TYT Sam Harris & Noam Chomsky Trade Nasty Emails Until A Winner Emerges...

[gpatt0n]

Sam Harris & Noam Chomsky Trade Nasty Emails Until A Winner Emerges... Published on May 14, 2015 "Sam Harris, the prominent secularist and neuroscientist, recently exchanged a series of heated emails with Noam Chomsky, a linguist and leading social and foreign policy critic since the 1960s. Their discussion was buzzworthy because both men are well-known public commentators with occasionally overlapping subject matter who have never shared a forum before. Unfortunately for Harris, who reached out to Chomsky initially, the conversation didn’t go as well for him as he seemed to hope it would when he embarked on it. A great deal of fuss was made, both by Harris and by his fans in comment threads, about Chomsky’s cantankerousness. Some readers are anxious to call the “debate” in Harris’s favor because of it. While Chomsky does clearly evince impatience and frustration with Harris, the rhetorical flourishes which so miffed Harris are typical of Chomsky’s manner: phrases like “As you know” and the rather more cutting, “If you had read further before launching your accusations, the usual procedure in work intended to be serious, you would have discovered…” Chomsky, who has spoken at the UN more times than maybe anyone who doesn’t work there, is entitled to some impatience and frustration." Read more here: http://www.salon.com/2015/05/07/scori... Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur), host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.

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[gpatt0n]

This story/exchange has gotten some traction as folks grapple with the notion, put forward by Chomsky, that killing innocents is killing innocents.

 

Harris says there has to be some way to distinguish between a Hitler and a GWB and he thinks it is in the realm of intentions.

 

One of the stories exploring this appeared on RAWSTORY

 

I replied there like this:

 

 

Harris brings up Hitler, GWB and Clinton so let me suggest a fourth - Stalin - just to make it an even four who have all shown that humanity is capable of violence against humanity.

Harris says there is a morally distinct difference between these world renowned players and I think everyone knows that almost instinctively.

Let me draw an analogy - a more human one - that may clarify how murky these moral waters are.

We have four men; all married. One cheats on his wife with another woman. The second cheats on his wife with another man. The third cheats on his wife with a precocious 14-year old student and the fourth cheats on his wife with a six year old child.

Morally, all are guilty of cheating on their wives.

Yet we would justifiably ostracize the first as a philanderer; some would like to stone the second to death; most everyone wants to send the statutory rapist to prison for - well - ever; and the pedophile will be lucky not to be drawn and quartered.

Frankly, the intention in each of those cases was sexual gratification and I would suppose the unfaithful husband in each case succeeded in his quest. As far as the wife is concerned, all are damnably guilty of violation of their vows.

The point, and I think Chomsky hit it on the head, is that intentions don't count. It is only who you are screwing around with that does count.

 

pubby

[mei lan]

Sorry - I gotta go with Harris. No surprise there, considering I can't imagine my agreeing with Chomsky on much.