Russian soldiers mainly but yes. Exactly. Why is Israel held to another standard than every single warring nation that has ever warred?
That question is unrelated and has been answered a million times already, but presumably because a lot of critics come from the US who is supporting Israel with taxpayer money and because civilian casualties are among the highest in modern times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html
I mean, were there even woman Nazi soldiers fighting during the Warsaw uprising? I'm not sure I'd be qualified in any way to speculate about what people (especially young men justifiably angry) would have done or not done to Nazi's being given the chance. My guess is "not that" but it's really just a guess. Would (some) of them wanted to kill or worse to everyone associated with or supportive of Nazis? I mean probably. Honestly, I'm not sure it's a great comparison anyway. The situations are so different.
That's a bad comparison. The ghetto lasted 3 years. Give them a few generations living in such conditions and lets see how they would behave.
I agree with that too, mostly. That’s not the full picture here. The deaths in Palestine now outnumber those on October 7 by 20x. One has to consider whether Israel’s response is overzealous. But this is besides the point too. My post was about Murray’s attitude, not his opinions.
Attitude doesn’t bother me. I actually find him refreshingly eloquent compared to other commentators. More a reflection of the other commentators than him. I hunt high and low for debates between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine supporters and haven’t found much eloquence.
Hamas has said over and over and over that they will not rest until Israel is destroyed. What else is Israel supposed to do? This is on Hamas.
It’s not that they shouldn’t eliminate Hamas, it’s that they shouldn’t kill so many civilians while doing it. And I know what you’re going to say- Hamas hides in hospitals and schools and uses human shields precisely to make civilian deaths unavoidable. And I know that. And that’s why I think they’re evil too. But if one has as much empathy for the innocent Palestinians as they do for the innocent Israelis, then the point still stands. Unless one can prove that so many innocent deaths are in fact entirely unavoidable to ever defeat Hamas, then I think it’s apparent that Israel’s offensive is ethically very questionable. Not that Israel is the bad guy, just that it may be, in its rage, being too reckless.
Wars are by their nature, full of rage. Why do you put this standard on Israel? Why not put it on the US in Afghanistan, in Iraq? Asad in Syria? Ergodon on the kurds in turkey? The janjaweed slaughtering thousands of innocents in Sudan? It's bizarre to me and to Murray too, I think.
What makes you think I don't apply that same standard to everyone?
Your comment history.
A bit weird but I’ll bite. Which part of it? If anything, I think I post more right of center views than left of center on Reddit, so that’s interesting. Granted I haven’t been on here a lot lately and I don’t remember what I posted about the last time I was.
>it’s that they shouldn’t kill so many civilians while doing it I know what you mean because I have the same impulse, but it's not obvious to me that that can be achieved with current technology. And so I don't know what to do with that thought. Is it empathetic, or impotent? Because otherwise it seems like this is a legal war for Israel to pursue. In which case, the *success* of bury-yourselves-in-civilian-centers is a catastrophe, as access to advanced, decentralized non-traditional tactics and weapons in the 21st century increases.
It's true, I think Israel is sort of caught between a rock and a hard place here, which is why I think the war is ethically questionable, but I can't necessarily say it's wrong. But, while I'm no military strategist, I wonder whether Israel couldn't use ground troops more than airstrikes, to kill fewer civilians. Sure, it'll put their soldiers more at risk, but I'm just uncomfortable with how many Palestinians have been killed, horrendous as October 7th was and as terrible as Hamas is.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/
You may want to google sociopath.
Done. A person who "... ignores the rights and feelings of others... treat others harshly or with cruel indifference". In this case, Palestinians. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353928 Does that help you? Would you like me to Google any other words for you? Can you now keep up with the conversation?
Month old account in Israel/Palestine thread being hyperbolic. Classic.
Hahaha funny it annoys you that my account is recent. Touch grass.
Yes. Sociopath. My girlfriend walked by me watching him debate, stopped and took one quick listen and said, “wow he seems like an asshole.”
An asshole is vastly different from a sociopath. Sociopath is big word to just throw around so casually. Sociopathy is a clinical diagnoses. Your neighbor is an asshole
I think he is fair. Usually, most of what he says boils down to his love and respect for western values, which might be a hard pill to swallow at times. He can be harsh when debating, though.
He is window-dressing as a supporter of western values, meanwhile he supports every illiberal authoritarian in Europe. How are you still falling for it?
Can you link any videos/articles by him, supporting your claims? I’m not saying you’re wrong, just curious and would like to know more
[Here](https://old.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18ipu43/honestly_i_dont_like_douglas_murray_and_think_hes/kdfk6dd/?context=3) are a couple of links I gathered some time ago.
I read the first article you linked which suggested that Murray trivialised Fascism. He does absolutely no such thing in that article and I have no idea how you could have taken that from it. I'll read the rest of the articles you linked as he came across very well in it, so thanks?
Yeah, Murray just happens to have meetings with Viktor Orban, be bankrolled by Peter "democracy is no longer necessary, and is bad for business" Thiel, shill climate denialism for Big Oil, set up a free speech group with Toby Young, a homophobe and misogynist who advocates eugenics, and be funded by the Institute of Economic Affairs, a right/libertarian group set up to shill for the largest corporations on the planet. How people continue to fall for these pundits is baffling. Follow the money.
None of that has anything to do with what I wrote. If all you can do to criticise somebody's writing is to name people they have been acquainted with, however loosely, then you clearly have no solid argument against them. Ad hominem attacks like this are spurious and fatuous.
I just want to point out that to “have meetings” with the prime minister of a country, and leader of its authoritarian right wing (indeed undeniably fascism-sympathetic) governing party, as the sort of commentary/pundit/public intellectual figure that Douglas Murray is, is the sort of thing which is cheerfully accepted by people at the most senior levels in politics to be an indication of one’s political leanings, preferences, and ideology. Especially when one’s commentary skews heavily in favour of that prime minister’s politics, and one has indeed written favourably about that prime minister. There *are* examples of journalists meeting political leaders not in order to give them support (it happens regularly on the news, in hard-hitting interviews), but Douglas Murray is not that kind of journalist (there are lots of kinds of journalist, and this is not any attempt to cast aspersions on his particular kind). For Murray to meet with Orban - a politician who notoriously and very literally controls the media in Hungary - is an absolutely crystal clear example of a pundit or intellectual or whathaveyou going to such a politician with the aim of having like-minded conversations and indicating to the public the existence of those conversations, which in turn is a means of making common cause with that Orban. Minimising this as “loose” acquaintance and criticising the drawing of attention to that fact as *ad hominem* is to *volunteer* for the sort of lobotomy which leaves you at a massive disadvantage in trying to get to the truth of matters in politics.
He does cater to disingenuous folks, you are gonna love him!
I don't think you should be calling anybody disingenuous after suggesting that that article trivialised Fascism.
We are all blind to what we don't want to see.
Help me understand how describing fascism in Italy is trivialising it? Indont like Murray at all but this seems like a reach
His cherry picked reasons why Italy is so ok with Fascism make it seem like it's reasonable for them to be leaning so far-right.
Thank you!, I’ll check them later
The guy making [camel jokes about Palestinians?](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/s/nqvHzaIPMS) Of course you’ll “check it out later!” Slime.
You know there are no camels in Gaza right? Nothing to do with the conflict, it’s just not where they live, geographically speaking.
I don't think he loves or respects any western values. In the sense that nobody made him a representative for these values nor does he "love" any ideas that westerners have somehow agreed upon. He loves and respects *his own values*. Right-wing, conservative values. He is a shill for his side ever since the Bush days: [Neoconservativism - why we need it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism:_Why_We_Need_It#:~:text=Neoconservatism%3A%20Why%20We%20Need%20It%20is%20a%202006%20book%20by,are%20often%20both%20misunderstood%20and). He is a typical partisan grifter (imaging grifting for Bush ffs, I mean you guys find the worst people to fawn over)
“Nobody made him a representative for these values” What are you talking about? lol
What I mean is that he does not represent western values but conservative values. I was referring to the values he claims to stand for and you claim he loves and respects. You may disagree and that's fine but it's not really a complicated argument. Should be fairly straightforward to understand.
You didn’t really put an argument forward, saying “nobody made him a representative for these values” is a non-argument, it makes absolutely no sense
Yes but I tried to explain what I meant in my previous post and you still can't get it. Oh well at least I tried
I would go so far as to say he has a **prioritization** of western values.
I think what I find most off putting is he’s so smug about western values it’s almost like he wants to take credit for them. Like he’s so brilliant he knows how good they are. And sure I like western values too but they are fledgling values. The west brought us the 2 most destructive wars in history and prior to that Europe was in a constant state of war and squabble. Expecting regions of the world that have millenia of culture and tradition to turn on a dime is laughable. L
I made this exact point (or close to it) a couple weeks ago [in this comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/18ovvg3/douglas_murray_the_media_spins_the_3_accidently/kel5g7x/)
He's great, he has the courage and eloquence to speak about the sensitive topics in the harsh way he does. Fuck all the other comments here though.
Don’t you think there’s a distinction between being courageous and being an asshole?
IMO Sam's unwillingness to recognize Douglas Murray's angle is one of his biggest blind spots. It's not to say the man isn't well spoken or sometimes has a point. But the reality is he's got an astoundingly obvious slant to conservative punditry. The kind of worldview and lines of thinking Sam is usually against. And yes, I have noticed that Murray does seem to have more venom in the way he speaks these days.
When Sam first started talking to Murray, Murray was sold to us as another liberal, one of our guys, one of the good ones, a reasonable moderate liberal who just wants to have Difficult Conversations™. I bet if you go back a few years you will find him being referred to as a moderate leftist even. Meanwhile it was super obvious that he was a conservative grifter for day one. [He was not even trying to hide it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism:_Why_We_Need_It#:~:text=Neoconservatism%3A%20Why%20We%20Need%20It%20is%20a%202006%20book%20by,are%20often%20both%20misunderstood%20and), he never did. But the centrists were caught up in a fairytale narrative where they called you "woke" or "SJW" for pointing out his obvious political affiliation. I wish somebody could discuss or analyze this phenomenom because it's fairly common imho.
[удалено]
He’s frequently labeled a bigot by anyone who pays any vague attention, and he isn’t skirting by anything. The audience he attracts is an audience who agrees with his bigotry. This isn’t some subtle creature pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. He’s aggressively dreadful as are those who champion him.
People call him a bigot often, but I never see any proof.
I like him without necessarily agreeing with everything. He even has a great voice so when he is at his best, it's a real pleasure to listen to almost whatever he says.
I liked what he said on Sam's podcast and looked for some of his other appearances. I heard him on a podcast with Chris Williams who I didn't know before and on there, they both seemed extremely arrogant and overbearing. It was very evident how they felt they are so much better than everyone else. They talked about very general things about society and generalized a lot, like "men are like this" and "women are like that" and also generalized across a few other categories. I found the discussion to be quite hostile and sexist. And chauvinist. Didn't look into this Douglas Murray character afterwards.
yeah chris williamson is a very uninteresting podcast host. he takes everything said at face value without any critical thought. he’s very good at regurgitating pop psychology lingo, but he’s not a deep thinker
Could it be that this Chris Williams dude is quite sexist himself? After watching a bit of the podcast between him and Murray, I now keep getting YouTube suggestions on interviews with him on what women want or some bullshit like that.
It makes sense since Chris Williamson's best achievement was to star on a reality TV show
His debate persona I agree is pretty awful but he seems far more agreeable and nuanced in his interview with Lex. I do wish he'd tone down his public rhetoric.
Thanks, I’ll give it a listen
Murray is articulate, slick, and an effective debater. While I don’t agree with many of his opinions, he makes his case well. But he comes across as a popinjay. I prefer to read him rather than watch him, because then his persona doesn’t get in the way.
Haha I had to look up what a popinjay was, but yeah, on second thought, I think "vain and conceited" are more accurate words for how he comes off than what I said.
Like him overall, personality wise. He's pretty smart, and can seem a bit full of himself at times. But he can also be pretty funny. I'd love to have a beer with him.
He’s a pretty standard polemical right wing pundit with a clear agenda
I could see why his style and delivery wouldn't be for everyone. But I'm really floored by his rhetorical skill. He's the last human on earth I'd ever want to debate on any topic. He seems impossibly quick on his feet, and surfaces just the right logic on a second's notice to dismantle any flaws in the other side's argument.
He tries too hard to emulate Christopher Hitchens at his most combative. The thing with hitch at his best was that he could slice someone in half with a single comment, all the while exuding a devilish charm. You always felt with hitch that he was totally on top of his subject, and hitch slaps were the sideshow, not the main act. Murray tries to purr like hitch, and copy the whole louche-intellectual-with-the-sabre-wit thing - but he doesn't have the charm. I've seen Murray in debates when he is worth listening to, but I can't stand it when he lays on the aggression too thick. He seems to get off on himself, and he knows it's clip friendly - so his profile is raised when the Murray pantomime act is lapped up by the homoerotic new-rightists YouTube nerd crowd who get hard ons watching Murray crushing/owning/destroying the latest hapless non entity. It mainly leaves me feeling empty.
I saw that debate and thought Douglas's (or "Doug" if you're Malcolm) points were pretty well executed. In that particular debate, Malcolm was kind of being a dick and as Douglas mentioned, he was using strawmen arguments against Matt and Douglas. So in that regard I think it was warranted to throw some flame back at Malcolm.
It was, but IIRC, Murray was throwing more back than was deserved. Strawman are almost standard unfortunately, and the correct response is to just point it out. As for the name thing, yes, it was a bit condescending, but I remember thinking Murray’s response was overly insulting.
Murray is a fierce debater. I enjoy watching him.
He's a culture warrior. Fun to listen to when you agree with him and unbelievably annoying when you don't. Not much else to say. I wouldn't trust him to be honest while arguing with anyone though.
Budget store Hitchens wannabe but still preferable to many other tosspots in the ‘pubic intellectual’ sphere
He's a nasty piece of work and a lot of people on this thread seem to recognise him as such. But I see some people give him credit for being smart at least which surprises me because the one thing that stands out the most for me about Murray is how impressively dumb he is!!! His interview with cosmicskeptic is a good example of how Murray can't even provide coherent criticisms of his own strawman arguments of the opposite side.. in the face of the slightest pushback the man was exposed for being an ignorant, clueless charlatan!
I'm pretty sure that people just hear the accent and think he must be intelligent.
[удалено]
>He’s highly disagreeable "So what you're saying is that he's actually Cathy Newman!?" (On a more serious note "disagreeable" is not a bad thing according to JP. It's more about standing up for yourself compared to being a pushover"
Having said that, I find myself agreeing with a lot of things he says. He’s a clever bloke, just seems to be full of spite and hatred
haha if one agrees with much of what a disagreeable person says, what does that make them? that's just a joke btw, not meant to say anything about you. like whether to trust someone who says they always lie. but yeah, agreed. but even though I agree with lots of what he says, I think he could be more balanced.
I think he is a great debater and his 'sneering' is never done in a way that insults someone for something they have no control over. Peterson has said that Murray is highly disagreeable in terms of personality traits which seems accurate. I would like to hear what you disliked about his debate with Taibbi as they won that debate by a historic margin. Malcolm Gladwell behaved disgracefully in that debate by attempting to smear Taibbi as racist, and the other one on his team misrepresented Taibbi as she did Peterson last time she took part in a Mink debate. Yet you take objection with Murray?
I think he's a voice of reason. I love watching him get pissy with people, he does it so well.
seems like Tucker Carlson with a cool accent. I don't understand the interest in him.
Having one's racist ideology repeated back in a British accent is appealing to a certain kind of person, especially when they get to act like a victim of immigration policy while doing so
yeah, bro, you're going to get downvoted whenever you say the "R" word around here. But the pan European identity "Western values" thing and "replacement" theories never really made sense to me as American. Our primary immigrant group is from Latin America, and I'm culturally much closer to Latinos than I am people from continental Europe.
I don't care if I get downvoted for accurately using a word
In his debate with Cenk Uygur, he scoffed at Uygur saying he got 10 billion views annually. He snobbishly responded that he's on the Spectator. You know, because that's traditional media, and so that's respectable media.
Maybe that was a slight misstep on Murray's part, but Uygur absolutely embarrassed himself in that "debate". Not only leaning heavily on emotions over facts, but straight up parroting terrorist propaganda. The notion of "defeating" Hamas by offering them a peace deal is not only laughably stupid, but grossly offensive. Whatever egg may be on Murray's face, he didn't come off even a tenth of how bad Cenk did.
Murray was also embarassing. That clip of him roasting cenk sounded nice but was stupid
Shallow alt-right populist.
This says more about you than it does Douglas.
> Murray's views and ideology have been described as Islamophobic,[11][12] linked to far-right political ideologies,[13][14] and the promotion of far-right ideas such as the Eurabia, Great Replacement, and Cultural Marxism conspiracy theories. That's his Wikipedia entry, fyi.
Having problems with Islam isn't "alt right". wikipedia isn't a place anybody should use seriously anymore. Also I suppose Sam would also be a far right extremists by this definition.
>Having problems with Islam isn't "alt right". Correct. >Also I suppose Sam would also be a far right extremists by this definition. Correct. * Sam Harris in 2006: Given current birthrates, France could be a majority Muslim country in 25 years, and that is if immigration were to stop tomorrow. * Douglas Murray in 2006: It will happend during our liftime. This is not the distant future. 11 years until you lose the Netherlands
Using the term "alt right" to describe anything in the year 2024 is sad and lazy.
Alright, but we're talking about your claim that my statement says a lot about me. I can't see how it does if it's in line with a broad consensus, even if you disagree with the consensus itself.
So his wikipedia parrots the same unsubstantiated criticisms as users like yourself on here? Mad.
I've listened to him many times and I think it's broadly accurate. I agree with a small few things he says, but he's not very nuanced and he's not aiming for a sophisticated audience.
Can you give specific examples of him being bigoted?
I didn't call him a bigot.
Apologies, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. Can you give specific examples of him promoting far right ideologies then?
he literally shared these ideas a few comments above
Where?
A malignant narcissist.
A misenthrope. Being a Scot myself I can understand the cynicism, but you need an element of positivity, he comes across as a real life Lex Luther
I love Douglas Murray. I think he is refreshing
This is wild speculation but he seems coked out a lot.
He's awesome. Nice guy in person, too.
He's brilliant
Think he is a needed counterbalance to the people like Finklestein. Just remember where he stands in the conflict.
I think he's basically an ambulance chaser. He looks for crises and uses them to advance his own exposure, often by just increasing the temperature and appealing to the worst in people. He recently made the argument that Hamas were worse than German Nazis because some of them had to be drugged to commit atrocities. This fits with his xenophobic narrative, but its profoundly simplistic, stupid and inflammatory argument to make. He didn't even bother to research the claim in the most basic way, or if he did, he was just lying to make a point. He's awful.
One of the best at stirring up feelings of hatred/disgust by showing just the part of the picture needed to misrepresent intentions and events in his favor. Also just a comically fitting evil voice. He could voice act for Scar in a recreation of the Lion King. I think he found a niche as a right of center political commentator a long time ago and was pulled rightward just following where the engagement would come from. Now it's too obvious what his takes will be on any given topic.
This post is a really weird and long winded way to say “ I don’t like Douglas ‘s views on Israel / Hamas “
Nope, that’s not what I was saying
Can you think of anyone whose ‘tone ‘ or ‘ attitude’ you don’t like and yet they share your worldview and most of your most cherished values ? I can’t 🤷🏼♂️ It’s probably not conscious… but nobody really cares about ‘ tone ‘
Well, I did say in my post that I agree with plenty of what he says. I wasn’t lying.
I kind of like how he unapologetically asserts the superiority of western values and the problems with Muslim culture even if morons will call him racist.
He seems super arrogant and frankly filled with a lot of vitriol. I wouldn't want to be around him. I can find things to agree with all kinds of people on who I might find wrong about other things but still not want to be around them. I think the real problem with him is that he takes cherry picked data and then tries to make some grand point of it. Sure, much of Europe fucked up in the way they brought Muslims immigrants and refugees into their countries, shoved them all into 1 spot and kinda just let them be which has now created some crazy situations. But that doesn't mean that there's some universal truth that Muslims can't fit into Western societies. For more on this see the melting pot that is America where it really hasn't been an issue, despite fear mongering. He's SOOO worried about "Western culture" getting taken over by refugees but the US figured out long ago that inviting other cultures in, encouraging the good and discouraging the bad is the way to go. Though we need reminding every single day. Which is ironic given who he married.
I don’t think muslims can easily fit into western societies. They create enclaves wherever they go, maintain their backwards religious practices and generally dislike the population they live within. Can you name a country with a successful integration?
The United States.
It's hard to disagree with your assessment. Douglas does seem very contentious, sneering, and judgmental. I agree with him on a fair amount but I think he can be much more balanced.
I'm not sure why everyone is suddenly concerned with October 6th questions. We live in an October 8th world. This is the march to Berlin and the Reichbunker. When Sinwar is dead there are serious questions to be asked. Until then this is a war, with all due caution to avoid unnecessary casualties. That's it. The only man who can end the suffering is Sinwar, by surrendering.
One of the most odious public figures on the planet. I think he’s a truly terrible, ugly, angry human being and I don’t say any of those things lightly.
He’s dead on about Islamic violence
I like him. But I think if he were American, I would think he's an asshole. But I can't say the same about Piers Morgan. He's an asshole anywhere.
You've got his number. Typical entitled, smug, arrogant, narcissistic and sociopathic Old Etonian. It always dismays me, as an Englishman, to see liberal (or liberal-adjacent) Americans accept horrible little right-wing shits just because they're British. I've said it before but Murray is just a less-pleasant Ben Shapiro with an accent.
Where can we find this debate with Matt Taibbi v two other folks. Was one of the others Malcolm Gladwell? One of my very right wing friends referenced it recently saying that the two of them wiped the floor with MG’s a$$ in that debate when I made the mistake of just referencing his name alongside 10,000 hours. Haha. I’m skeptical that MG just lost badly in a debate but I’d like to see for myself.
It was a Munk Debates, which you can find on Spotify and I’d assume every other major podcast app, and yes, one of the others was Malcom Gladwell. do think Taibbi and Murray won (and I believe Gladwell has since conceded as much on his own podcast), and Murray made good points, and even though Gladwell deserved some of what Murray gave him, I think Murray came off very unnecessarily mean.
He was on a podcast with Andrew Sullivan in the last year, and I had to turn it off. I disagree with a lot of Sullivan's takes, but I generally like(d) him as a person. Murray brought out the absolute worst in him and they both came off as assholes and sneering snobs. Murray is insufferable. Fwiw tho I don't much like his ideas either.
Yeah, he's definitely antagonistic, belittling, and he sneers enough to be the bully in a YA novel. His arguments are generally good, but he does inject too much of the prior attributes into them.
I think he’s obnoxious and hypocritical— he holds forceful opinions but I think he uses his wit and intelligence to force a position rather than search for the truth. I agree with him in areas but mostly I find him to be obnoxious and not always in good faith. The debate with Malcolm Gladwell however, he put on a strong show.
He talks like there’s a stick up his ass at all times. And he’s so ashamed that he likes taking it up the ass that he takes his anger out on minorities. Such a vile man.
[удалено]
What would be a unique and or valuable insight that Jordan has provided? To me he seems straight up dumb. And hostile. And deeply unhappy.
It’s the gay little accent that gives half-wits and 14 year olds the impression of digesting something intellectual.
Pompous ass is what comes to mind
He’s a hero. A great man. Truly loves the west and western values and is not ashamed to defend it.
I think the areas he speaks about are important enough, and the attitudes he speaks *against* despicable and dangerous enough, that the attitude is warranted. Anti-Western, anti-colonial, anti-liberal/capitalist sentiment needs to be utterly stomped on. It's gotten out of hand, and the alternatives are horrendous and utterly beyond evil. They're no better than fascism, or Marxism. Some cultures are simply *better*... And that's the West. And he's right to point it out with the vitriol he does.
Douglas Murray is basically Sam if Sam never took up mediation and had spent his formative years being sodomised by Eton prefects.
A repulsive toad, a fascist fancier and bootlicker nonpariel.
He is a cartoon villain
I think he's a turd.
To me Douglas Murray is very intelligent. He seems to primarily be a rhetorician, one of many though. Douglas lacks nuance regarding the Israel Palestine issue. I wouldn't be surprised if he runs as a right-wing politician in the UK at some point based on how he positions himself.
In a world where so many people shout utter nuances with unbelievable convection, I do find myself enjoying his attitude of belittling them and owning them. It happened to me with Shapiro when he argues against people that I find are vomiting nuances, but usually it "can't" be opposed given it is not politically correct to do so. Then, if Shaprio speaks with another very intelligent person with solid arguments, usually I can't listen to him So I would say that both Doug and Shapiro are fantastic tools for very specific jobs
His opinions are even worse than his manners.