Sam Harris and Bill Maher Aren't Racists!: They're Just 'Cultural Chauvinist' — Chauvinism and Racism Are Pretty Much Peas in a Pod

Maher and Harris: They're not racists, they're chauvinist - "It's
different."

By Ian Hansen
On Friday October 3, talking heads Bill Maher and Sam Harris both said some things on Maher's HBO show that resulted in the consternation of many progressives. Highlights included "Islam is the mother load of bad ideas" (Harris) and Islam is "the only religion that acts like the f*cking mafia, that will f*cking kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book" (Maher). Actor and director Ben Affleck was also on the show at the time. He argued cogently against judging Islam by the conduct of its most heinous dictatorial authorities, making this excellent (and immediately forgotten) point:

We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us by an awful lot . . . And somehow we're exempt from these things because they're not really a reflection of what we believe in. We did it by accident--that's why we invaded Iraq

[...]

In Maher and Harris's case, however, there is not only expressed dislike but also a declaration of worldview superiority that is backed up by the violent military muscle of a globally dominant hyperpower. The correct term for asserting, from a position of dominance, that your own worldview and culture is glorious and superior and that the worldviews and cultures under your jackboot are barbaric, backwards and inferior is "cultural chauvinism." It is not racism per se.

Cultural chauvinism is potentially smarter than racism because it does not necessarily invest in scientifically implausible beliefs such as that having certain skin pigmentation or physiognomic features causally affects one's intelligence or moral character. Other than that, though, cultural chauvinism and racism are pretty much peas in a pod.

Some individuals lack the capacity or desire to apply the Golden Rule across diverse domains, and many of them tend to liberally employ either racism or cultural chauvinism or both. These interpretive filters are usedl to justify the oppression, theft, rape, torture and mass murder of other people when that seems expedient.

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