Perhaps you thought back to your childhood. Perhaps you thought back to that day when your parents took you to Disneyland, and you remembered your joy at being a young child or even an adolescent, marveling at this amazing place created for all to marvel.

Maybe you’ve never been to Disneyland, but you’ve seen some of the cartoons that are so popular featuring Mickey the mouse. But even if you’ve never seen Mickey in a comic, or on TV, the chances are that this picture evokes something loving and child-like.

Children are both fragile and mostly good-natured, particularly at a young age; and so when we see figures such as the one presented here, we expect it to be a source of light-hearted fun, portraying something enjoyable.

Now, let me give you the very same picture again, but this time in its full glory:

Meet Farfour.

Farfour is part of a television program called “Tomorrow's Pioneers”, which aired on the Palestinian network Al-Aqsa TV from 2007 until 2009.

Le me give you the full sentence uttered by Farfour that I have captured in this snapshot:

"We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers."

It wouldn’t be so bad if such words were the worst that could possibly come out of that show. But there is far worse, if you can believe it: on the first episode of the second season, a 9-year old girl called in on the show (there is a section of the program which takes calls), and the young girl tells the audience that “The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until you fight the Jews, they will be east of the river and you to the west, and the rock and the tree will say: Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and fight him!” 1 (This is a quote from a Hadith, important texts in Islam.)

But there is even worse. On the last episode of the first season, Farfour the mouse dies as a martyr… Beaten to death by an Israeli for a trivial offence, of course:

The violence and hatred shown are so ridiculous, it’s almost comical: we are talking about a Mickey lookalike being beaten to death! But remember that children as young as 3 or 4 years old watched Farfour speak in a childish, high-pitched voice, sometimes with tremendous kindness and kindred towards his own family and friends. There is this constant tension between love and brutality: in episode 3 of season 1, Farfour shows its audience how to shoot an AK-47 and how to throw a grenade.2

The show was discontinued after only 4 seasons, due to the outrage it generated in Western countries and elsewhere. But one wonders how much damage it did, or what came after (or indeed, before).

And if you think this isn’t sufficient proof of the moral bankruptcy of Palestinian leaders and their policies, we can talk about the current Palestinian school curriculum - largely supported by UNRWA, the UN mission dedicated to helping Gaza and other Palestinian territories and peoples at the cost of our taxpayer cash.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE) is an Israeli non-profit organization that monitors schools textbooks worldwide. As detailed on its website, it employs “international standards of peace, tolerance and non-violence, as derived from UNESCO declarations and resolutions, to determine compliance and to advocate for change when necessary.” It’s not inherently a pro-Israel policy tank; and if you doubt this, read its own report on Haredi textbooks in Israel, which paints a very mixed view of their own education.3 (I do note that Haredi textbooks do not promote murder of Palestinians: “There are no discussions within the curricula that glorify bravery or the fighting spirit of combatants.”)

IMPACT-SE’s report on Palestinians textbooks is far more damning: “There is a systematic insertion of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies are widespread throughout the curriculum, including science and math textbooks.”

“The possibility of peace with Israel is rejected. Any historical Jewish presence in the modern-day territories of Israel and the Palestinian Authority is entirely omitted from the textbooks.”

Let’s take a look at a concrete example from their report:

These are children aged 9 or 10 years old, being fed martyrdom, hate and specifically anti-semitism on a daily basis at school. And when they get home and turn on their TV, what do you think they will be watching? Is it preposterous to think that something akin to the old show Tomorrow's Pioneers is being televised currently?

Let’s take another great piece of information for schoolchildren:

How could there possibly be some form of peace when millions of children are taught that a rightful death fighting the Jews is more worthy than life?

This is the kind of hate that is instilled in such a young age. This is the kind of loathing that is so pervasive, so vibrant, and unfortunately so common in Gaza, that it fuels young Palestinian men to kill and rape as many Jews as they can get their hands on given the chance.

One indeed wonders how many Palestinian terrorists on October 7 had watched Tomorrow's Pioneers, or been fed daily radical Islamist propaganda at school.

Probably quite a lot. And if this doesn’t highlight the moral separation between one side and the other, I’m not sure what can.

PS: Take a look at this board game created in Gaza4:

It’s not breaking news that democracy seems to be in peril throughout the Western world. The great age of the popular vote already seemed to be in great trouble in the US when Donald Trump outright refused to accept the results of the last presidential election. It continues to be in jeopardy as he remains the frontrunner for the next cycle, using the very means to obtain the power that he so threatens.

I long thought that such threats to democracy could not take place in Europe. I also thought that if they did, it would be a bad thing. That is to say, for most of us, democracy is an institution above criticism. We can debate the various arguments relating to the numerous forms of democracy available to us—presidential systems, parliamentary systems, First Past The Post, etc.—but we’ve never really questioned, as Western civilization, the fundamental value of democratic elections. The threat that Trump poses is self-evident because he could bring down that institution.

Recent political events in France, my own nation, are starting to make me question the extent to which we can continue to unequivocally accept the result of the popular vote. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and his party, “Renaissance” (meaning rebirth), recently met with a major electoral defeat in European parliamentary elections at the hands of the far right, the magnitude of which prompted the President to dissolve his own national assembly (France’s lower chamber and the most important legislative assembly).

There will soon be a new government in place in France. And the polls seem to mostly correspond to the results of the very recent elections for the European Parliament. The far right is polling first, with around 40% of voter intentions. The far right poses an important threat to the stability of the French republic. Only in 2017, its then-leader avidly supported a French exit from the European Union. This position seems to have been walked back since, contributing to its current electoral appeal. But relations with the EU will be significantly strained, and cooperation with other nations will be difficult, with Germany being extremely weary of any radical change in French governance because of its inherently eurosceptic nature. In addition, given the complex entanglement of national and EU laws and regulations, a completely new territory would have to be explored in light of the many social and political issues the far right intends to tackle.

But the biggest threat that the far right poses is an economic one. Its popular proposals are costly; just one of them, significantly cutting taxes on fuel, would cost about 11 billion euros per year, according to a major independent think tank. 1 Another proposal, the indexation of retirement benefits against inflation, would cost around 27.5 billion euros from now until 2027.

The left-wing coalition in contention also poses huge problems for good economic governance. This wide left-wing group, which really is an amalgamation of various parties from extreme left-wing Marxists to mild social-democrats, currently stands at around 30% of voter intentions. Its proposal to significantly raise the minimum wage would cost around 20 billion euros per year; another plan to limit price hikes for basic goods in energy and food supplies would cost around 24 billion euros per year. This is cash that France simply doesn’t have.

It’s already been hit with a warning by the EU over its spending habits.2 What’s much worse, its borrowing costs have risen slightly over the past year, and several debt rating agencies have recently downgraded their assessments of the soundness of France’s sovereign debt, very slightly lowering their confidence that it is a good investment.3 Of course, all of this is also due to the lackluster growth of French GDP.

We know that the current government would very likely not have succeeded in significantly reducing this economic burden even if new elections had not been called.4 The fact that elections have been called is making the situation much, much worse: all competing parties are attempting to woo voters with promises of government spending that are simply completely delusional. Even Macron’s fiscally responsible party has had to yield to this trend, proposing several measures of its own that will cost the state several tens of billions of euros if implemented (such as huge electric vehicle subsidies and the large-scale provision of government-funded school supplies).

In short, the people are demanding ever more subsidies, more cash handouts, rising salaries, and cheaper goods and don’t care to know about the government’s ability to provide these things. And leaders seem to have no choice but to cater to these whims to have a chance in obtaining some political power.

The people simply aren’t prepared to face the facts: France is slowly losing its position as a top-tier economy and must (slightly) reduce government spending to ensure it remains credible to worldwide markets and to other nations. French citizens still have one of the best deals on earth currently: amongst OECD countries in 2019, it had the highest amount of public expenditure as a percentage of GDP, including an enormous 25% of its GDP spent solely on social protections. This figure has basically only continued to balloon since the early 2000’s and is one of the highest in the world. Surely “the people” can handle a slight reduction over the coming years…

Unfortunately, the “yellow vest” movement in 2019 proved that any reduction in social spending is always severely punished by the French people. This trend was confirmed in 2023 when crippling strikes took place when the government attempted to reform the retirement age (which is another huge problem in France that will only get a lot worse without additional significant action in the coming years).

In short, France is ungovernable. Its people (and, as a consequence, its leaders) are too attached to the romantic image of a rich nation that can afford anything it wants. But a reckoning will sooner or later come, and when it does, it could undo far more than is imaginable. Let’s pray that cooler heads prevail and that the necessary structural efforts will be undertaken preemptively rather than under strong international financial pressure.

Whatever the answer will be, it’s hard to think it will come from “the people”. Sometimes, we just need a whole lot less democracy and far more able technocrats, of which Macron is a relatively ideal type. It is an inconvenient truth but it is one that needs to be said: democracy can sometimes be detrimental to a nation’s future prospects.

There has been a lot of speculation regarding the academic world’s purported shift to the left side of politics. The international movement that recently exploded in universities to contest Israeli attacks against Hamas has really exposed the extent of this shift lately, so much so that we really have to wonder whether it could be feasible for professors and students alike to hold differing opinions.

Well, we actually can answer that question, surprisingly so. There are have been a few formal polls of political opinions amongst academics, and they do confirm a fairly pessimistic view. I’m going to concentrate on the field of international relations and political studies, where about 83 % of the 1500 academics answered that they were liberal on social issues, compared with only 7% of that total saying they were conservative.1 And this was 7 years ago! It’s hard to imagine things having gotten better; from the outcomes we are witnessing, they are surely only getting worse.

This shift is also pushed by a young generation who are paying top dollar for university services, particularly in the US, and want their feelings echoed and not questioned. This pushes university administrators to cater to this crowd of indignant knowledge-checkers, and one really must wonder what kind of skills the next generation will be able to lean and use in higher education; critical thinking does not seem to be one of them, at least where their strongly held opinions are concerned.

I can attest to this first-hand: during my Master’s in International Relations course, which finished last year, professors were carefully graded by students at the end of each module, and a poor score could jeopardize that teacher’s career. How could we expect teachers, in such an environment, to challenge students when they spout questionable assertions (such as, “cis white men still have too much power” or “colonialism is still to blame for Africa’s refusal to embrace LGBTQIA+ ideals”)? It’s quite obvious that teachers are heavily incentivized to fall in line and shut up, in a complete reversal of fortunes to what used to be convention at universities worldwide where professors had enormous leverage over their students and the latter were expected to mainly keep quiet and learn.

This entire argument was also highlighted by Sam Harris’s recent guest on his podcast (#368) with Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression). Greg highlighted how during McCarthyism (1947–1957), the exaggerated hunt for communist or socialist professors led to the firing of about 100 professors throughout that troubled time.2 Today, about 1 in 6 professors in the US have been threatened with punishment for speech they have uttered (which adds up to about 100,000 professors total), and Greg notes that his foundation has formally documented cases of at least 1000 academics being specifically targeted and punished or censored, including at least 200 firings since 2014.

So in fact, the situation is much worse today than it was back then; you just have to either be part of the woke crowd, or keep your mouth shut. There is no third option, otherwise you obviously will be out of a job for speaking the (or your) truth. I truly grasped the reality of this when I considered enrolling in a PhD program: the director of one of the most prestigious French universities in the field of political science told me in private that it was very difficult to earn a PhD if you don’t subscribe in some form or another to the current doxa. Likewise, getting some form of teaching position is almost impossible if you don’t share the same worldview as your colleagues.

This can only be further confirmed when one consults the newest research in any political field, including international relations. As any Google Scholar search reveals (a free search engine that indexes scholarly literature), the recent output of academic literature on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict primarily seems to underscore the Palestinian oppression against Israeli cruelty. 3

This is a tragedy in itself, because one of the most popular theoretical approaches to the study of international relations is the constructivist lens. Constructivism is a theoretical framework that emphasizes the importance of social constructs—such as ideas, norms, identities, and beliefs—in shaping international relations. This theory, used by most of the left-leaning academia ought to be the ideal tool with which to identify Palestinian obstacles to peace, and could be used for example to look at the perpetual issue of the so-called “right of return” of Palestinian refugees ejected in 1948, whose descendants still believe that they one day will come back to their long lost villages and towns in Israel. Or, it could be used to glimpse into the Palestinian tradition of victimization at the hands of the Israelis around which an entire identity has been constructed and is kept alive and well, because in constructivism the identities of actors (how they see themselves and others) are fundamental in shaping their interests and actions. Additionally, constructivism could be used to examine and criticize the role that political Islam plays in the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel’s right of to exist. We could go on and on…

Instead, we are left with politically motivated outputs, that betray the world of academia’s attachment to one side against another. This means that political science as a discipline is on track to become a failed field, whose moments of truth have come and gone. With it, the entire project of the Enlightenment is now in doubt: the ideals of free scientific inquiry and tolerance of various forms of thought and discourse seem increasingly dependant upon the winds of political correctness.

There is no greater question that can be tackled in the realm of philosophy or religion than the one that pertains to how to lead a good life. In fact, the very word philosophy comes from Greek, meaning ‘the love of wisdom’. This search for a good life has historically been the center of much of the Western discourse in the field, although the heightened emphasis of the past decades on the cultural subjectivity of the human experience has lessened the drive to explore universal values and heightened the skepticism of terms such as ‘good’ or indeed ‘wisdom’ itself. (As Slavoj Žižek famously quipped, "Wisdom is disgusting"…)

Sam Harris discussed this topic at length on a recent podcast (#364, entitled Facts and Values), and it’s one that I had to listen to 3 times before I felt I had a good grasp of it. That podcast continues what surely is one of Sam’s major contributions to the field of philosophy, and it’s one that fundamentally challenges this modern focus on the cultural relativism of the human experience by focusing on consciousness.

His thesis is that “morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds—and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe.”1 Our aim, both as individuals and as a collective, ought to be to dedicate ourselves to the discovery and achievement of non-suffering states of being. Even though there are clearly culturally specific degrees to how to achieve various good or pleasant states of being, these degrees, for the purpose of his argument, don’t really matter. The main principle ought to be to avoid clearly bad, persisting states of mind and body.

Sam openly challenges us to find cases where morality shouldn’t be concerned with consciousness as the center of the human experience. “Just imagine someone coming forward and claiming to have some other sources of value that have nothing to do with the actual or potential experience of conscious beings.” And this challenge can not indeed be countered : everything that we hold sacred or even worthwhile must have to do with human flourishing of some kind, which itself is a consequence of the conscious experience of life.

In order to challenge Sam’s arguments (which is the goal of this Substack!), I think we need to get into the details of what his position entails. I’d like to now take a specific example that I previously mentioned and that Sam also mentions : female genital excision. This is a practice that is simply absolutely horrible, and all it takes is to read some of the lived experiences of young girls being scarred for life, or worse, read the corresponding reports on its medical effects, to understand why it should be abolished.2

But the crux of the question is, how do we move from here to there? The NGO Cultural Survival mentions that the forced process of eliminating Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has paradoxically hurt many of the communities that it was supposed to benefit. Talking about the Maasai, a traditional African group that still practices FGM, the NGO mentions that “Because Maasai girls are traditionally considered children until they are circumcised, it is seen as imperative for a Maasai girl to undergo the circumcision rite before she is married. This strongly ingrained cultural belief propels families to go to great lengths to complete the circumcision. Over the past 10 years, I have witnessed people in my Kenyan Maasai community being arrested for practicing female circumcision. I have seen young Maasai children nearly starve to death because their parents were sent to jail.”

It’s clear that FGM has to become taboo in all cultures for an undeniable improvement in the well-being of women currently subjected to this practice to occur. Ignorance does blind many (both women and men) to the potential improvement of how better life could be in this particular instance. But this has to be done in a manner in which it is accepted by the people involved; otherwise, we risk failing on other similar metrics of the same moral landscape. It’s very difficult, practically speaking, to untangle that awful cultural practice from other Masaai customs and traditions, and absolute action could conceivably cause further harm as detailed above. In other words, even if we know what a better conscious life looks like, understanding how to get there is just as important, if not more, than the concrete realization that that space is there to be occupied.

Sam recognizes that there is a major problem here : “How can we persuade all of the people who are committed to silly and harmful things in the name of “morality” to change their commitments and to lead better lives?” And this is of course true - we have to convince others about just what it is they are missing. But there is another issue hidden within this space, because of the interdependence of good and bad conscious experiences on so many variables, each of which is impacted and impacts others in turn in sometimes unpredictable ways.

So many additional examples could be given here: from the inadvertent harm that NGO’s sometimes do3, to the use of diplomacy and soft power by powerful nation-states to pause conflict in various parts of the world, with the counterproductive result of prolonging the conflict4; there are so many areas of the moral landscape where clearly good intentions and actions, meant to improve the conscious lives of humans can still lead to the persistence of suffering.

I think Sam ought to give further thought as to how to achieve these better conscious states within the bounds of the world that we all currently inhabit, and turn his highly interesting philosophy of mind into practical recommendations that could influence policy makers worldwide.

To be clear, none of my objections should hinder from Sam’s central thesis: that there are better ways to experience life, many of which are unknown to us, as to maximize our contentment and enjoyment. Finding the ways to persuade mankind of this fact is one thing; making sure that these transformations can take place in pragmatic ways is another.

Sam Harris gave us an excellent episode recently regarding the war in Gaza. Now, as Sam points out in his analysis of the situation, it shouldn’t be too hard to identify which of the warring sides resembles Western culture better. There is one side, which is a democratic state with the legitimacy of the rule of law, freedom of religion, and pretty much all of the other concepts that we cherish. And there is another “quasi state” with de facto control over its small territory that is in all essence jihadist.

I think that when we talk about the conflict in Gaza, the crux of the debate isn’t whether one side has ideological or ontological superiority over the other. At least, that is how things would be if our readings of history or our hearing of tales of oppression didn’t cloud our judgement. From the western point of view, there really shouldn't be any debate.

What the world seems interested in is the simple question: is Israel killing too many civilians? To answer this question, we have to look at the laws of war, specifically international humanitarian law (IHL).

The determining principle surrounding the legality of acceptable civilian casualties in wartime is the concept of proportionality. “IHL proportionality does not compare the amount of casualties on both sides but rather balances humanitarian harm against military objectives.”1 It's obvious that in war, according to IHL, civilians may not be deliberately targeted; however, military objectives may be targeted if civilians are present if and when civilian casualties are estimated to be below the legitimate target’s military worth. 

There is much debate surrounding what that means and how that legal concept can be applied to real-life situations. Legal scholars and lawyers have debated the proportionality principle, which military targets can be attacked in cases where civilians are present, and how many. It’s obvious that there is some subjective evaluation here, because the inherent value of a military objective isn’t objective.

It's also difficult at this stage to assess precisely which of Israel's attacks have been lawful (or unlawful) in this context because of the little information we have surrounding specific strikes, that is, the specific intelligence that led to the attack and the associated estimations of civilian casualties as well as the military target’s worth. In many instances, we might have to wait for better information after the war.  But we do have some information surrounding specific cases that we can use to make preliminary assessments.

One example is the strike against the Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, 2023.2 Hundreds of Palestinian refugees were killed or wounded by Israeli JDAMs, enormous bombs that were required in order to penetrate down to the tunnels below that housed one or several high level Hamas military officers, one of which was in part responsible for orchestrating the October 7th attacks in Israel.

Several analyses of this particular situation highlight the precarity (or possible illegality) of the Israeli decision to attack, given the disproportionate risk to the surrounding civilians and refugees weighed against the relatively light weight of the military objective being attacked.3 While it makes sense for Israel to strike one of the leaders of Hamas, particularly one that was directly involved in the planning of October 7, that has to be balanced against the risk of significant civilian casualties. If we are to stay with the simple formula of the proportionality principle, then it does seem that in this case Israel would be in breach of international humanitarian law.

However, we have to add another very important concept that pertains to this war.  Hamas uses their own population in order to shield military targets from strikes (in violation of IHL). While one side’s violations does not allow the other to respond in kind, specific considerations need to be given to military situations that involve involuntary human shields.4 We know that Hamas is placing headquarters and other military objectives underneath hospitals, mosques, schools, and refugee camps, and that the tunnels that have been built at the cost of several billion dollars are destined to protect their own fighters and not the general population.

Amnon Rubinstein & Yaniv Roznai, in their influential paper “Human Shields in Modern Armed Conflicts: The Need for a Proportionate Proportionality,” argue that “the flagrant use of civilians to shield a military objective can effectively restrain a belligerent from attacking since, although one party is violating international law, the other party remains bound by the principle of proportionality.” And later, “The current rules governing the use of human shields and their practical application serve to benefit those parties willing to utilize civilian deaths to achieve military advantages.”

They propose that “proportionate proportionality” is required. “When the use of involuntary or unknowing human shields is part of a widespread or systematic policy, the measure of proportionality must be adjusted.” In other words, the rules surrounding the restrictions on the attacker must be relaxed. It has to be so; otherwise, any party that uses human shields would be at a great advantage.

It’s quite a brutal proposal, but is there another choice? Our adversaries are literally using our human-centered values against us. Not only that, but it seems to be working: the vast majority of the world seems content to ask Israel to stop its war against Hamas on the premise that the former is not conducting a righteous campaign. How could anyone fight a righteous campaign against a terrorist group, happy to sacrifice any lives (including their own) to achieve its objectives?

Getting back to the Jabalia strike, it seems important to apply this concept and hesitate before condemning that specific strike as either immoral or illegal. We arrive here at what may seem like a moral impasse, faced with a rock and hard place. Can we really let Israel murder innocent civilians and nod with agreement? But really, all war is immoral in a very fundamental sense; it is so revolting that it makes monsters out of human beings. But there is a gradation in horror, and no one on earth is a better monster than a jihadist, willing to sacrifice their own wife, son, daughter and life for the promise of paradise.

Israel must continue to exercise caution in its attacks. And it might well be true that some of these attacks have breached IHL. But given the high population density of the Gaza strip, coupled with its expansive military tunnels, and the avowed willingness of the governing authority to use involuntary human shields, much leeway to needs to be given to a law-abiding attacker. War is a dirty business, but it is a necessary one, because if we refrain from waging it, then jihadists will definitely be victorious.

With that, I’d like to leave you with a powerful quote:

“In reality, it would be more accurate to describe the struggle of a democratic state against a terrorist organization as one of reverse asymmetry, in which Goliath is chained and bound by liberal democratic values, a commitment to civil liberties, and national and international laws that preclude the use of effective action against terrorism while permitting the use of only a fraction of the state’s military, intelligence, and operational capabilities.

In the scenario of modern multidimensional and asymmetric warfare, Goliath is confronted by a David gone berserk, unbound by any prohibition, a David who accepts no norm, convention, international law, or restriction, and who makes deliberate, cynical use of those prohibitions and restrictions. By using civilians as human shields, by fighting from behind or within protected facilities such as places of worship, schools, hospitals, refugee camps, and aid facilities, the terrorist organization perverts the liberal democratic state’s self-imposed restrictions.

As the state restrains itself to avoid causing collateral damage, the terrorist organization baits it, causing it to inflict just that type of damage even as it magnifies its own military and operational capabilities.” - excerpt from the book GLOBAL ALERT, by Boaz Ganor

I’d like to delve into some of the most profound remarks Sam Harris has arguably ever made: his views on free will. Specifically, I want to focus on some of the more consequential claims that Sam makes, which I think either go unnoticed or simply haven’t had the impact on us all that I think they ought to have, if indeed we share his thought process on this topic.

At the core of Sam’s argument is the notion that free will is simply an illusion. How can that be? We all feel as though we are in control of our actions. I could choose, right now, if I really wanted it, to go out of my living room and plunge into my pool. That would not be a pleasant experience; it is simply too cold outside. But I could do it just to prove to you that I have free will. As Sam states, “the feeling of having free will is directly connected to the feeling of being a self.” Agency is the core principle here.

The issue is that we don’t really control what we think or why we think what we think. The thoughts that we associate with our mental states are not our own, in the sense that we don’t have any true control over them. They rise and fall with regularity and even habit. As Sam states, '“You aren’t the author of your thoughts, intentions, and actions; rather, thoughts, intentions, and actions simply arise unnoticed.”1 Thoughts, or states of mind, appear in our heads, and we associate them with our sense of self. But in order for thoughts to be truly our own, Sam isn’t sure what would have to be true in the universe for that to be possible.

Sam’s views closely align with his experiences with meditation and the realization that there is no self. It is, in a way, particularly ironic that a resolute atheist would have reached such a deep spiritual truth as that one. As an avid user of his app “Waking Up" dedicated to meditation and healing, it feels bizarre that Sam doesn’t really have an opinion on the question of whether there are other realms of existence beyond this one (either for us or for something else). If there is truly no self, no ego, then how is it that we, as humans, are presumably the sole creatures in this world given the ability to reach that truth? Doesn’t that hint at the possibility that there are many other kinds of metaphysical truths that we aren’t yet able to understand or discover? I think there is something there to puzzle over…

The next point that I believe is important to challenge is the idea that Sam proposes that free will is “such an incoherent concept that it's impossible to say what would have to be true of the world for it to exist.”2 In a way, this makes sense, of course: if we are little more than puppets subjected to the whims of prior causes, then what else is there to say? But it seems to me intuitively that there is some possibility of making progress here. How could we not provide a better definition of what ought to be true for anything to be really decided by a totally free agent, liberated from prior causes?

Perhaps in order to make progress here, we have to delve into similar spiritual truths (I’m thinking something along the Buddhist realization of “no self, no form, and no goal). Perhaps it requires some sort of knowledge that is impossible for us to reach, i.e., perfect knowledge of where our choices will lead us in the future and the perfect capacity to change our past. Perhaps it simply requires that our mind be able to think before it thinks. Or some combination of all of those.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Sam grounds reason as the most important of moral forces because it makes “slaves of us all”. To be persuaded by reason is to fundamentally change our opinions, visions, and actions toward the idea of truth. And I agree that there is an objective reality out there that is worth exploring, and that there are truths that need to be understood and integrated for us to lead good lives.

But the social world is also made of cultural and conceptual barriers that can be immune to certain forms of reasoning. As social constructivists hold, many values, concepts or norms are not necessarily amenable to the idea of a better life guided by integration of objective reality. Let’s take the famous Maasai people, a traditional people living in Africa who practice genital mutilation for both boys and girls.

Anyone would shudder at the thought of these practices taking place in the West (certainly for girls!). But this practice seems to be an integral part of their traditional culture. Attempts to reduce it have largely failed because the Maasai resist attempts by modernity to change their ways. We can hope that one day the practice will be reduced. And there is moral objectivity in saying that their lives will be improved by it. But who would we be if we were to force our reasoning upon them? Can we really expect them to agree with us? And, could there be a world in which the Maasai would be happier by keeping the practice as a part of their culture rather than getting rid of it? Could this be done without undoing other parts of their culture, which arguably give them meaning and a sense of belonging?

I am unsure of the answer to these questions, and I may well be wrong to doubt the absolute value of objective reality. But the realm of the mystery of the mind (highlighted by the question of free will), and our capacity for doing very bad things in the name of the greater good, should inspire caution in us all.

I want to focus on a recent and long interview that Sam Harris gave to Yasmine Mohammed on the latter’s podcast, titled “Sam Harris on Israel, Islam, and the end of Woke Ideology”. The podcast runs for three hours (although Sam expresses his ideas freely only in the first hour - the rest is Q&A) and in this one, Sam seems to speak a little more freely than with other guests who have come on his show recently. The arguments are sound, as usual, but he does seem to expound further than he would do in other settings.

I had heard Yasmine on Sam’s podcast many years ago. She isn’t as famous as the truly amazing Ayaan Hirsi Ali, with whom she shares certain aspects of a terrible backstory. After Yasmine’s mother’s conversion to Islam forced the young girl into accepting highly conservative Islamic practices, she later had to break free from an eventual destructive marriage to an Al-Qaeda member. It’s tough not to empathize with her…

Let’s get into the interview. I want to exclusively focus on the items that require clarification from Sam, because I agree with 90% of what he says.

The first point that Sam makes that seems exaggerated is the contention that Western Europe “has invited too many people into their society, who have no intention of assimilating to the values of that society.”1 Sam is “worried about the streets of London, of Paris” and that these nations “did a very bad job of integrating Muslim immigrants.”

It’s clear that radical Islamic values and persons pose a threat to Western societies much more than, say, radical Christian values and persons do, or their Hindu counterparts. If you go to the French equivalent of the FBI or CIA, you’re not going to find that their missions include limiting Buddhist terrorism… You’ll only find radical Islam as being singled out.

That being said, I do want to push back a bit on the idea that Muslims in general have failed to integrate into their host nations. There is here a difference between how Muslims have acclimated into US society and how they do so in Western Europe. The US is traditionally an immigrant nation, whereas it is not so across the pond.

This has resulted in many of these nations — such as France, Germany, or the Netherlands… — creating artificial barriers that have in practice made it harder for immigrants to fully integrate. There’s a great 2016 report on this topic, that states that “European multicultural policies made assimilation and integration more costly and helped to legitimize parallel communities.”2

The fact that the US has succeeded in more broadly integrating its Muslim population, and that the latter community’s opinions on gay marriage or abortions better reflect a national average position across all religious (or non-religious) backgrounds, hinders the idea that Muslims are solely to blame in Europe of their failure to integrate. Specifically, it’s not necessarily that Muslims don’t want to assimilate into their host nations: it’s that they are too often forced to live in parallel to other populations in significant numbers, and that leads to a perpetuation of stale and bad ideas.

If there is a time to act, it is now: France recently saw 19% of all newborns being given Arabic or Muslim names3. That portion is growing ever higher. It is time to grow ties between all those who nominally belong to a single nation-state. It is time to attempt to bridge the gap between universalist values and traditional, religious values. I have no doubt the former will prevail (and we have no choice but to take the risk.) Muslims living in open societies are also prone to leaving their faiths or embracing secular values. We can only go on living together by opening our hearts and minds to each other and allowing for the space for such a discussion to exist.

We have to leave the door open to conservative Muslims and understand that we might not have given some of them a chance to integrate into Western Europe. But the ball is at least as much in their court as it is in ours. Sam makes another important point later in the conversation: a liberal society can only tolerate so much illiberalism before succumbing to some form or other of tyranny: either from a growing conservative Muslim threat, or from some kind of response from ultra-conservative Christian backlash.

The next point that I think is dubious that Sam Harris makes is that “There has been so much wealth pulled out of the ground out of the Middle-Eastern petro-states that they haven’t had to confront the fact that their culture is basically intellectually bankrupt. It doesn’t produce anything the rest of the world, or even their own societies can use.”4

This is a claim that is difficult to stomach from Sam, because I’m not sure why the entire culture of the ME is so bankrupt. I understand that radical Islam is a problem, linked to many governments (Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan to name but a few). I also agree that highly conservative attitudes in these nations are not conducive to a good life: if the women in your country can’t go to school or walk the streets without a veil, then there’s something wrong with it.

But when we talk about culture, we’re talking about a way of life. We’re talking about centuries of tradition in food, entertainment, music, and writing. We’re talking about languages and tribal kinship. So many aspects of Middle Eastern culture are very different from our own but are certainly worth discovering and safeguarding.

I’m just unsure how we can classify a particular culture as better or worse than another on the basis of their “production”. What does that even mean? Could the cultural production of, say, the Philippines or Papua New Guinea be considered of a higher order than Saudi Arabia?

To be clear, I know Sam is not a bigot. I’ve heard him say in one of his podcasts that he loves the sound of the Muslim call for prayer, despite his better judgment. But we need to be careful about our choice of words, and I just think he misspoke here. It’s one thing to say that conservative Islamic values don’t lead people to construct a desirable world. It’s another to condemn the entire culture of a whole region.

A few weeks ago, Sam Harris invited Peter Zeihan onto his podcast to talk about the latter’s purported area of expertise: geopolitics.

I am no stranger to Zeihan; I have been listening to his opinions for years. There is one thing that I will give that man: he does not shy away from dramatic predictions, nor indeed from premonitions. He is, as we will see, a modern Nostradamus, minus the poetry.

The problem with Zeihan is that he is as close to a con artist as one could be in the realm of geopolitics while still remaining audible and believable. I’m certain that the term “con artist” might seem a bit exaggerated, but given his very specific brand of catastrophic analyses and attention-seeking statements, the term might not be so out of proportion with the character as it might first seem.

Let’s get into some of the examples of Zeihan’s extravagances. He states clearly that Western European “birth rates have now been so low for so long that Germany and Italy will cease to function as modern economic entities within 10 or 15 years because they're running out of working agent adults this decade and there is no economic model that works there.”

So we are to believe that the powerful German nation, the world's third most powerful economy, will literally break down and cease to exist as it currently stands.

It’s as ridiculous a claim as anyone could make.

No doubt he is correct that Western European countries do have many challenges stemming from a low birth rate, leading in some countries to a shrinking population. But it is quite obvious that these countries will have extremely strong incentives to do anything in their power to avoid the cataclysmic outcomes that are predicted here.

Governments and companies will have to learn to employ increasingly older people. Retirement ages will have to be pushed ever further. Immigration, notably from other European nations, will have to be stepped up dramatically — and the door will have to be opened to extra-European immigration, too, but immigration itself is indeed unlikely to be a miracle solution.

The truth is that the future does look challenging, and perhaps even bleak for the German economy. But if there is a country in the world that can face this issue, it is Germany together with the European Union. It is simply far too soon to expect any kind of collapse. This situation will require radical solutions, but this is a crisis that is amenable to human ingeniosity and intelligence. Zeihan’s predictions assume that nothing can be done to prevent it, and this is something highly contestable.

Zeihan’s follow-up claim that he “wouldn't expect to see a Germany in 2070” is preposterous and sounds more like a Trumpian quip than an expert opinion.

Next, another claim by Zeihan that is completely ridiculous is that the Russians have “to get to the Vistula, they have to get to Warsaw.” In other terms, the Russians are so vulnerable on their Eastern borders that they have to obtain buffer states to secure their nation. Nothing short of achieving this aim will stop them, and if they are not granted this objective by the Europeans and Americans, “the nukes will fly because the Russians don't see they have another choice.”

Again here, we see Nostradamus predicting the end of the world solely because the Russians can’t get to conquer Warsaw. These claims run against any logical military thought. Ukraine was vulnerable to conventional military attack in a manner in which Poland is not: they have a bigger and stronger military, directly supported by Western powers. But even weirder, the Russians would seemingly prefer to auto-destruct by nuclear Armageddon rather than accept this state of affairs.

If this were so, nuclear Armageddon would have long ago taken place. The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction still holds true: why would any rational leader accept the annihilation of his own population (not to mention the rest of the world’s) just to potentially secure his Eastern border against an extremely hypothetical attack from the West in a distant future?

It makes no sense, and it is precisely because it makes no sense that he is essentially alone as an International Relations expert to predict it.

Zeihan’s last weird prediction — which could be the stupidest — is that Trump is not going to be reelected in this year’s election in the USA. All polls indicate he is in front of Biden, and although these polls are not the most accurate, there is enough evidence here to believe that Trump has a strong shot at succeeding.

Certainly, he gives good arguments to support his claims, most notably that independents have so far rejected Trumpist candidates in previous elections across the board. Nevertheless, polling suggest Trump’s unpopularity is only rivaled by Biden’s. Who knows what will happen in a few months?

When predicting future events, it is better to assign these events probability estimations rather than to perform clairvoyance. No event in world history is bound to happen: each is beholden to other constraints, some of which are completely impossible to foresee. Who could have guessed that Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in 1914 would have led to World War 1 ?

This is why predicting anything in geopolitics with accuracy is impossible; there is no Theory of Everything to be found. It is certainly true that some statements are likelier to be true than false: for example, the US is widely expected to retain its commanding position in economic and military terms for decades to come. But we can’t even be certain of that fact, because some form of crisis can always happen.

Zeihan is likely to be wrong about Germany; the country will continue to exist in 50 years. Zeihan is also extremely likely to be wrong about Russian ICBM launches against Western Europe or the USA; certainly given the weak arguments he presents. Given Zeihan’s disastrous predictions, I almost wish he believes in a Trump win. It would make Biden’s case that much stronger.

PS: Sam Harris begins this conversation by highlighting that geopolitics is not his area of expertise, and so cautions the listener about risking not being able to counter Zeihan’s claims. Well, he was right: Sam doesn’t do such a good job here on pushing back on some of the more outlandish claims.

Here we are: Sam Harris has invited one of his recent guests back onto his podcast, Rory Stewart, to discuss the latter’s rather disparaging comments about Sam’s handling of the topic of Islam.

As is well known, Sam regards Islam as a set of ideas that is not contributing, on the whole, to peaceful and harmonious societies. As he often expounds, one example is the relatively high levels of worldwide support by Muslims for violence against civilians in defense of Islam1. This is not all: other examples include laws harshly punishing apostasy in many Muslim-majority countries, or the uproar of European Muslims when a caricature has been made of their prophet. These are but some of the multiple barriers to free and open societies that are conducive to personal growth and mutual tolerance.

Now Rory Stewart is no stranger to Islam: his vast diplomatic, military, and government experience (along with his extremely sharp intellect), which took him for many years in the Middle East, should make him quite knowledgeable about this topic. And Rory had made it seem that Sam’s opinions were those of a bigot.

This is why it is refreshing to hear Rory apologize to Sam immediately for his comments about the latter’s handling of this topic. The strength and directness of the apology are also satisfying: good character is defined not by the ability to shirk from responsibility, but to evaluate our actions and be honest with ourselves about ourselves. Rory displays excellent character, the like of which is virtually nonexistent among modern politicians.

That being said, the rest of their conversation does display some disagreements on the topic between the two men. They start with a discussion of Islamophobia: a term which they debate, Rory believing that it is difficult to cast a set of ideas as violent and separate them from the people that hold them — opening the door to hating people who hold these views. As Rory mentions, “I wouldn’t be able to separate the claim that a religion is sinister or evil” from the claim that one can have good opinions of those who hold these sinister views.

This makes sense — indeed, how can we believe that some ideas are so bad as to be purely evil (for example, Nazism) and separate those ideas from the people that hold them? Wouldn’t it be perfectly normal to dislike Nazis for holding their Nazi beliefs?

Sam answers that one cannot hold responsible people whose ideas have been ingrained in them by culture or habit. And indeed, it’s difficult to “blame” somebody for holding the beliefs that their parents and virtually everyone else believe. I remember an interview of a British expatriate in Saudi Arabia, who had been told he would go to hell for being an unbeliever. Given the state of affairs in Saudi Arabia, a country where it is forbidden to practice another religion than the one approved by the state, how are people able to think freely?

Now there is a deeper question here, and Sam has addressed it elsewhere: the very idea of free will is an illusion. Would someone born in the USA, being given a choice of ideas and systems of beliefs, and who would still choose to become a terrorist intent on blowing himself up for his faith — could that someone be more to blame than another born in Pakistan, who didn’t have this free market of ideas?

We might be tempted to say yes. But really, the choices we make, we don’t know why we make them. The influence of our biology, our environment, and our family determine why it is that we hold some opinions over others. The ideas to which we are most exposed, and that speak to “us” the most, are the ideas that we will hold. But we’re not sure why one train of logic speaks to us more than another, even given perfect logical coherence.

This is why it is silly to hold someone to blame for their ideas. There is no one to blame for the way the world functions, and even the most terrific of acts are done by people who were unable to do anything but perform them.

However, we can minimize sets of ideas that are harmful and increase awareness of those sets of ideas that are good. Rory is later correct to propose that Islam is not a monolith: there are good ways to practice Islam and poor ways to do so. The problem Sam Harris (and I) have is that many versions of Islam are not practiced with the concept of love and forgiveness at its heart: if many Islam-majority countries were not killing homosexuals for being homosexuals, or otherwise condemning them, then the world would be a better place for it.

We can even talk about such views in the West: the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) published a communiqué in 2018 stating that “from the Islamic standpoint, homosexuality is a forbidden action; a major sin and anyone who partakes in it is considered a disobedient servant to Allah that will acquire His displeasure and disapproval.” 2

It would be better if the Sunnah did not mention the prophet Muhammad cursing people who do “the action of the people of Lut.” It is still possible for modern interpretations to highlight other passages and to minimize this one — it is after all what all religious figures do, in Islam and elsewhere. But the problem seems bigger in Islam.

This cannot be decorrelated from the source of these ideas: the Quran, the hadith, and Sunnah. The more bad ideas there are in a religious text that is purportedly from God, the more difficult it will be to get rid of those ideas as interpreted literally. But it is certainly not impossible: there are some liberal Muslims, and although they are a minority, their voice shines into the darkness like beacons of light.

All religions, including Islam, perform a service to humanity when they are engaged in the pursuit of truth (whatever it might be), and self-improvement. When they are taken as an exploration of the human condition and transcendence, and enable an opening of the ego to what it is ignorant of — then, they are precious gems that need to be cherished.

But when religions spread hate, murderous rage, and bigotry, partly because they are the reflection of societies that are thousands and thousands of years old — then, they become a drag on all of the possible good that can emerge from other, more modern systems of ideas. And it doesn’t make one a bigot to say so.

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