Special Episode: Sam Harris & Meditation is all you need
Sam Harris is a public intellectual who inspires strong reactions both positive and negative. Here, Matt and Chris dip their toes into Sam's introspective universe by analysing a recent 9 minute mini-episode of his Making Sense podcast titled 'Some Points of Confusion'. Sam intended to clear up some recurrent misunderstandings he has observed with maybe as much as 99% audience with this episode. What could be causing such a fundamental error and does he succeed in resolving the confusion? Join us to find out.In the episode you will learn about the true teachings of Jesus, how incredibly niche Chris' undergraduate degree was, the introspective case for social welfare, and why all meditators inevitably deny the existence of free will.This is an interesting one. And whether you love or hate Sam, we hope you find some value in our non-enlightened ejected introspections.LinksMaking Sense Episode 243: Some Points of Confusion
Welcome to this special edition of Decoding the Gurus.
It's the podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer, and we try our best to understand what they're talking about.
I'm Matt Brown, with me is Chris Kavanagh.
And so tell me, Chris, for what special purpose have you called me here today?
Well, I use the standard incantations to summon you to discuss a fellow that...
You may have heard of by the name of Sam Harris, who's actually on our list of gurus to do a proper episode on in the near future.
But this is going to be something of a taster because he released a nine-minute podcast episode which was titled A Few Points of Confusion.
And for reasons that will become...
I thought it would be a very nice episode for us to dip our toe into the Sam Harris sphere.
Sam Harris-o-sphere.
The world of Sam Harris, the wacky world of Sam Harris with this little taster.
And it's only nine minutes, so how long can we take, Matt?
That's the question to you.
Well, it shouldn't take us more than five, I would expect.
I mean, just an eight-minute click.
Yeah, usually.
I've only got 70 clips from this.
Well, despite this being extraordinarily short, I haven't even managed to listen to it, but I have heard of it.
But this will be good.
I can come at it cold and you can tell me all about it and play me the clips.
What you're doing, Matt, is you're bringing your kind of crazy wisdom, tantric insight to the topic as you just riff off what you hear.
I bring the analytic, rational, doggedly researched perspective.
And you bring the Australian bombast, the hotcakes, the...
Well, why don't we just throw it on the fire?
That's a dynamic play.
Yeah, I'll bring the jazz.
You can do the drums.
Okay.
Oh, it's pronunciated drummers.
Very brave.
So, like I said, this episode was released on March 28th.
And the title, A Few Points of Confusion.
Might seem a little confusing as a title, like who's he talking about?
What he is discussing is how members of his audience in his Making Sense podcast appear to be a bit confused about some of his positions and he wants to clarify them.
And the relevant context for this is that he has another app where he also produces content called the Waking Up app.
And this is focused more on meditation and introspective practices.
But sometimes he releases content on both feeds.
So this is mainly directed to his Making Sense audience.
Okay.
Gotcha.
Let's play a clip to start off with why he is releasing this podcast.
Unless you're unusually well-informed about it, when I use the term meditation...
on this podcast, I would bet that 99% of you get the wrong idea.
Okay.
He's highlighting that a lot of his audience seem to be making mistakes when he's referring to meditation.
And here's a little bit more clarification of what the issue is.
I've had a few encounters recently on other people's podcasts and on social media that have made me think that
Many people are confused about some of the views I express on this podcast.
Okay, so this is tantalizing.
Oh, and Matt, we should probably say that Sam Harris is famous for being a new atheist in the early 2000s, releasing the end of faith, and then talking in general about atheism and the dangers of religion, and particularly Islamic extremism.
Culture war and public intellectual territory on a whole bunch of topics.
He talks about moral philosophy and the issues of subjectivity and determinism and various philosophical issues.
He's mainly, I would say, a podcaster and an author.
And that kind of public intellectual, that's what he's famous for.
So just to mention who he is in case there are some people in our audience who have no idea who Sam Harris is.
Yes.
And he's also well known for his very precise and careful way of communicating.
That's at least his style.
So it's a shame, I guess, that 99% of his audience are not understanding him.
So I'm curious as to what it is.
Yeah, so those clips that we just played, I think you can hear the deliberate speech style that Sam is well known for.
He sounds like a human ASMR track.
And the fact that, like you mentioned, framing it as 99% of your audience getting the wrong idea about something that you talk about a lot, like introspection and meditation, it does imply that you might not be communicating.
things entirely effectively and that the limitation may not lie with the audience.
But in any case, 99% is a pretty disparaging number.
It's basically saying almost nobody
Well, it could be that he is talking about such deep and meaningful things and such complex and sophisticated and nuanced things.
That sadly his audience is not able to grasp them.
Or maybe their minds are clouded.
But we'll find out.
I'll find out.
Yeah.
To issue a spoiler, the basic conceit of this episode is that to understand Sam's positions properly and why they are correct, you need to meditate or have an appreciation of introspective practices.
And lacking that, you would mistakenly think that he's wrong.
Yes.
And you may think that he's relying on these kind of kooky practices that are mystical in nature rather than the rigorous science of the mind, which is the kind of introspective meditational practices he's advocating.
So let me play a clip which highlights this distinction.
First, let me say that unless you're deep into it, the term meditation almost certainly conjures the wrong ideas in your mind.
And meditation has no necessary connection to Eastern religion, say, much less to beads or incense or any of the trappings of New Age spirituality.
So were you thinking of that, Matt, when you hear the term meditation?
No, I wasn't, actually.
I think it's pretty much general knowledge that meditation doesn't require any religious belief or beads or incense.
To push back just a tiny bit against you and him.
I think meditation is, for very good reasons, strongly associated with Buddhism and other contemplative traditions, especially from India and East Asia.
And that the kind of connection with the hippy-dippy health and wellness space, that also exists for a reason, that the meditational practices often are.
are advocated in those communities.
So like him pointing out that's not what he's
I agree with the point that you're making that those connections are not necessarily there.
But I just want to say that it isn't wrong for people to assume that Buddhism has an association with meditation.
Because in most cases, when people talk about meditation in the West, they are discussing it in relation to Elo-Buddhism.
Or a variety of Hinduism?
Sure, sure.
It's got that history, it's got those associations, but it's also done at corporate retreats.
I agree.
So this might be running the topic into the ground, but here's another description of just how wrong people are about meditation.
So if you haven't checked it out recently, I just want to invite you to do that.
Especially if you think you know what meditation is, and you think it's not relevant for you.
I can virtually guarantee that you're mistaken about that.
So, if you're not meditating, Matt, and you think that meditation won't help, he can virtually guarantee you're mistaken about that.
He's probably right.
I mean, I think meditation's good for you.
I feel like, for me, meditating is like dieting.
I'm pretty certain it would do me good.
And if I don't do it, then I feel...
It's not because I don't think it would be a good thing to do.
I'm just too lazy and weak.
So is he wrong, Chris?
Isn't meditation good for you?
Well, maybe I'm being a little bit harsh here because the way I see it is that having introspective practices is beneficial.
If you've never done it before, it's definitely something that's worthwhile to pursue just to see.
Spending time trying to quiet your mind and what happens if you're...
Not stimulating your attention and you're just trying to follow your breath.
It can genuinely be an eye-opening experience.
I think that is a worthwhile procedure.
So maybe part of my negative response to that is that he's assuming that if people were to engage in that...
That they will necessarily benefit and gain insights into themselves.
I have some experience doing meditational practices.
I would say it gave me insight into attention and what your mind is doing.
But I think he's somewhat overselling it in regards to the amount of insight that it necessarily offers.
Because I think it very much depends on how introspective you are in your daily life.
Meditational practices are not a necessary thing to provide you this new avenue of insight.
I think there's other methods to reach that that doesn't entail adopting a meditational practice.
I guess I'm just pushing back against the assumption that the whole world would benefit from meditation.
I don't know.
Yeah, I guess what you're saying is that he may not necessarily be wrong.
It's just the way he's framing it, which is that the vast majority of you don't understand what I'm talking about, which is kind of annoying because I presume he's talked about meditation a lot and explained it in a lot of detail over a lot of episodes.
So I find it unlikely that 99% of his listeners, if they don't understand what he means by meditation, then surely that's got to be on him.
Probably the thing that rubs you the wrong way is his cast-iron certainty that this prescription is what you need.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Overall, on average, engaging in some introspective practices would be beneficial to people.
I get that might seem like a very specific distinction, but it's the level of certainty and the degree to which it's applied which is what rubs me the wrong way.
I think that this...
Strikes some chords in terms of the idea in Zen Buddhism that the enlightened practitioner who has meditated their asses off for decades has access to a level of insight that other people just simply cannot,
probably because it can't actually be communicated.
You actually have to experience it.
Who knows?
That may well be true.
But that can be a bit of a trick.
There is no way to test their claim that they have got this special enlightened state of mind because you can't access their inner thoughts.
Well, that's where it's going to go.
So maybe this is why I'm projecting backwards to where I know the logical conclusion of this argument goes.
But I agree that there's an issue with...
When it comes to contemplative masters, that verifying their claimed proficiency is somewhat impossible because of the subjectivity.
But there are indicators, right?
Like it's essentially impossible for someone to fake.
That they're sitting somewhere for hours meditating if people are sitting there with them.
So I'm in no means dismissing that you can gain expertise in this arena.
But I agree with you that there's issues with verification because of the nature of the topic.
But let me move on to how Sam is applying it, because essentially he wants to argue that if you're not engaging with introspective meditation practices, You're not really going to be able to grasp his arguments.
But the benefits aside, more and more I'm realizing that many of you can't understand the positions I take on this podcast without understanding your mind.
And these are positions which, on their surface, have nothing to do with meditation.
Okay.
So you need meditation to understand your...
It sounds familiar because I'm...
Aware of the philosophy behind meditation and Zen Buddhism.
And the philosophy is that it provides you not just with the ability to do feats such as control your body temperature, withstand pain or something like that, something that might actually be verifiable, but that it draws away the veils from your eyes and by accepting that all is nothing and you don't exist and those things suddenly make sense.
Because it's resolving the trap of the conscious logical mind.
So, you know, I have a vague level of familiarity with the philosophy behind it.
And it seems to me that what he's saying is a pretty conventional expression of Zen Buddhist philosophy, which is that you have to experience it and there isn't really much point talking about it because you simply won't understand until you get there.
Actually, the point that you pick out there that these narratives are very familiar, and I would say they fall within the Mahayana Buddhist milieu of the kind of the way it's presented as sort of in traditional terms is Buddha nature,
right?
Everybody, Tathagata Garba, I think the Sanskrit original, that everybody has the seed of the Buddha.
Their true nature is...
Hidden underneath this illusion, which meditation and introspective practice will reveal to you.
And then you will realize that actually, you know, you didn't gain anything.
You just removed the veils and illusions that were preventing you from perceiving your true nature.
And that's a traditional strand within Buddhist Mahayana philosophy.
And it can be recapitalized without any metaphysical.
Aspect, or at least with that shrunk down, which is what Sam Harris would be talking about.
He's presenting it as a science of the mind.
But to me, this reads that very much he's feeling to appreciate that he has internalized a framework for understanding and interpreting the experiences that you have.
During meditation and introspective practices, that comes from a specific tradition.
And I've heard Sam discuss this in particular with the scholar of Buddhism and the East Asian religion, Evan Thompson.
And Evan Thompson kept making this point to Sam that this isn't a neutral...
Science of the mind, that there is a tradition and there is a context and that even the Western version of that, which often seeks to remove what it regards as the cultural accretions from the fundamental, non-supernatural,
non-denominational truths about the mind, that that version of Western Buddhism comes with its own.
Cultural baggage and attachments.
And one of the things is that regards itself as a non-religious, secular, you know, philosophically pure approach to the mind.
And that's very much what Sam is reflecting, that attitude.
But he doesn't seem to critically reflect that he might not be gaining this pure access to the mind, but rather an approach to understanding the mind that is filtered through a specific tradition.
Or a set of traditions.
This is an issue that I take with a lot of people that argue Buddhism isn't a religion or failed to appreciate that that specific framing was intentionally constructed to make Buddhism appealing to Western audiences.
Because it was at a time when they were marketing it towards a West that was secular.
Yeah, secular and interested in science and so on, and kind of presenting this is a better version than your superstitious Christian belief.
And there's good reasons for that because, as I've discussed in previous podcasts, colonialism was ongoing and there was genuine dangers of destruction and disparaging of non-Christian cultures.
So it's entirely reasonable and understandable that people would do that, but that history leaves a legacy.
That if you feel the grapple with it, then you're in danger of falling for a particular framing.
That's what I would say.
Yeah, I understand that.
But putting aside the cultural and historical background, which he's neglecting, even though I'm very sympathetic to the benefits of meditation, but the issue I've got is epistemic.
You cannot refer to that as a science of the mind.
It is entirely based in subjectivity.
It is entirely based on revealed truth and ineffable truths that can only be phenomenologically experienced and cannot be externally and objectively measured and verified.
This is just the nature of any claims that you want to make about some special...
We don't have the technology to verify any of those claims.
So it may well be the best thing since sliced bread, but you cannot refer to it as a scientific enterprise.
It has to rest on a revealed truth that the person who has experienced it reveals it to you.
So in that sense, it is just like a religion.
It may not have any metaphysical trappings, may not make any claims about life after death or anything like that, but in terms of its epistemics, it's the same as a religion, and it cannot be described as a science.
Yeah, it's a mistake to regard what you gain from an introspective practice.
And there may be strands which are recurrent, right?
Like everybody will almost definitely realize that they have little ability to control their mind without thinking about other topics for five minutes.
They will quickly realize that that's much harder than you may expect and that you have a mind that is running on an autopilot.
I think that might be Sam's rebuttal to say, well, these are very viable experiences that you can have.
But things go much farther than that.
Sam is linking this to his views about determinism and the non...
Reality of self.
And these are grander claims attached to philosophical positions, which can be related to introspective practices.
But it's an argument, because there are other introspective practices that could lead you to having different positions.
But Sam seems to take it that, no, you can't.
If you do it properly, you will arrive at the view that determinism...
Is real and there's no such thing as free will.
But that's my point, that you have to take it on trust.
That doing that particular thing in that particular way will give you the correct insight about topic X. Except he's saying you do it and you test it, right?
This is one of the things that people often cite the Buddha, you know, saying don't take anything that I have said on my word.
You need to test it for yourself.
But it's a catch-22 because if you do it and you don't agree, then it's just because you haven't done it properly.
Exactly.
That's the issue.
If you do it properly, then you will agree with me.
So it's a tautology.
It's a self-confirming prophecy.
Yeah, that's it in a nutshell.
So here's another clip that relates to why I think this is an issue in the way that he's framing things here.
Yes, a person can follow the purely philosophical or scientific arguments and arrive at some of the same conclusions.
For instance, someone can understand how free will and the conventional notion of self don't make any sense in terms of ongoing neurophysiological changes in the brain.
But even most people who understand and accept those arguments don't really have the courage of their convictions because they still feel like selves that enjoy free will.
Most people don't have the introspective tools to discover that their experience is actually convergent with what makes the most sense scientifically and philosophically.
This segment struck me as incredibly lacking in self-awareness, ironically, because he's essentially presenting that he has reached a position where his introspective and philosophical positions are so in tune and coherent that it's like he's seen through the frigging matrix.
Everyone else is just bundling around thinking, you know, that the steak is really steak.
But Sam looks in the mirror and all he sees is the green code flashing around.
That's really imagining a degree of consistency, which is an illusion and a degree of detachment from your opinions and positions, which he doesn't have and he never displays.
He holds grudges.
He gets upset about people mischaracterizing his positions and so on.
And he does say later he's not perfect in all this, but...
His description of himself reads unusually confident that he's achieved something which I think is debatable.
Here's Sam talking about how he is accused of being a victim of tribal identity, but this is wrong.
And his introspective practice makes him able to be certain of that.
And when some of my critics say that I'm just practicing my own version of identity politics.
I'm in a position to say bullshit.
And to be clear, I'm not claiming to be fully enlightened.
I'm definitely still a work in progress.
But there are certain things that I actually understand about my own mind and about the mind in general.
Yeah.
So, like, I followed Sam, right?
And I know that he's displayed on many occasions that he has...
Variable standards and the level of charity that he applies to different people, and that he is certainly charitable towards anybody that he perceives to have been unfairly smeared in the public consciousness,
like Charles Murray.
And his interpersonal relationships mean that it took him a long time to issue criticism of Dave Rubin, long after it was self-evident how partisan And bias that Dave Rubin was.
Like, Sam Harris actually invited him on his podcast to defend him.
So the notion that Sam's critics just have got it all wrong when they assign to him any tribal identity, and that he knows that because he has the ability to see.
It just, again, it's like this contrast between the level of self-awareness he's claiming and what he demonstrates.
Frequently to the public in his interactions.
So you're saying he should drop these protections and admit that he's just wallowing around in the mud like the rest of us pigs?
Yeah, and people will point out, well, he didn't say he's perfect.
He didn't claim pure enlightenment.
And sure, but he's certainly claiming that he's transcended it to a level than his opponents, right?
And maybe he has for some of his opponents, but yeah, I just...
Okay, so if it sounds like I'm being unfair, let me just play one more clip where he's talking about his ability to intuit the real meaning of religion.
Meditation is also the key to understanding my criticism of specific religious ideas.
How can I say with confidence that most religious doctrines are not merely scientifically implausible?
Many people can say that.
But that they are also a perversion of a very real opportunity.
I can say this because there's nothing hypothetical to me about the kinds of experiences that people like Jesus were rattling on about to anyone who would listen.
And when you've had these experiences and can have them on demand, when it's absolutely obvious to you that the conventional sense of self is an illusion, then it's also obvious.
That our spiritual hopes need not be pegged to the idea that some historical person might have been the son of God who died for our sins.
I have some weird sympathy for Sam because...
I exercise that.
Looking at it from his point of view.
Yeah, I exercise that.
Looking at it from his point of view.
He clearly does meditate a lot.
I don't find that hard to believe.
He says he's had these deep...
Transcendent experiences while doing so.
And I think he honestly believes that he has gotten a lot out of it, and he probably has.
So I know he sounds arrogant and lacking in self-awareness, but you can imagine being in his situation, being convinced of those things, subjectively experiencing them,
and feeling that you do have.
A better insight about things because of how he's changed through this regular meditation practice.
So he feels it's true.
It's kind of real for him.
And yeah, he's very frank in telling everybody that that's what he's accomplished.
It's his lived experience.
It's his lived experience.
Let me...
Give my own personal testimony.
So like I said, I had an interest in introspective practices.
This is partly why I ended up studying Tibetan and study of religions in university, focusing on Buddhist traditions.
That's why I did that, because I was interested in meditation.
I took time out, a bit like Sam, to go and hang around meditation centers for half a year.
I was interested in all the Buddhist stuff, but also developed an interest in Christian mystics.
Thomas Martin and Anthony DeMello, their teachings really resonated with me, right?
And I felt that these people grasped what the core message of Christianity or all religions have at their core.
They get it.
And this institutional focus on doctrinal beliefs and so on, they've got it wrong.
But there's something good in the traditions there.
I had that exact same sensation.
So I not only have sympathy, For Sam feeling that.
I've had that sensation that I got it and I've worked out what the beating heart of these traditions are.
But here's the difference, and this is the bit where I think Sam should have reached this point as well, is that when I went to university and started studying about those traditions, I found out that one, like we already discussed,
that a lot of the things that I'd considered super appealing Were designed to be super appealing to me.
They were part of a tradition that was targeted at Westerners who were disaffected with religion and were seeking out alternative spiritualities.
And that was part of what people had geared towards.
So they did intentionally downplay supernatural elements.
They did intentionally present it as a scientific framework and so on.
Then secondly, I also realized from studying the history of these traditions that there are these super complex, multifaceted things with lots of different sects, lots of different philosophical traditions within them, and that there's a constant tendency from People within native cultures associated with religious traditions and from people approaching it later in life from that it might be regarded as more exotic,
to seek the thing that they see appealing as being the original core truth of the tradition taught by the founder, the real teaching of the Buddha, the real teaching of Jesus, not the cultural accretions,
not the mistakes, but you come to realize that no.
If you look at the history, what people were teaching back then, you can extract parts that you like, yes, but you are cherry-picking the parts that you ignore because they're talking to a completely different context.
And there are elements that you can take and apply to modern life and which may seem more transcendent than their rivalries with specific factions.
But in large part, you're just choosing that on your preference because They do have supernatural elements.
The early Buddhist traditions were significantly focused on venerating relics of the Buddha, and this was an important part of the practice of communities.
It still is in Buddhist traditions, and you can regard that as a perversion of the pure teaching.
But the oldest texts that we have have magic mantras and stuff in them.
And they tell stories about people going to heavens and meeting gods and the different realms of reincarnation.
And you can regard that as all cultural baggage.
But at some point, you're essentially inserting what you want to be the core of the religion or the philosophy.
And so I basically want to say that there's nothing wrong with doing that.
But what I would regard as the more intellectually rigorous way is to recognize that That's what you're doing.
And it isn't that all of these traditions had this truth that you've uncovered.
It's that you have a specific approach that you find value in and that you think is valuable for people in general.
But that doesn't mean that's what the oldest and most authentic teaching is.
That's my issue.
So let's say you were saying this to Sam Harris and he could well concede that point.
And say that, yes, right back to the very beginning, Buddhism and even other religions that have done transcendent meditation and activities like that have always been contaminated by heaps of hocus-pocus and magical things.
And even the good part of it was always in the minority.
It could even be a small percentage of what was going on.
So he could concede all of that, Chris.
I think from his point of view, what he's saying would still stand up because he's saying that the practice that he's describing may well be a modern artificial construct, but the practice that he's experienced and has done routinely for a long time leads one to an extra degree of philosophical insight.
No.
Because that's the problem.
So I think he would quite happily acknowledge that the Buddhists throughout history, I've heard him discuss this, that the majority of them don't do this, don't do the kind of introspective practices that they're discussing, and that this applies for all religions and so on.
But my point is not to say that this is ignoring what the historical and cultural...
My criticism is that Sam doesn't say this is a modern thing that I've interpreted and it doesn't matter if it is actually related to an ancient tradition.
He does project it back to the core insights of these philosophical and religious figures.
And that's what they were really talking about.
So it matters.
And he's defensive when it comes to people suggesting that It is otherwise or that that kind of view that the scientific western approaching these ancient traditions can see through all the cultural bullshit that people have attached to it and extract the core gem that there is a very clear history of this which is tied into a kind of you know I don't want to go all post-colonial theory
and critical theory type stuff about it but But they have an element of truth to it, that there is a colonial mindset to that, in a sense.
Or you could even say a fundamentalist mindset.
It doesn't have to be colonial, right?
You see through the tradition that so many cannot.
And if Sam was to say that he is just constructing his philosophy and his approach, and he's built a modern thing, I think it would lack a lot of the gravitas.
That he wants to claim.
So that's why he won't do that.
Yep.
Makes sense.
I can see that point, Chris.
Well, I may have blown my load here.
But in any case, let's get back to what he actually talks about with...
Klepp talking about the extent to which meditation is core to his position on so many things.
My experience in meditation largely defines my politics, too.
For instance, how can I be so sure that the explosion of identity politics that we see all around us isn't a sign of progress?
How can I know that it's an ethical and psychological dead end to be deeply identified with one's race, for instance?
And that all the people who are saying that there's no way to get past race in our politics are just confused.
Well, because I know that a person need not even identify with the face he sees in the mirror each day.
In fact, the deeper you examine your experience, the more you discover that freedom ultimately depends on not identifying with anything, even with how you look in the mirror.
So what do you think, Matt?
You're going to hate this, but I kind of like it.
We could easily make fun of this, but...
He's talking about non-attachment, to connect non-attachment from Buddha's philosophy to attachment to your identity.
But even putting aside these political hot-button things like race and so on, you see it in teenagers where they're searching out for an identity.
Become a goth or something like that and clothes are very important and how you present yourself and how people see you and so on, right?
You know, I think most people who are mature can realise that those are understandable impulses but ultimately a sign of immaturity.
And so the idea of non-attachment is a nice idea.
So I kind of like where he's going with it.
I know from a political lens, people would just go, no, that's bullshit, so naive or whatever.
But I said something on Twitter once, which was that you don't need to worry about your sexuality, gender or race very much because by the time you get to 60, we're all going to be these grey, flabby, amorphous, sexless blobs.
And all that stuff kind of goes away.
When you get old, a lot of your identity gets stripped away.
And there's something sad about that, I guess, but there's also something good about it.
So I guess I'm getting on board, Sam.
You're going to sign up for the app.
Mystical, philosophical.
I love it.
I love this guy.
He's my guru.
I think you're reading me slightly wrong, though, in that I don't have an issue with somebody arguing for a lack of identification being a good thing.
Rather you tie to a Buddhist tradition or not, and highlighting that attachment to identity, whatever the identity may be, is potentially something that could be beneficial to overcome,
or at least to realize that it isn't everything that you attribute to it, right?
That you can let identities go, even if they matter to you.
I can recognize that being Irish, It's a part of how I see myself.
But I understand I'm not responsible for most of the accomplishments of Ireland historically.
Most.
Most of them.
I like that.
It's just a portion.
And I don't know most Irish people.
What do I share that we lived on the same piece of green, beautiful emerald island together?
I get it.
The artificiality.
Of identities which people regard as salient is...
Like, I think there's a fair point to be made there.
And even when it comes to race, this is where a lot of people have taken issue with this episode, because he's essentially advocating for colorblindness, which is passé in more progressive sectors.
So here's him specifically making this point about the way that he regards race and identity.
How much more so is it unnecessary?
To identify with millions of strangers who just happen to look like you in that they have the same skin color.
In light of what's possible psychologically and interpersonally, in light of what is actually required to get over yourself and to experience genuine compassion for other human beings, it is a form of mental illness to go through life identified,
really identified with one's race.
Yeah.
So, Matt, before you respond, I'll just say, I think, again, overstatement comes into play here and the potential lack of perspective about why some people may choose to identify with racial characteristics or ethnic groups.
But he does discuss that later.
He raises that point as a response.
But before we get onto that, I just want to say that the part that I took issue with in the previous call to drop Identities.
Was the implication that when you do that, when you drop identities, and when you no longer look at the man in the mirror and see like Chris Kavanaugh or Matthew Smith, you see a collection of particles who temporarily are in the form of a man that all those refer to as Chris Kavanaugh or Matthew Smith or Brian,
you know, whichever.
That's what I see.
I just see particles.
Yeah.
Or The Matrix, right?
Frigging green jargon scribbling down the screen.
But when you reach that point, what Sam is editorializing is that you embrace his politics.
You embrace his philosophy.
That's what that leads to.
And that's the bit where I'm like, no, Sam, that's what you think that that leads to.
I understand that that's a conclusion you've reached, but...
It's showing a lack of perspective to imagine that other people might realize the emptiness of the various identity attachments they have, and yet not agree with Sam about determinism or his views on self.
That's the bit that I find objectionable.
Not the call to not focus on identity.
Sure.
No, I get it.
Yeah, it's not so much objecting to what he's suggesting, but more the rationale.
That he puts forward why you have to agree with him or would necessarily agree with him if you were clear-sighted like him.
And I know that that's annoying and would stick in people's throats.
So here's a clip of him talking about colorblindness and racial politics.
But to insist upon the primacy of race is to be obscenely confused about human potential and about society's potential.
And I'm not going to pretend to be unaware of that.
So when I'm talking about racial politics on this podcast, I am also talking about meditation.
Yeah, so the thing that is difficult to stomach is drawing together meditation and these political issues.
The other thing that's kind of annoying is I do think that he's misrepresenting the people that he's speaking against.
I don't think that they do valorise race.
I've heard from many people on that side of things that they think it is an unhealthy social colonialist conflict.
I will say I think there's an element where It's maybe more mainstream than you suggest there to have the view that solidarity based on racial constructs,
even though they are socially determined, and the kind of notion is that because the society is prejudiced and treats those racial constructs as real, that you don't have a choice as a member of those groups to discard that identity and you need to organize together.
In order to fight back against the hierarchical system.
That's exactly what I'm saying.
It's directly analogous to the Marxist idea that there should be solidarity among workers and maybe even violent antagonism towards the oppressors.
But Marxists don't think that there's anything fundamentally different about workers and capitalists.
They want to dismantle...
Metaphysically.
Metaphysically.
They want to dismantle the class.
Structure.
System.
System, that's it.
Yeah.
Structure, you're right.
You're using more Marxist jargon.
And, you know, likewise, the other rejoinder that I can imagine people saying is that if you are treated differently because you're black or because you're a woman, then you don't have the option to transcend identity.
I think it's only fair to play Sam addressing this point because he completely...
It's just a bad dream.
Of course, to say that as a white guy in the current environment is to stand convicted of racial insensitivity and even seeming indifference to the problem of racism in our society.
I mean, what greater symptom of white privilege could there be than to declare that we should just all get past race?
That's a retort that I believe I can hear percolating in the minds of many listeners.
And most well-intentioned people have been successfully bullied by that kind of response.
What's going on here, Chris?
You tricked me.
You said this would be commenting about Sam Harris and meditation, and you've drawn me into some kind of culture war race debate.
No, I will not go.
Silently into the night.
I'm just saying, this is part of the reason why some people have taken issue with this short episode.
But I don't actually have that much of an issue with Sam or anybody advocating for colorblindness as a goal.
I know that's passé now, but I think it's a legitimate goal that we should strive to achieve.
I think the debate is over how...
Realistic it is to regard that as something that we can focus on now.
But I don't want to focus on that.
It is impossible with Sam, however, to not get his positions tied in to these kind of topics.
And that's part of the criticism that I have here, is that if he had just released this thing saying introspection is good, and I encourage everybody to do it, you might learn more about your mind.
You may understand my positions better.
That would be one thing.
But what he's done instead is release a thing saying, if you meditate, you 99% of people who just constantly misinterpret me, if you only meditated, you would realize how right I am, not just about the nature of mind, but I'm right about politics.
I'm right about racial politics.
I'm right about...
And it's all self-evident if you meditate.
So, like, that's the problem, right?
Yeah, that's the problem.
Yeah, I agree with you 100%.
I'm going to say, in a normal episode, we try to get to bits where they say something nice.
So here's Sam arguing that his meditation practice leads him to believe that social welfare is a necessity.
Insights into the nature of mind can't help but touch politics.
For instance, my attitude toward wealth inequality is born of the recognition that no one is truly self-made.
All these rich guys walking around with their copies of Ayn Rand, thinking they're self-made.
It's pure fiction.
And given how we do become ourselves, given the overwhelming influence of luck in our world, we have to recognize that we need an effective system of wealth creation that doesn't allow people to truly fall through the cracks.
Yeah, I'm glad you played that because I think the people that would recoil against Sam talking about colorblindness Would be totally on board with that.
And that's a nice sentiment that I completely agree with.
But I'll just say that I don't know if you do have to have transcendental meditative experiences to come to the same conclusion.
Because I kind of have.
And I'm a guy who doesn't diet and doesn't meditate.
So somehow I swung it.
How did I do it, Chris?
Am I just brilliant?
Am I a genius?
Maybe you are the Buddha that we all strive to be.
But I completely agree with his sentiment there.
And I'll play just one last clip, which also is stating the same thing, I think, in a nice way.
And as we get wealthier, the floor beneath which no one should be allowed to fall should keep rising.
Compassion has to be built into capitalism.
Because it doesn't seem to occur naturally.
That's a sentiment I'm 100% behind.
And I think that's also an indication that people who treat Sam as purely this closet right-winger, that they are misrepresenting him to a certain extent because I think...
That does reflect his view about social welfare and wealth inequality and that.
And a lot of people will hand wave that as a way as, well, you know, nice sentiments.
But I think there's a difference there between him and a lot of the people that people would label as right wing that wouldn't evince that kind of criticism of capitalism and the need for a soft floor for people.
Yeah, of course.
Of course.
I mean, I don't know Sam Harris anywhere near as well as you do, but I get the sense that, politically speaking, he's not terribly far away from where I happen to be.
And I think where material like this is very annoying to people, and annoying to you specifically, Chris, is it's more the complete overconfidence and a lack of Self-awareness.
It's like a cultural thing and it's how he frames it.
You and I are people who react against people who take themselves extraordinarily seriously and who appropriate this huge amount of gravitas and authority.
In fact, we like people who don't take themselves so seriously and undercut themselves.
Have a laugh.
And even when you're talking about serious things.
And Sam's not like that.
Sam's just not like that.
And it does veer into arrogance and this bullet-headed, tunnel-visioned kind of self-assuredness that is almost like the certainty of the religious zealot who just knows that this is it.
And if you cannot understand that, then you need to...
There's a definite element to that, right?
And the atheists, there's this critique which sometimes gets levelled, which I think is invalid to argue that, well, if somebody is so certain that God doesn't exist, aren't they just as religious as the religious person?
And I think that's not a great criticism.
But the criticism that Sam is very zealous about the philosophical positions that he...
He regards them with the level of certainty that is typical amongst people who would be fundamentally religious.
I think that is a valid criticism because that's the way he comes across in this.
And I don't think he's advocating these terrible, terrible things.
They're positions I generally have a lot of sympathy for.
So it's not that.
It's more, like you say, the level of certainty.
Yeah, and the degree to which there's a claim of a transcendence of identity and ego, coupled with a display of incredible ego and lack of self-awareness.
That's the shit sandwich.
Yeah, I think that's it in a nutshell.
It's interesting, isn't it, how Sam, whose books were all about being anti-religious, Just been increasingly interested in this thing, which is not religion.
It's not religion, Chris.
It's just purely material, scientific, secular, but still achieving personal revelation and a higher state of consciousness through an entirely subjective, ineffable, untestable,
unverifiable process from which you can have special access to the truth that...
Other people either need to get on board with or get with the program.
And so it's structurally very similar.
Very similar.
Yeah.
But I will say this has been in his content from the start.
His earliest books have...
This point about, because he had went on walkabouts before he went to grad school, traveling around and going to India to find gurus and engage in meditation stuff.
So he was the one of the four horsemen of the New Atheists who recognized and debated with the other ones that religion did have these aspects to it that were worth preserving and experiencing.
So it's always been his thing, but it's become more of his thing as he's developed this.
Meditation app.
And that's the last thing I want to focus on is the potential connection.
And this is possibly the most worrying aspect of it between the commercial app that he has and the kind of community that he's growing there and this pitch that he's giving.
Because I don't want to make a big thing about it like this is all about profit and it's just a way to get money because I think he's very sincere.
But there is an element where there's a commercial interest here, and he's really presenting what you need if you really want to understand me, if you really want to get my points, is you need to meditate.
By the way, I have a subscription app that will teach you how to meditate, and that's where the real thing is.
So I've got just two clips left, but here's the first one, positing what you get in the Waking Up app.
So this is just to say that what I think I've learned through the practice of meditation influences many of the views I express on this podcast.
But I can't get into the details here because there are so many other things to discuss.
So that's what I'm doing over at Waking Up.
What I'm building at Waking Up is the laboratory where you can run this same experiment for yourself.
Yeah.
That's more troublesome, right?
A little bit.
It's not a...
God, this is such a terrible phrase, but it's not a good look, given the other things we talked about, to segue into a monetized service that you provide.
Yeah, and Matt, one point that people will raise in response to this is this.
And if you can't afford a subscription, you need only send an email to support at wakingup.com and ask for a free one.
So please do not let money be the reason why you don't check it out.
Okay, so you can get access for free.
That's nice, right?
But that strikes me as a little bit.
14-day money-back guarantee and how many people do.
That's, you know, it isn't...
90% of your audience, it's like 2% or 1%.
Yeah, that is something that marketers do.
If you're not perfectly comfortable on your mattress, you could send it back within a month.
90 days, no questions asked.
Yeah, so it is nice of him to offer that, but he must know that not everyone's going to take that option, you know, whatever it costs.
They know that most people don't take that up for certain reasons.
If you get people sufficiently excited about the product, most people can afford it and they will pay.
Here's the last clip that I titled The Guru Pitch.
So let's see what this is.
Oh dear.
You can pretend to want to integrate your intellectual and ethical and political life.
Or you can really want to do it.
And to discover all the ways in which you have failed to do it so far.
You can either want to do it or you can...
Nah, it's not like negging...
That rubbed me the wrong way, right?
You can be the one who walks the walk, or you're just some guy that reads my books and doesn't really get it.
Well, personally, I'm going to keep drinking and vaping and not dieting.
That's my plan.
Well, you're a bad person.
That's why.
We've discovered this.
So look, summing up, Matt, I think I've said it too many times already, what my issues with this were.
And it isn't with the message that people should engage in introspective practices that might be beneficial to people.
It's with all of the other things that we pointed out.
And I think that Sam Harris is not a Scott Adams type guru.
He's not even an Eric Weinstein type guru.
But he's in the guru sphere, especially with this move towards the meditation up.
And like this episode, right, this framing of things that if you really want to understand what he's getting at, you'll need to join with his introspective practices.
It's kind of a version of the emperor's new clothes.
Like if you're not getting it, it's because you're not really that enlightened or trying hard enough.
And there's a 100% guru dynamics attached to that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I won't repeat myself.
I think he gave most of my takes.
I agree with you.
He's very guru-like.
He's not a toxic guru as far as I can tell, like some of them are.
And he's an interesting character because I feel that if he's not sincere, then he's the best actor.
So, yeah, just what an interesting character.
That's my take.
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, Sam, if you hear this, please realize we don't have a grudge that we're trying to tear you down.
It's just a little ounce of more self-awareness.
It might benefit you.
It might make you less prone to engaging in prolonged battles with a whole cadre of enemies.
Yep, try to be more self-aware like Chris.
Exactly.
That's it.
You know, if you engaged in introspection practices the way that I have, if you had went to university and studied the history of Buddhist traditions, then your only conclusion you could reach is my perspective.
So that's what you need to do if you really want to get to the bottom of these kind of issues, Sam.
That's my message to everyone.
And it will also make you a better person if you agree with me.
So, sorry.
Well, it's worked for me.
So are we done?
Do we have any special announcements to make?
No, we've only took one hour longer than it took Sam to issue the podcast to add comments on it.
So I think that's about par for the course for us.
But yeah, but it's been fun.
And I think this has been a hell of an extended trailer for...
The Sam Harris proper episode.
I think a lot of these topics will probably repeat.
If we can spend an hour talking about an eight-minute clip, then just imagine how epic the full Sam Harris episode will be.
I'm sorry.
Take a week off work and just deep dive.
It's unclear whether this episode will come out before or after the Gwyneth Paltrow.
So you either have that to look forward to, or this is your added nugget of content.
But yeah, thanks everyone for listening.
We appreciate any feedback at the coding the gurus at gmail.com.
That's our email.
We have an active Reddit, which has lots of nice threads, which include discussion of this very content that we covered.
We have the Patreon.
And where we post extra content and do all our stuff.
And then we have the Twitter feeds, which is Guru's Broad for the show account, and then RFC Dent for Matt, and C underscore Kavanaugh for me.
And that is all of the ways you can reach us.
That is it.
Okay, bye-bye.
All right, Matt, go gravel at the feet of your muscle master.
