Comments on Sam Harris: ‘Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?’

Sam Harris: ‘Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?’ – Tablet Magazine.

This is one of the best pieces of writing that I’ve seen in a long time on the subject of Israel vs Hamas / Palestine. The headline is misleading, though. Sam Harris does criticize Israel. But his criticism is specific, carefully weighed, and held up against the vastly more serious criticism that every rationally thinking person ought to level against the Hamas, ISIS, and the other Muslim militant fundamentalists.  Thanks to Kari Eugenie Damhaug for sharing this article on Facebook.

There’s a larger point here, though, which Sam Harris misses. It has to do with the way the human brain functions. He is best known for writing as an athesist, and he does a great job in illustrating how cool, rational, level-headed analytic thinking can be better than “faith” ….. as long as we are dealing with a brain capable of doing just that.

Rational thinking is great, but it can’t exist alone. It is always – and I repeat ALWAYS – superimposed on mountains and mountains of ideas and beliefs that become prejudice the moment they aren’t being actively investigated.

MBTI criticism / critique

This article in Fortune Management had me wondering for a while what kind of personality type the author has. Some kind of narcissistic guardian?

Have we all been duped by the Myers-Briggs test? By Roman Krznaric

Sorry, that was silly. Almost as silly as the journalist’s claim that “… the MBTI mistakenly assumes that personality falls into mutually exclusive categories”. That’s not the MBTI’s assumption. That’s the journalist’s superficial assumption about what the MBTI does.

PS about Gaza

– Hamas would kill many more if they had the means.
– Israel could kill many more if they had the will.

Leif Knutsen posted these words on Facebook. To my (deeply prejudiced) Western-liberal mind, that is a good distinction.

So imagine my surprise when it turned out that another of Leif’s friends disagreed.

One more reason why I love Norway

I love living in a country where relatively recent leaps in technology have created a total paradigm shift from the extreme poverty of 100++ years above, to the dizzying heights of affluence of today … WHILE some of us still remember the old days well enough to appreciate the contrast.

I love living in a country where the cultural values still reflect attitudes that were necessary during all those years of poverty: Self discipline, thrift, long-term planning, and a sense of responsibility for one’s neighbours.

I’m not sure that the next generation will manage to keep those advantages alive.

Glenn Beck’s Post-Election Plan: Buy Farmland and Guns!

Karyn shared this video on Wednesday.

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It shows Glenn Beck explaining his post-election plan: To buy farmland and guns.

Beck’s talk is interesting because it illustrates a huge problem that we’re coming up against in the Middle East, as well as in the Midwest and everywhere in between: Bigotry and its offshoot, Fundamentalism. When other people do this, there’s often a hint of subtlety about it. Not with Beck. He goes all out from the moment he opens his mouth. He starts with a splinter of insight, spins a story around it, and BELIEVES.

In some ways, I can understand him.

The Permanent Militarization of America

President Dwight Eisenhower was a Republican and a career officer, and he would (apparently) have been appalled at the amount we’re wasting on the military today. The author of this article quotes him as saying that

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,

Gaza

I read several articles this morning about the attacks and counterattacks between Gaza and Israel. The impression I’m left with is that both sides are right on enough issues that none of them can win.

On the surface level, Israel’s position is straightforward and justified. Palestinians in Gaza are regularly committing acts of war against Israel. In fact, they are not only acts of war, they are war crimes: The indiscriminate lobbing of high explosives into civilian targets. Israel has every right to fight back. (The only question I’m asking myself in that connection is whether Israel would be better served by mirroring Hamas’s form of warfare. Every time they got an incoming rocket, they could simply send one back. An eye for an eye ….)

On the deeper level, I’m getting a stronger and stronger impression that Israel cannot win.

Half Truths

It’s well known that it’s easier to explain the past than to predict the future.

The main reason for this discrepancy is not that we have perfect information about the past, and not about the future.

It’s that we are easily satisfied by half-truths … as long as we’re not too afraid that events will prove us wrong.

When would be the best time to tackle Global Warming?

I’ve found a metaphor for Global Warming. It’s like the tall tree that’s growing close to a friend’s house.

• Fifty years ago, I could have disposed of it with a pair of clippers.
• Thirty years ago, it would have required nothing beyond a handsaw.

The Soul

I’ve had trouble defining the word “soul”, but believe that I’ve found a solution. A “soul” can be seen as the difference between the whole and the apparent sum of its parts.