You’ll find this hard to believe but in the last 24 hours there has been drama on the normally totally calm and uncontroversial platform, Twitter, this time between two ostensibly intelligent, respected writers and thinkers, Sam Harris and Iranian-born Reza Aslan. Harris, the author of The End of Faith (2004) and frequent critic of organized religion and Aslan, a ‘theologian’, respectively have a long and troubled history, and this spat was triggered by the tweeting of a questionable soundbite taken from Harris’ podcast.
Listen: Maajid Nawaz nods along Sam Harris’ eloquently genocidal rhetoric on Muslims. pic.twitter.com/rSZXyRMEBC
— Sacha Saeen (@Sacha_Saeen) June 24, 2017
To which Aslan chimed in with…
Usually when someone plays devil’s advocate they don’t end their grotesque statement with “that seems rational” https://t.co/8oCUw6OSdP
— Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) June 25, 2017
Problematic, I hear you say. Well yes, it is. But wait, what’s this? Oh yes, context.
Turns out if you do what almost no-one on the internet does anymore and explore the statement in its entirety it reveals quite a different viewpoint.
Sam Harris qualifies this in the beginning with the fact that this is not how he feels, and it makes sense. In the past he’s been vocally supportive of the immigration of moderates and the conversation with Maajid Nawaz was centered around the average person’s mentality towards an influx of Muslims. This was conveniently omitted by Aslan, a man once admired (especially by yours truly) but slowly losing credibility, not least because he repeatedly refers to himself as a ‘theologian’ despite teaching creative writing.
After this was indicated, his response spurred further negativity, including unfair but snigger-inducing comments referencing his recent axing from CNN over his Anti-Trump tweets.
I suppose disparaging @SamHarrisOrg is the best way to raise your profile now that you’re out of a job at CNN, right?
— Zack Ely (@Zack_Ely) June 25, 2017
The maliciousness of the edit is evident. Reza your approach here is childish to say the least. You are tweeting your way into irrelevance.
— cerebro desatado (@cerebrodesatado) June 25, 2017
Can you explain your lack of compression of such simple points? Did you take the time to actually listen, contextually ?
— GrantaClaus (@Grantpa23) June 25, 2017
Aslan finally addressed this missing context by highlighting that Harris finishes his statement with ‘that seems rational’, a good point, but a feeble jab at the end of a fight he has, thus far, obviously lost. For what it’s worth, I did think it was rather telling of a vague dislike of Muslims (shocking). Probably didn’t warrant Reza’s outburst, especially since there were other more surreal, noteworthy chunks of weird including his helpful point that ‘Jihadists are only ever Muslims’ (yes, Sam Harris Ph.d, probably because it’s an Islamic word) and a spiel about how he’d be totally OK with an Indian family moving down the street if it meant they’d start a restaurant with delicious curry within walking distance (?) apparently as an indication of his ease around brown folk. Awesome.
Stay tuned for updates.
