In the Mailbag

response to recent emails

Sam Harris Essay: A Valid Critique

My essay about losing faith in Sam Harris resulted in an avalanche of email, nearly all of it variations on “Thank you so much; you summed up my thoughts and feelings very well, I miss the old Sam too.”

The critical emails, of which there were a few, were the most interesting. Nearly all of them said some version of “the real TDS is not to have TDS,” which is a notion that I can’t agree with, of course. Others asserted that I misunderstand Sam Harris because I lack context. Having read every word of his published oeuvre and listened to every episode of his podcast, which I have, is the best anyone can do to make a good-faith effort on that score. I really did try very hard.

The one criticism that has, I think, some validity is this: some said that one of my claims, that Sam’s COVID behavior indicates terror of death, is unwarranted.

I tried very hard to think of any very small risk of death that I, or the people I know best, would “line up for hours, even whole days” to (possibly) reduce even further. I could think of none. When I was able to think of things regarding which I would line up for hours to lower my already-small risk—falling into a pit of snakes, having a car accident so severe that I am left unable to either care for myself or end my life—they were in fact things of which I feel terrified.

Further, I am not nearly as busy and important as Sam Harris. My time is not nearly so valuable as his. But he may value his time differently. For all I know, he may enjoy standing in line for whole days. He can certainly afford an entourage; perhaps someone(s) came along with him to wait, masked and six feet away, in vaccine centers until he finally found one of those overflow doses. Perhaps they were productive days, even something like normal workdays, simply conducted in a different place.

If so, it would indicate he was quite scared of COVID—scared enough to upend his life significantly—but not necessarily of death.

Regardless, Sam’s fear of COVID may have been fear of illness only. I acknowledge the possibility that I got that one wrong.

It doesn’t change my conclusion: the person I once revered no longer exists.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to email me about that essay. It was gratifying and somewhat healing for me to read so many stories of people who shared my emotions about Sam and felt that I had expressed their own journeys well. Thank you all for that! I’m sorry that I can’t respond to everyone.

The Definition of Insanity

I’ve been told many times that Alcoholics Anonymous defines insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.”

Whatever its source, this definition describes many anti-Woke folks when it comes to the “non-binary” shooter from the Colorado Club Q massacre.

I got several emails from people thinking that my recent essay on the “non-binary” identity of the shooter had missed a strategically crucial opening left for us by the Left. They are the ones who say that you’re “non-binary” if you say you are, and that nobody has the right to question any such self-declaration. Hold their feet to the fire! Insist that they accept this monster as one of their “community”!

One of the reasons I left Twitter is that it lends itself to this sort of thinking, a preference for the quick and easy dunk over genuine insight. I get it, y’all. I get the hunger to make them be consistent, to live up to their own standards just once. I really do understand.

Hear me on this: it doesn’t work. “Whatever serves the Woke agenda” is the only principle they have, guiding or otherwise. To their minds, consistency is not a virtue and hypocrisy is not a vice—only the agenda matters. They accept people as valid members of “marginalized groups” if and only if the person spouts leftist dogma.

Conservative blacks are “skinfolk, not kinfolk,” conservative women are “pick-me’s,” and conservative gays are “cis gays,” an appellation that must be uttered with real disgust. Once these “marginalized” people are thus dehumanized for their status as traitors to the cause, they cease to matter and their dissent can be ignored.

I deliberately left this angle out because I didn’t want to elevate the entirely imaginary status of being “non-binary” to that of being female, black, or gay. “Non-binary” isn’t a thing, and pretending it is, even to try to score a point that would be an important point in any debate with an interlocutor who valued consistency, isn’t worth the cost.

I listen to a variety of podcasts, in part to check my biases, and one of the Leftist ones applied this very tactic. They declared the shooter’s “non-binary” identity probably a troll or fake, but stressed that they would gender “them” correctly just in case “they” were really “non-binary” but had done this terrible thing out of “internalized enby-phobia” from societal oppression.

In other words, either the shooter wasn’t one of theirs or, if “they” are one of theirs, it’s our fault.

Debating the validity of imaginary things like “non-binary” identity is a mistake.

Creative Writing Editions: A Novelty

For paid subscribers, I publish occasional creative writing editions. These have so far been little creative experiments, things I wanted to try writing but that have no place in any larger project.

That’s about to change. I have been planning a novel for several years now that I’m finally letting myself work on. It’s not the one I gave up on a year or so ago—the one where I attempted to advance the Woke crap six years into the future, but everything I thought of was already happening, today. This is a different one, one I’ve been thinking about for a much longer time. The first part of the novel will come later this week. See the housekeeping (below) for how to get a free “paid” subscription.

Housekeeping: If you’re interested in a paid subscription but can’t afford it, just send an email to hollymathnerd at gmail dot com and I’ll add you to the paid list right away. I usually do those for a year, but if you are an active member of the US military, let me know when you email and I’ll make that a lifetime paid subscription, with my thanks for your service.