In response to ~C4Chaos’s evolving thoughts on Sam Harris, particularly the following [referring to Robert Godwin’s critique]:
I do think that Sam Harris is fighting a good fight here. So instead of taking the dude down and insulting him downright, why not build on top of his arguments? I think building on Sam Harris’ work, like taking what’s partially right and extending his rational arguments into the transational, is a more “integral” way of doing it.
C-
Robert Godwin misses the point by a hundred miles, as do (in my opinion) nearly all the Harris critics I’ve read so far. Religion is just too personal a topic for most people to discuss, I guess. Clear thinking just goes out the window when ones most cherished attachments are challenged.
I was reading the Harris-Sullivan debate the other day and was utterly unable to see how any clear thinking person could see anything but Harris mopping the floor with Sullivan’s arguments. I’m sure this has something to do with my own blind spots, but thus far I’ve not heard a single critique of Harris’s position that rings true to me.
When you say “Let’s build on his ideas” or “extend them into the transrational,” it sounds a little condescending, as if the wider, broader, integral perspective is obviously more appropriate in all situations. I don’t think this is the case, and I think many so-called “integral” critiques fail in this respect. Harris is looking through a particular lens–at a particular level of magnification–when he looks at how we apply reason and rationality to religious beliefs. Just because there is a wider view available doesn’t mean it’s more appropriate to the question at hand. If you want to explore the meaning of facial expressions, the view from your own two eyes is more appropriate than both a microscope and a telescope. Likewise, I think that Harris’s analyses are dead on and appropriate to the specific points he’s making, and while changing the level of magnification to see the bigger, integral picture might be useful when addressing other questions, like how to deal with the problem of religious lunacy, when it comes to establishing the fact of said lunacy, flipping the switch to “integral” can just make things blurry.
–Bob