SILLY RABBIT, CULTS ARE FOR FOOLS

Iván Castañeda Reviews

By Iván Castañeda
ἓν οἶδα ὅτι] οὐδὲν οἶδα”, [èn oîda óti] oudèn oîdaSocrates

Watching the truly chilling HBO documentary by Alex Gibney, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, I was reminded of Sam Harris, self-proclaimed leader of “New Atheism,” and his notion of science as panacea for humanity’s problems (see Project Reason). According to Harris’ simplistically argued critique of “religion” (which he has a pedestrian understanding of at best), science can not just make the world super-better, but more frightening in that he claims it can finally cure humanity of its moral problems.

It does not take a logarithm to see the uncanny similarities between Harris’ best-selling theology of science with Scientologist guru David Miscavige’s guide to uncorrupted natural joy through L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics of “clarity”. Harris would cleanse the world of irrational faith to make way for the clear doctrines of science as Miscavige would cleanse the brain of non-rational thoughts and memories (what Hubbard called the “reactive” mind) through auditing. Of course Harris cannot be compared to those who adhere to the wonders of the E-Meter and such but that both Harris and Miscavige claim to have radical new and unprecedented systems to cure humans of their inherent unhappiness is enough to make many intellectual stomachs turn.

It is common knowledge that Hubbard was quite clever (or stupid) in plagiarizing palpable clichés from pop-psychology and psychoanalysis for his “system” and adding his own bizarre elements of science fiction to give his “philosophy” a more fantastical edge. Harris and his best-selling brethren similarly construct scientific narratives of hegemonic singularities that will save humanity from its religion-based ignorance. Harris (as is his favorite partner in the art of science fetishism, Richard Dawkins) is particularly good at cherry-picking religious traditions for anything that would seem “irrationally ludicrous” to the “clear-minded and rational mind.” His comparison of modern religious beliefs to Greek mythology betrays his deeply vacant understanding of both.

Harris is also a devout neuroscientist (1), and I guess he can also call himself a philosopher since the Anglo-American model of analytical philosophy has basically displaced all philosophical contemplation from Thales to Derrida as metaphysical nonsense. If you go to the Internet, which is where Harris gets much of his information feedback, and look for the opposite of “analytic”, wordhippo.com will tell you it is “illogical, cursory, chaotic, disorganized, synthetical [I think Word Hippo is getting fancy here!] and unsystematic”. As a proud card-carrying critical theorist and devout skeptic of all faiths that are “logical,” I would venture that I would find more wisdom in the Phaedrus than in any of Harris’ books, and I’d find more wisdom than I could ever dream of in reaching OT (Operating Thetan) Level VIII!

Endnotes
1. For the foolishness of much of the cult of neuroscience see Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld, Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience (Basic Books, 2013).

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