CW: rant; Democracy Now with Amy Goodman TW: Zizek Ebooks @zizek_ebooks: "Sam Harris. Fuck"

One of the most annoying interviews I've ever heard is linked below. I found myself awake and listening to it at 5:30 a.m. on a Sunday. The guest (Sam Harris) is definitely the more intelligent of the two in this interview, but that doesn't keep him from frequent, and often stunning, incoherence. The host (Maureen Fiedler) is oblivious to one of the few interesting arguments that Harris manages to make (in fact, she is a perfect caricature of one of his points, as illustrated by her total lack of understanding said point). When I think back to the few interviews from this show that I've enjoyed, the interviews were good because the guests were exceptionally interesting, so that even the most basic questions elicited thoughtful answers. I watch Democracy Now even when I disagree with it because it has interesting coverage on foreign policy, race, the prison system, etc., and I value hearing its wide range of opinions on a number of other subjects on which I don't always agree. Interfaith Voices is everything that I manage to tolerate about Democracy Now, now purified into a single uniform substance that makes it rather intolerable, and then supposedly applied to a single subject (interfaith dialogue) -- though I don't think that's what the show is about, honestly. The show discusses religion and spirituality, but the main theme is Maureen Fiedler's political projects applied to religion (typically in the form of interviews with various religious adherents talking about politically liberal subjects). Which is fine. Any show covering the subject this show purports to cover will have some of this coverage because it's relevant. My complaint is that the show is disingenuous in what it claims to be because the host is far more interested in relating all religious conversations back to their coherence with progressive talking points than in providing objective coverage of old and great traditions that deserve better than to be viewed through the lens of American party politics. Lest anyone think I'm criticizing Fiedler for being "too liberal," I'm not. I can just as easily imagine a politically Republican show doing something of this sort and it being terrible. I don't believe one can be politically "neutral," but one can make efforts to try to get outside of one's self and hear what another has to say, without resorting to simple partisan divides that are rendered nonsensical by other belief systems. (See incoherent pope coverage) May I suggest Krista Tippet's On Being? I'm confident of her liberal credentials (for those who care about that sort of thing), but she has far greater diversity, both politically and religiously (and atheistically and agnostically), in guests than Fiedler, and Tippet asks questions with the intention of finding out what her guest believes, not because she wants to know the guest's opinion of Elizabeth Warren. And Tippet's voice isn't annoying. http://interfaithradio.org/…/Sam_Harris_Gets_Spiritual__But…

Oh, Hitchens.

Hitch, I love you, even when you bitch and when you're wrong. There's pretty good evidence that your criticisms of 1930s Catholicism [ask me about this, I'll provide you sources] and your generalizations of contemporary Islam are not as complex as most things that are in reality, which ought to be a warning sign that you're wrong. And your false dichotomies on faith and reason are nonsense. I pity the Sufi Muslim who should have known better than to ask you that sort of question. If you know Hitchens, why would you ask this? Douglas Wilson, who is a Calvinist, a system I strongly disagree with, and who I have some other issues with, asked a question, and elicited a response, from Hitchens, which left Wilson stunned -- not because Hitchens provided a good answer, but because Hitchens was unaware of how inadequate his answer was, and Wilson was shocked at how poor the answer was and was incapacitated by despair. Love, Me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sEcBzxoMB8