Why Does Sam Harris Get to Pick and Choose Who Gets the Right to Context?

His relationship with the concept is peculiar.

Sam Harris and Max Blumenthal recently had a public twitter argument stemming from the new atheist movements’ vehement defense of Ayaan Hirsi. During the course of the debate, Harris took offense to Blumenthal committing the cardinal sin of tweeting Harris’ own words to him. The exchange is below, where you can see Harris’ indignation at Blumenthal not reading his words “in context.”

The use of the term “in context” is a curious one from one of the more well known of the bloviators in the so-called “new atheism” movement (which seems more and more to be the category for the rampantly Islamophobic commentators allied with atheism).

Harris, a neuroscientist by training, has become quite popular in the last decade or so for his views on Islam in certain circles. Harris’ attacks on religion in general, and Islam in particular, provide a pseudointellectual justification for the more distasteful beliefs those on the right have about Islam and Muslims. What Harris’ views on the subject do not take into account, unsurprisingly, is any context.

According to Harris, violence in the name of Islam is inherent in the religion and not credibly due to any other factors. “We won’t even honestly describe the motivations of our enemies,” says Harris about the Islamist movement, “And in the act of lying to ourselves, we continue to pay lip service to the very delusions that empower them.” In context and in other words: radical Islamists are motivated purely by their faith and not at all by the external forces that shape the world they live in. To acknowledge these external forces is to miss the point, says Harris, which is Islam.

Hypothetically, it follows, the radicalized youth who watched his mother be torn apart by shrapnel from a US drone attack would not have been pushed to turn to violence in retaliation for her death were it not for his Islamic faith. One can see how singularly Islamic this feeling is in the fact that after 9/11, American youth did not join the military en masse out of some faith-driven dream of violent revenge.

Harris believes that external factors should simply never be taken into consideration. Take this quote from an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald he posted to his website: “The truth is that the liberal (multicultural) position on Islam is racist. If a predominantly white community behaved this way — the Left would effortlessly perceive the depth of the problem.”

I’m going to go ahead and make an assumption here- the hypothetical predominantly white community Harris is talking about isn’t a community in a war torn region that has been a point of contention for modern world powers for over a century. It’s clear that Harris doesn’t rely on understanding historical context or external factors in making his determinations as to the behavior of societies.

To be very, very clear about this: Harris apparently believes that all things being equal, everyone involved having the same standard of living, etc, a community that was predominately Muslim (or non-white) would quickly descend into ISIS-like barbarity due to the tenets of the faith, while the white community would not, due to the lack of Islam.

In the same exchange with Glenn Greenwald, Harris begins one of his missives (the one the previous quote was pulled from, in fact) with this definitive statement. “There is absolutely nothing racist about my criticism of Islam.” It’s a strong statement, and a noble sentiment. Unfortunately, in the context of a very brief perusal of Harris’ writing, it’s demonstrably false.

For example: the very next line says, “I criticize white, western converts in precisely the same terms — in fact, I am even more critical of them, because they weren’t brainwashed into the faith from birth.” This doesn’t need to be broken down. Harris is alleging that if you’re not white, you’re not going to be raised Muslim. This is not only ridiculous but also at best xenophobic.

Harris is a strong defender of profiling at airports- but he wouldn’t want you to think that’s based on race. No, according to Harris, “when I speak of profiling ‘Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,’ I am not narrowly focused on people with dark skin.” Well, maybe not narrowly, but he’s definitely made the case that it’s far more likely in his mind that someone who’s white wouldn’t be “brainwashed since birth” to accept the faith. It’s safe therefore to say that Harris is broadly focused on people with dark skin.

To review, Harris believes that predominately white communities are not Muslim, that non-whites are “brainwashed” into believing in Islam, but whites are not, that profiling at airports for Muslims has nothing to do with race even in the context of the former points, and that his criticism of Islam has nothing to do with race. In the context of these passages, making that latter case is at least difficult.

For Sam Harris, context is only useful when Sam Harris needs to defend himself against his own quotes. When it comes to contextualizing the motivations of Muslims, apparently, context is a burden.