Overview of #492 — The Second Plane, 25 Years Later
In this episode of Making Sense, Sam Harris reflects on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and argues that the “second plane” — United 175 hitting the South Tower — was the moment that revealed the attacks as deliberate, religiously motivated mass murder rather than a possible accident or isolated act of madness. He revisits how 9/11 shaped his own career, argues that jihadism remains a live threat, and says Western elites have increasingly obscured the problem through denial, identity politics, and a reluctance to criticize Islam as a system of ideas.
Main Thesis
The second plane changed everything
- The first plane strike could still be rationalized as an accident or a lone act.
- The second strike made the intentional, coordinated, suicidal nature of the attack undeniable.
- Harris says this should have permanently clarified the danger of jihadist ideology.
9/11 as a turning point in his own life
- Harris explains that he was already studying belief, religion, and meditation when 9/11 happened.
- His reaction to the attacks became the seed of The End of Faith.
- He traces his later work as an author, speaker, app creator, and podcaster back to that morning.
Jihadism, Religion, and Violence
The attacks were driven by religious certainty
- Harris rejects explanations that emphasize poverty, foreign policy, or despair as primary causes.
- He points to the hijackers’ own writings, videos, and behavior as evidence that they believed they were acting in service of God and paradise.
- He argues the attacks were acts of religious worship, not merely political violence.
Jihadism as a machine for mass murder
- His core claim is that jihadism converts sincere religious belief into terror and martyrdom.
- He says this danger is rooted in doctrines that remain openly available in scripture and widely accepted by large numbers of Muslims.
- The problem, in his view, is not that Islam can be peaceful, but that certain ideas inside Islam can produce extreme violence.
U.S. Response to 9/11
What the West got right and wrong
- Harris says the U.S. response included both necessary actions and catastrophic mistakes.
- He criticizes the long, costly “war on terror” and especially the war in Iraq.
- He says the Afghanistan war may have been justified initially, but the nation-building project was delusional.
The Afghanistan withdrawal
- He describes the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan as a disgrace.
- He also criticizes the abandonment of Afghan allies who helped the U.S. and now face Taliban reprisals.
- He calls the failure to protect them a major moral injury.
Security at a cost
- Harris acknowledges that counterterrorism efforts likely prevented many attacks in the U.S.
- He argues the tradeoff included reduced freedom at home and abroad, but that the relative stability was real.
- His point is that criticism of U.S. foreign policy does not erase the reality of jihadist intent.
October 7 and the Return of the Issue
A direct continuity with 9/11
- Harris says the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 showed that jihadism never went away.
- He describes the perpetrators’ own footage and celebration as evidence of religious certainty, not despair.
- He sees a clear line from 9/11 to October 7: martyrdom, paradise, and the killing of Jews and infidels as sacred duty.
Western reaction as a deeper failure
- He argues that the reaction in 2023 was faster and more alarming than in 2001.
- He criticizes celebrations on U.S. campuses and among some activists before Israel had even responded.
- He says elite institutions now often frame jihadist violence through oppressor/oppressed identity categories rather than moral reality.
Islam, “Islamophobia,” and Liberal Taboos
His critique of the term “Islamophobia”
- Harris argues that the term is often used to blur the line between bigotry against people and criticism of ideas.
- He says racism and xenophobia are real and should be condemned.
- But he insists that criticizing Islam as a belief system is not the same as hating Muslims.
Islamism vs. Islam
- He uses terms like Islamism, jihadism, radical Islam, and militant Islam depending on context.
- His position is that these ideologies are not detachable from mainstream Islam in the way many critics want to pretend.
- He argues that open societies need the freedom to critique doctrines that undermine liberal values.
Why criticism is suppressed
- Actual racists can weaponize anti-Muslim prejudice to discredit legitimate criticism.
- Islamist actors and their allies intentionally frame criticism as bigotry.
- Liberal institutions, he argues, often accommodate or excuse theocratic values in the name of tolerance.
Politics, Identity, and “Islamo-Leftism”
Harris’s concern about the left
- He says a new form of confusion has emerged on the left, where political identity politics shields Islamist ideas.
- He describes this as a kind of pseudo-moral framework focused only on who is oppressed and who is the oppressor.
- In that framework, he says, even openly genocidal theocrats can be recast as liberation movements.
Specific examples he cites
- He references politicians and activists who have made conciliatory or apologetic comments about Islamist-linked violence.
- He argues that some political figures gain support by avoiding honest condemnation of jihadism.
- He warns that this alliance between far-left identity politics and Islamist sympathies is dangerous.
Immigration and Liberal Societies
Ideological vetting, not racial exclusion
- Harris distinguishes his position from racist or xenophobic anti-immigration arguments.
- He says he supports cultural diversity and is not opposed to immigrants on ethnic grounds.
- What he opposes is importing people committed to anti-liberal, theocratic, or extremist values.
Why values matter
- He argues that open societies must vet for ideological commitments, not just identity.
- The goal is to protect values like free speech, secularism, women’s equality, and scientific rationality.
- He says the first victims of Islamic extremism are usually Muslims themselves, especially dissidents, apostates, and secular reformers.
Closing Reflections
The lesson of 25 years
- Harris says his thesis from The End of Faith has not required revision: beliefs matter, and some beliefs are dangerous.
- What he underestimated was how long it would take for Western elites to admit this.
- He concludes that the “second plane” should have settled the issue of whether bad ideas can kill at scale.
His final challenge
- The episode ends with a rhetorical question: if 9/11 and 10/7 were not enough to make the danger clear, when will society admit it?
- For Harris, the unresolved issue is not whether bad ideas have consequences, but why so many privileged institutions still refuse to say so plainly.
Podcast and Support Update
Community and subscription notes
- Harris briefly promotes the Making Sense community on samharris.org and the app in the App Store.
- He thanks subscribers for funding the podcast directly, emphasizing that he has no advertisers or sponsors.
- He argues that this support is what allows him to speak freely on controversial topics without outside pressure.