meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Making Sense with Sam Harris

#121 — White Power

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.629.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2018

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sam Harris speaks with Christian Picciolini about his experience as a neo-Nazi skinhead. They discuss how Christian got out of the movement, the limits of shame and forgiveness, the cult-like dynamics of white supremacy, the alt-Right, Russian support for white supremacy in the US, “fake news”, the significance of Charlottesville, the SPLC, and many other topics.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

0:12.1

hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing

0:16.2

the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense

0:20.7

Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharis.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed

0:26.1

to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads

0:31.2

on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.

0:35.8

So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.

0:46.9

Today I'm presenting the audio from the event in Dallas I did with Christian Pichilini.

0:51.4

Christian's written a wonderful book, White American Youth, which recounts his experience as a

0:58.2

neo-nazi and a leader of the Hammer Skin Nation. In this podcast we talk about how he got out of

1:06.0

the movement, and we talk about the cult-like dynamics of white supremacy, and just the state of

1:13.1

things on the extreme right in the US and Europe at the moment. Many related issues, a very long Q&A

1:19.9

with the audience. I thought it was a great event, so without further delay I give you Christian Pichilini.

1:50.0

Thank you very much. I've never been to Dallas before, so it is a miss notter.

2:04.0

I can only say that once, so you won't hear me use that line again.

2:09.3

Really it's an honor to be here, and I'm so happy all of you came out. I really think this

2:14.6

is going to be a good one. I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time.

2:17.5

My guest tonight became a white supremacist at the age of 14. He agrees with you.

2:28.4

He became a leader in the Hammer Skin Nation, which is one of the most violent hate groups in the

2:33.6

world. After leading that he became a founded a group called Life After Hate, which was a non-profit

2:41.2

dedicated to countering racism. He's given a TEDx talk. He's won an Emmy for his role as a director

2:48.0

and executive producer of an anti-hate video campaign. He's the author of a really wonderful book,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Waking Up with Sam Harris, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Waking Up with Sam Harris and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.