The Podcast of Our Generation

I have just finished re-listening to what will probably go down as the defining podcast of our generation: the show down between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein about Sam's controversial podcast with Charles Murray.

Although I am a fan of both and listen to nearly every podcast that pops up on their respective podcast feeds, I want to make it clear that I listened to this particular podcast on Sam's feed.

I'm sure many listeners were disappointed with what turned out to be a stillborn debate that didn't really make it past the opening gates of discussion, but I was fucking riveted from start to finish.

What was most interesting to me was Ezra's refusal to separately consider the scientific study an individual has carried out (that is by now commonly accepted in mainstream science) from their social policy views.

Ezra believes the two sides are interminably connected to one another and cannot be separated.

It was this fundamental difference in thinking that prevented a deeper discussion with Sam from unfolding. It should be noted that Sam, like Ezra, stated multiple times he is not in agreement with Charles on his social policies.

That said, Sam repeatedly pleaded with Ezra to get him to see that the scientific issue and the social issue at hand should be discussed as two entirely distinct, separate matters.

Sam was doing so because it's the only way one can hope to have a rational, dispassionate debate of the facts at hand without having worry about running into the wall of your interlocutor's personal politics regarding a particular social matter.

This reminds me of the furor that erupts whenever anyone broaches the name or thoughts of Martin Heidegger.

As with Murray, most seem to accept that Heidegger's private, personal views (as well as his membership, however short and tenuous, with the Nazi party) have fundamentally polluted the man's entire philosophical thought and writing and therefore believe that the latter should be shunned and avoided and anyone who says otherwise is at best a Nazi sympathizer.

The ability to see that two thoughts aren't one and the same and to deal with each as such - this is the defining trait of a thinker. Unfortunately, there was only one person truly thinking in this podcast.