I recently discovered Sam Harris, and started going down a bit of a rabbit hole that is his body of work. He has his critics, and I haven't spent enough time in

I recently discovered Sam Harris, and started going down a bit of a rabbit hole that is his body of work. He has his critics, and I haven't spent enough time in his materials to have a fully formed opinion of my own, but I found that following his work unearths some interesting insights about these culture wars. His arguments about religion and society's collective unwillingness to have an honest conversation about it are compelling. But what's fascinating to me is that he manages to piss off both the religious right and the SJW left, and I think he's onto something important. The reason he pisses them off is that his fundamental position boils down to: dogmatism is the problem. And no one wants to admit they are dogmatic. The same instinct in a right-wing pro-life person to shut down any consideration whatsoever that their position is suspect is the same instinct in the SJW who can only see the world as an unjust manifestation of the patriarchy, or systemic racism, etc. This is not to say that those things don't exist or have no impact, but it seems those things have been used to harness the same base behavior we're all capable of, to effectively form what resembles an entirely new religious dogma. This dogmatism shuts down substantive dialog, and perpetuates the same kinds of problems one finds with folks who insist Jesus is coming back to earth in the next 50 years. A mindset that removes willingness to engage in conversation - even if the person holding the mindset happens to be right (or at least closer to right than some others) - is a mindset every bit as dangerous and problematic as the mindset held by right-wing extremists. I'm not trying to just parrot Sam's message here, but he's saying things that I've long believed, and didn't know how to articulate, and the basic takeaway is this: dialogue is the only thing that can change the collective consciousness. The current trends around identity politics, cancelling people for the things they say, creating taboos so strong that people don't feel comfortable even touching on some topics is the antithesis of liberalism, and I'll repeat what you and GGP said - anti-human. If dialogue is the only path forward, and our current path involves the complete demonization of certain dialogue to the point that you are no longer allowed to participate in the conversation, we are at what can only be called an impasse as a culture. We should properly put bad ideas to bed, absolutely. We should address systemic issues where they exist, absolutely. We should learn from our major mistakes, absolutely. But the current climate is somewhat terrifying. One need only try to make the argument I just made on Twitter, Facebook or Reddit to see what I'm talking about. You'll quickly be branded a right-wing or alt-right sympathizer (despite the fact that in terms of policy, I'm about as liberal as they come, identity politics notwithstanding). People will manufacture a version of you that they believe to be true, and then abuse you for it, while feeling righteous and justified in the process. It's a sad state of affairs.