Harris & Peterson

Dear Reader,

I was listening to a discussion between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson. At some point, they were talking about whether the Bible or the Koran could be changed. Sam spoke about the Koran, which prescribes that a thief’s hand shall be cut off and he mentioned the difficulty of revising this. He also stated it would have been much easier for Christians to be against holding slaves if one of the Ten Commandments simply had been swapped out with: don’t possess slaves.

While discussing these religious books, it was clear to me that neither of these intellectuals, who mainly engaged in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), seemed to believe that what we say to each other is of much greater importance than what is written. It was kind of surprising to hear them talk about these books as if these books determine how people talk, which is, of course, not factual. We talk because of how other people have talked with us. For someone who knows about the difference between NVB and Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), it is obvious that both Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson didn’t grow up with a lot of SVB, but it is also quite apparent that Sam must have had more SVB than Jordan.

Let me repeat what I have just stated so that you, my reader, can consider the importance of what I am writing and would much rather like to talk with you about. Although everyone believes that books determine what we believe and thus, how we talk, this is not how our talking comes about. Only living members of our verbal community mediate how we speak and whether we engage in SVB or in NVB is not determined by what is written and read, but by how others talk with us. It not surprising Harris and Peterson simply skip over this, as anyone who engages in NVB does exactly the same. The belief that what is written determines how we speak, doesn’t make it so.

So, let’s face it, their entire discussion is flawed. They should have been talking about how people talk with each other, instead of only about what has been written and read. Had they done that, they would engage in SVB and acknowledge that we can change our way of talking more readily than our scriptures. Changing the way in which we talk with each other is more pragmatic and more hopeful than changing our way of writing.

As we have never really succeeded in the past in effectively changing our way of talking, we have given more and more importance to what was written and read and less and less importance to what was listened to and said. Presumably, we should all be listening to these authorities, these highly intelligent people, who tell us about what is really going on. However, their catastrophic, but, also cowardly, emphasis on what is written and read can no longer obfuscate the reality of the challenge we still face as human beings.

Regardless of what religion we are talking about, all religions over-emphasize the importance of what has been written over what has been said. Presumably, what has been written is a record of what has been said, but given the fact that we have been engaging in NVB since we as humans became verbal, what is written is either mainly a record of our NVB or our attempt to get away from the horrors of NVB, which, loosely defined, can be described as our religious tendencies.

Peterson says that we have to be very careful equating all religious texts and Harris agrees with that. However, they should know and say that not just a couple of things, but everything that is written into our religious texts (and is endlessly regurgitated by millions of people) goes against what we have come to know scientifically and all claims to the opposite are major impediments to our interactions and our relationships. In other words, all our religiously predetermined speech is always NVB. It always was and it always will be. Surely, the only way mankind is going to be able to overcome its religious superstition is by engaging in SVB. I look forward to talking with Sam and Jordan.