Making Sense - Sam Harris - #338 — The Sin of Moral Equivalence

In this episode, I make a point that should not be controversial, because it cuts through all the arguments and pseudo-arguments that attempt to paint some moral equivalence between Israel and its enemies, or to justify the actions of Hamas as though they were a response to Israeli provocations, or the daily humiliation of living under occupation, and literally digging up graves, in Gaza. The point I'm making now says nothing about the causes of the recent violence in Israel, and yet it cuts right through them, and cuts through the pretensions that have been peddling for years about the role that religion plays in inspiring conflict. And yet it doesn't prejudge any of the questions that people might disagree about. It doesn't prejudice any of them, either. It's a simple point, and it's one that's not controversial because it's not even controversial at all, and that's why it's so important to make it. And it's also important to remember that there are people and cultures that revel in war crimes, and don't celebrate them. And that's a cause for jubilation, not celebration. And if we have been wrong about these dichotomies, then we have all been guilty of war crimes at one time or another, and if we're all guilty of crimes, then it's time to go back to one of two things: one of them is a war crime, and the other is a crime, which we should be celebrating as a sacred and a sacred crime. If you agree with me on this dichotomy, then you're on the wrong side of the dichotomy. of course, and you have been part of the right side of history, and not part of history of history and history of which we can be a victim of the moral progress and that which is a sacred war crime if you're guilty of it or not guilty of that dichotomy at least you ve been a victim, right or wrong of it, right? I hope you agree that we can all agree that this is a good one, right and wrong, and agree that war crimes are a matter of justice, not a right and a right, not of justice but not a crime . not a good or a bad one right and good, not wrong, not bad, not good and a good thing a good and bad in a time of war, not right and bad?

00:00:00.000 I want to say a few things about recent events in Israel.

00:00:24.920 I'm sure I'll do future podcasts about this and speak with a wide range of relevant experts.

00:00:30.320 But for the moment, I'd like to say something brief that stands a chance of being useful

00:00:35.380 as we watch the initial expressions of support for Israel begin to decay as it wages war in Gaza and perhaps beyond.

00:00:43.880 As many of you know, I've spent years talking about the clash as I see it between Western civilization and Islam. 1.00

00:00:51.760 Specifically, I've spoken and written about the connection between the actual doctrines of Islam and jihadist violence.

00:00:58.440 Of course, this violence has fallen out of the news in recent years, especially since the collapse of the Islamic State.

00:01:05.800 Even I've stopped thinking much about it.

00:01:08.260 But I've been under no illusion that the problem has gone away.

00:01:11.440 Now, those of you who have been following my work for 20 years know that I've said everything I have to say on this topic ad nauseum.

00:01:20.400 And I'm sure I'll just periodically repeat myself for the rest of my life.

00:01:23.820 Because eruptions of jihadist violence and the attendant secular moral confusion about it will be with us for generations.

00:01:31.820 However, I don't want to rehash any of my criticism of Islam here.

00:01:37.320 I'll just briefly remind you of what I believe, which is that there is no possibility of living in peace with jihadists. 0.91

00:01:45.360 So whether we want to admit it or not, we are perpetually at war with them.

00:01:49.680 And we must win a wider war of ideas with everyone both within the Muslim world and outside it who is confused about that.

00:01:59.220 And there are legions of the confused.

00:02:02.260 And there's no place on earth where the truth about jihadism is more obvious or excruciating

00:02:08.980 and the moral confusion about it more reprehensible than Israel today.

00:02:14.980 But leaving all of that to one side, for the moment I'd like to make a very simple point

00:02:21.000 that really shouldn't be at all controversial.

00:02:23.940 Because it doesn't prejudge any of the questions that people might disagree about.

00:02:28.280 You don't have to agree with me about Islam or about the role that it plays in inspiring conflict. 1.00

00:02:33.900 The point I'm making now says nothing about the causes of the recent violence in Israel.

00:02:38.220 And yet it cuts through all the arguments and pseudo-arguments that attempt to paint some moral equivalence

00:02:45.220 between Israel and its enemies, or to justify the actions of Hamas as though they were a response

00:02:51.240 to Israeli provocations, to the growth of settlements, or the daily humiliation of living under occupation.

00:02:58.060 Incidentally, there was no occupation in Gaza.

00:03:01.080 There hasn't been an occupation there since 2005, when Israel withdrew from the territory unilaterally,

00:03:06.500 forcibly removing 9,000 of its own citizens, and literally digging up Jewish graves.

00:03:13.000 The Israelis have been out of Gaza for nearly 20 years, and yet they have been attacked from Gaza ever since.

00:03:19.500 But even a statement like that wades too far into controversy.

00:03:24.240 I want us to step back.

00:03:26.360 Whatever you think about the origins of this conflict,

00:03:29.440 whatever you believe about the role that religion plays here, or doesn't play,

00:03:33.440 whatever you think about colonialism, or globalism, or any other ism,

00:03:39.100 whether you're a fan of Noam Chomsky or Samuel Huntington,

00:03:42.780 you should be able to acknowledge the following claims

00:03:45.780 to be both descriptively true and ethically important.

00:03:50.720 At this moment in history, there are people and cultures

00:03:54.460 that harbor very different attitudes about violence and the value of human life.

00:03:59.480 There are people and cultures that rejoice, positively rejoice,

00:04:05.300 dancing in the streets rejoicing,

00:04:08.240 over the massacre of innocent civilians.

00:04:10.920 Conversely, there are people and cultures that seek to avoid killing innocent civilians,

00:04:15.400 and deeply regret it when they do,

00:04:17.600 and they occasionally prosecute and imprison their own soldiers

00:04:20.800 when they violate this modern norm of combat.

00:04:23.860 There are people and cultures who revel in the anguish of hostages

00:04:27.360 and prisoners of war who will parade them before cheering mobs

00:04:31.580 and often allow them to be assaulted, or raped, or even murdered. 0.89

00:04:36.520 They will desecrate their bodies in public, 0.67

00:04:39.220 and all of this carnage is a cause for jubilation.

00:04:43.760 Conversely, there are people and cultures who find such barbarism revolting,

00:04:48.400 and again, would be inclined to prosecute anyone on their own side

00:04:52.300 who took part in it.

00:04:53.500 In short, there are people and cultures who revel in war crimes, 0.98

00:04:59.120 and who do not hide these crimes, or their celebration of them,

00:05:03.100 but rather proudly broadcast their savagery for all the world to see.

00:05:08.020 Conversely, there are people and cultures

00:05:09.480 who have given us the very concept of a war crime

00:05:12.620 as a sacred prohibition,

00:05:14.720 and as a safeguard in the ongoing project

00:05:17.160 of maintaining the moral progress of civilization.

00:05:19.480 At one point, to concede,

00:05:22.640 and this will absorb all the nuance and nonsense

00:05:26.000 that may be percolating in the brains of many listeners,

00:05:30.440 it is, of course, true

00:05:32.140 that we in the West have been on the wrong side

00:05:34.940 of these dichotomies in the past.

00:05:37.420 Most Western armies, including Israel's,

00:05:40.180 have at one time or another been guilty of war crimes.

00:05:43.020 And if you go back far enough,

00:05:44.780 all of human conflict was just a litany of war crimes.

00:05:48.540 And you don't have to go back all that far,

00:05:51.380 in fact, to find large pockets of Western culture

00:05:54.500 that were morally indistinguishable

00:05:56.500 from what we now see in much of the Muslim world. 0.98

00:05:59.800 If you have any doubt about this,

00:06:01.760 study the photos of white mobs

00:06:03.720 celebrating the lynchings that occurred in the American South

00:06:06.780 in the first half of the 20th century,

00:06:09.340 where seemingly whole towns,

00:06:11.440 thousands of men, women, and children,

00:06:14.080 turned out as though for a carnival,

00:06:15.740 to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death

00:06:18.980 and then strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see.

00:06:23.600 Seeing the pictures of these people in their Sunday best,

00:06:26.700 having arranged themselves for a postcard photo

00:06:29.140 under a dangling and lacerated

00:06:31.400 and often partially cremated person,

00:06:34.080 that's one thing.

00:06:35.300 But realize that these genteel barbarians, 1.00

00:06:38.380 who consider themselves good Christians,

00:06:40.600 often took souvenirs of the body home to show their friends.

00:06:45.280 Teeth, ears, fingers, kneecaps, internal organs,

00:06:50.800 and sometimes displayed them in their places of business.

00:06:54.000 So I'm not claiming

00:06:55.520 that there are permanent differences between groups of people.

00:06:59.280 I'm talking about the power of ideas

00:07:01.420 that happen to be ascendant at any given time and place.

00:07:04.700 I'm talking about beliefs and whole worldviews

00:07:08.520 that come into being in one culture

00:07:10.960 and have yet to come into being in others.

00:07:14.540 The point, of course,

00:07:16.020 is that if we recognize the monstrosities of the past,

00:07:19.720 we should recognize the monstrosities of the present

00:07:22.560 and acknowledge that at this moment in human history,

00:07:26.640 not every group has the same ethical norms

00:07:29.160 governing its use of violence.

00:07:30.820 For whatever reason,

00:07:33.120 perhaps religion has nothing to do with it.

00:07:36.420 Consider just one of these norms.

00:07:38.700 Whenever an armed conflict breaks out,

00:07:41.520 some groups will use human shields,

00:07:44.320 and others will be deterred

00:07:45.860 to one degree or another by their use.

00:07:48.940 To be clear,

00:07:49.460 I'm not talking about the taking of hostages

00:07:51.200 from the opposing side

00:07:52.460 for the purpose of using them as human shields.

00:07:55.660 This is appalling,

00:07:57.380 and it is now happening in Gaza.

00:07:59.040 But it's a separate crime.

00:08:01.820 I'm talking about something far more inscrutable.

00:08:04.440 It's astounding, really,

00:08:06.100 that it happens at all.

00:08:07.920 I'm talking about people

00:08:08.760 who will strategically put their own non-combatants,

00:08:12.540 their own women and children,

00:08:14.660 into the line of fire

00:08:15.820 so that they can inflict further violence

00:08:18.280 upon their enemies,

00:08:19.900 knowing that their enemies

00:08:21.200 have a more civilized moral code

00:08:23.800 that will render them reluctant to shoot back

00:08:26.360 for fear of killing or maiming innocent non-combatants.

00:08:30.580 If anywhere in this universe,

00:08:32.700 cynicism and nihilism

00:08:34.200 can be found together in their most perfect forms,

00:08:37.580 it is here.

00:08:39.400 Jihadists use their own people 1.00

00:08:41.260 as human shields routinely.

00:08:44.220 Hamas fires rockets from hospitals

00:08:46.480 and mosques and schools

00:08:48.720 and other sites calculated to create carnage

00:08:51.640 if the Israelis return fire.

00:08:53.460 There were cases in the war in Iraq

00:08:55.940 where jihadists literally rested

00:08:58.420 the barrels of their guns

00:09:00.020 on the shoulders of children.

00:09:02.680 They blew up crowds of their own children

00:09:05.200 in order to kill U.S. soldiers

00:09:07.440 who were passing out candy to them. 0.96

00:09:11.160 Conversely, the Israeli army

00:09:12.840 routinely warns people

00:09:14.900 to evacuate buildings

00:09:16.780 before it bombs them.

00:09:19.420 Of course, during times of war,

00:09:21.080 it is common to dehumanize one's enemy,

00:09:24.480 to describe them as barbarous and evil.

00:09:27.520 And it's natural for ethical and educated people

00:09:29.980 to distrust such politically charged language.

00:09:34.020 But pay attention.

00:09:35.720 I'm describing concrete behaviors,

00:09:38.820 behaviors that occur

00:09:39.900 on only one side of this conflict.

00:09:43.680 We just consider

00:09:44.620 how absurd it would be

00:09:46.500 to reverse the logic

00:09:48.340 of human shields in this case.

00:09:51.080 Imagine the Israelis 1.00

00:09:52.240 using their own women and children

00:09:54.560 as human shields

00:09:56.320 against Hamas.

00:09:58.760 Recognize how unthinkable

00:10:00.540 this would be.

00:10:02.040 Not just for the Israelis 0.99

00:10:03.020 to treat their own civilians

00:10:04.200 in this way,

00:10:05.480 but for them to expect

00:10:06.860 that their enemies

00:10:07.860 could be deterred

00:10:09.340 by such a tactic,

00:10:11.100 given who their enemies

00:10:12.220 actually are.

00:10:14.160 Again, it's easy to lose sight

00:10:15.920 of the moral distance here,

00:10:17.480 which is strange.

00:10:18.600 It's like losing sight

00:10:20.300 of the Grand Canyon

00:10:21.320 when you are standing

00:10:22.360 right on its edge.

00:10:24.420 Take a moment to actually

00:10:25.700 do the cognitive work.

00:10:28.060 Imagine the Jews of Israel 1.00

00:10:30.020 using their own women and children

00:10:32.800 as human shields,

00:10:34.760 and then imagine

00:10:35.840 how Hamas,

00:10:37.780 or Hezbollah,

00:10:39.340 or Al-Qaeda,

00:10:40.740 or ISIS,

00:10:41.360 or any other jihadist group

00:10:43.840 would respond.

00:10:46.000 The image you should now

00:10:47.480 have in your mind

00:10:48.300 is a masterpiece

00:10:49.780 of moral surrealism.

00:10:52.640 It is preposterous.

00:10:54.540 It is a Monty Python sketch 1.00

00:10:56.240 where all the Jews die. 0.99

00:10:59.400 Do you see what this asymmetry 0.89

00:11:01.200 means?

00:11:02.480 Can you see how deep it runs?

00:11:05.180 Do you see what it tells you

00:11:07.120 about the ethical difference

00:11:09.160 between these two cultures?

00:11:12.080 I mean, there are not

00:11:12.580 many bright lines

00:11:13.720 that divide good and evil

00:11:15.320 in our world,

00:11:16.340 but this is one of them.

00:11:19.260 Of course, there's much more

00:11:20.200 to talk about

00:11:20.900 when considering the ethics

00:11:22.260 of war and violence,

00:11:23.620 and there's much more

00:11:24.500 to be confused about.

00:11:26.200 For instance,

00:11:27.000 as this war proceeds,

00:11:28.620 many people will consider

00:11:29.660 the deaths of non-combatants

00:11:31.240 on the Palestinian side

00:11:32.460 to be morally equivalent

00:11:34.180 to the kids

00:11:35.360 who were tortured

00:11:36.020 and murdered

00:11:36.520 at the peace concert

00:11:37.560 by Hamas,

00:11:38.660 or to the hostages

00:11:40.140 who may yet be murdered

00:11:41.560 and their murders

00:11:42.720 broadcast on social media.

00:11:45.060 But they're not.

00:11:46.800 There is a difference

00:11:48.160 between collateral damage,

00:11:50.460 which is, of course,

00:11:51.180 a euphemism

00:11:51.860 for innocent people

00:11:53.140 killed in war,

00:11:54.320 and the intentional massacre

00:11:56.520 of civilians

00:11:57.760 for the purpose

00:11:58.960 of maximizing horror.

00:12:00.560 Simply counting

00:12:02.480 the number of dead bodies

00:12:03.720 is not a way

00:12:05.140 of judging

00:12:05.620 the moral balance here.

00:12:07.980 Intentions matter.

00:12:10.240 It matters

00:12:10.760 what kind of world

00:12:12.100 people are attempting

00:12:13.700 to build.

00:12:15.340 If Israel wanted 0.96

00:12:16.180 to perpetrate

00:12:16.760 a genocide 0.97

00:12:17.380 of the Palestinians,

00:12:19.280 it could do that easily

00:12:20.720 tomorrow.

00:12:22.340 But that isn't

00:12:23.200 what it wants.

00:12:24.880 And the truth is,

00:12:25.920 the Jews of Israel

00:12:26.940 would live in peace

00:12:28.620 with their neighbors

00:12:29.320 if their neighbors

00:12:30.780 weren't in thrall

00:12:31.840 to genocidal fanatics.

00:12:34.700 In the West,

00:12:35.700 we have advanced

00:12:36.460 to the point

00:12:37.140 where the killing

00:12:38.300 of non-combatants,

00:12:39.780 however unavoidable

00:12:40.720 it becomes

00:12:41.300 once wars start,

00:12:42.860 is inadvertent

00:12:43.920 and unwanted

00:12:45.020 and regrettable

00:12:46.560 and even scandalous.

00:12:49.080 Yes,

00:12:49.440 there are still

00:12:50.180 war crimes,

00:12:51.380 and I won't be surprised

00:12:52.480 if some Israelis 0.78

00:12:53.220 commit war crimes 0.80

00:12:54.480 in Gaza now.

00:12:55.900 But if they do,

00:12:56.940 these will be exceptions

00:12:58.520 that prove the rule,

00:13:00.560 which is that Israel

00:13:01.420 remains a lonely

00:13:02.820 outpost

00:13:03.580 of civilized ethics

00:13:05.380 in the absolute

00:13:06.680 moral wasteland

00:13:08.180 that is the Middle East.

00:13:10.080 To deny that

00:13:11.260 the government of Israel,

00:13:12.780 with all of its flaws,

00:13:14.660 is better than Hamas, 0.99

00:13:16.340 to deny that

00:13:17.300 Israeli culture,

00:13:18.820 with all of its flaws,

00:13:20.320 is better than

00:13:21.280 the Palestinian culture,

00:13:22.960 in its attitude

00:13:23.660 toward violence,

00:13:24.520 is to deny that

00:13:26.000 moral progress

00:13:27.020 itself is possible.

00:13:29.680 If most Americans

00:13:30.960 are better than

00:13:31.820 their slave-holding ancestors,

00:13:34.060 if most Germans

00:13:34.960 today are better

00:13:36.560 than the people

00:13:37.060 who herded Jews 1.00

00:13:38.060 into gas chambers,

00:13:39.680 if the students

00:13:40.420 protesting this war

00:13:41.600 on your college campus,

00:13:43.200 who are so conscientious

00:13:44.420 that they lose sleep

00:13:45.400 over crimes

00:13:46.180 like cultural appropriation

00:13:47.640 and using the wrong pronouns,

00:13:50.040 if they are better

00:13:50.760 than the racists 1.00

00:13:51.800 and the religious lunatics 1.00

00:13:53.320 that inevitably lurk 1.00

00:13:54.720 somewhere in their

00:13:55.480 family trees,

00:13:56.860 then we have to recognize

00:13:58.100 that there is no

00:13:59.420 moral equivalence now

00:14:00.820 between Israel

00:14:02.280 and her enemies.

00:14:03.620 over siege of the past 100 years.

00:14:10.200 And now,

00:14:10.400 in chance

00:14:13.180 you

00:14:13.800 go

00:14:14.360 and

00:14:15.380 stop

00:14:16.720 and

00:14:17.500 walk

00:14:18.520 and fit your

00:14:18.760 bodies

00:14:19.580 in the

00:14:19.920 place

00:14:22.660 on the

00:14:23.160 game of the

00:14:23.760 day

00:14:24.040 and

00:14:24.580 your

00:14:25.120 audience

00:14:27.640 right

00:14:27.700 and

00:14:28.820 behind

00:14:30.040 the

00:14:30.880 space

Making Sense - Sam Harris - October 12, 2023

#338 — The Sin of Moral Equivalence

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