9.27.2015

Sam Harris, Nominalism, Islam, Mustaches, & Swiss Cheese; navelgazing @ FB

I was having a discussion with a young man about religion, Islam, Sam Harris, and accusations directed at Harris of racism and "Islamophobia". The conversation started off on a sour note due to some misunderstandings of what I had written. I was happy to take the blame for that misunderstanding - occasionally my writing is convoluted, goes off on tangents, and crawls up its own arse. I get gabby, I lose focus and go off into areas that in my own mind are relevant to what I started out with, but are utterly confusing to someone trying to make sense of what I'm trying to say.

I ended up deleting the post and subsequent thread that initiated this conversation, since the young man with whom I was talking has either blocked me or deactivated, since his posts vanished and I can't locate him in a search. Ah, well.

The point I tried to get across to this person was that I'm a nominalist, in that I subscribe to the idea that groups are not real entities, that only individuals are real entities. A group is made up of two or more individuals who have at least one attribute in common. The group called Americans, for instance, is a big group, and the one attribute all Americans have in common is that they are citizens of the United States of America. Americans have many other attributes in common with one another, but none of them are necessary attributes. The only necessary attribute of an American is that he/she be a citizen of the United States of America. That's it.

Americans have innumerable attributes in common. Some of them are Christians, some of them are Jews, and some of them are Muslims; some of them are white, some of them are black, some of them are hispanic. Some of them are women, some of them are men. Some of them are Christian and white. Some of them are Jewish and white. Some of them are Muslim and white. Some of them are white Christian men, some of them are white Jewish men, some of them are white Muslim men. Some are black Christian men. Some are black Muslim men. Some are black Christian women. Some are black Muslim women. Some are hispanic Christian women. Some Americans are atheists. Some Americans are white atheists. Some are black atheists. Some are hispanic atheists. Some American atheists are white women. Some American atheists are black women. Some American atheists are black men. Some American atheists are left-handed. Some Americans are gay men. Some Americans are gay women. Some Americans are claustrophobic hockey players. Some Americans are blind. Some blind Americans are blues guitar players. Some blind guitar-playing Americans are black. Some Americans have mustaches. Some Americans like cheese. Some Americans don't like American cheese.

Sorry for all that, but I think it's kind of necessary. When someone like Sam Harris, or any rational person, stands up and says that radical Islam is a danger to real people in the real world, he is not saying that everyone who is an adherent to the Islamic religion is therefore dangerous. As a matter of fact, Harris has gone out of his way, time and time again, to explain that he is, in fact, defending innocent people in Muslim countries, who are themselves at least nominally Muslim - meaning in name only - against the people who are oppressing them and keeping them in a constant state of fear and danger. By the very act of denouncing the atrocities committed by radical Muslims against their own people, Sam Harris is defending the majority of Muslims, the far greater majority of individuals who are just as sane and rational as anyone else, who just want to live their lives in peace and be left alone.

And yet, by some amazing miscomprehension, or purposeful slander, he is accused of being an Islamophobe, of being racist, of being the very thing that he is in complete opposition to.

At the heart of most of the confusion is a simple conceptual error: the failure to distinguish the real from the unreal. A group is not a real entity. It's just a label, an abstraction. The word "Muslims" does not identify any individual, rather it's a term that refers to a massive group of individuals who share at least one attribute in common: that they are, at least nominally, members of the religion of Islam. They may be hardcore fundies, or frightened atheists who are unable to confess to disbelief because to do so could get them killed, or any number of moderate, liberal, or orthodox believers.

When Americans fought Americans in the Civil War, Sam Harris, while he is an American, was not a member of those groups that fought. I'm an American, but I am not in the group of Americans that fought against the Japanese and the Germans in World War Two. Those people were Americans, and I'm an American, but I was not a member of that group of Americans.

Spaniards killed a lot of Native Americans. There are many Spaniards who never killed any Native Americans.

Some Spaniards are men. Some Spaniards are vegetarians. Some Spaniards like American cheese. Some Swiss people don't like Swiss cheese.

9.27.15

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