Sarah Haider

Sarah Haider, a former activist and podcaster, shares her eye-opening journey after trying ayahuasca. She reveals how this powerful psychedelic shifted her perspective on life and her podcasting career, leading her to reevaluate her engagement with online culture. The conversation also explores her transition from a Muslim upbringing to activism, the allure and risks of ayahuasca, and the emotional toll of societal outrage. Haider emphasizes the importance of meaningful conversations over sensationalism and the need for clarity in a chaotic digital world.

Ex-Muslim activist Sarah Haider discusses parenting in a changing world with Malcolm and Simone Collins. They explore cultural identity, the role of reason in traditions, and the value of diverse belief systems. The trio also talks about the Collins' unique parenting approach and the importance of thoughtful innovation in the face of cultural upheaval.

Sarah Haider, Shadi Hamid, and Murtaza Hussain discuss the effects of the Israel-Palestine conflict on geopolitics and American culture, including eliminationist rhetoric, the divide between the West and the Global South, and potential changes in American foreign policy. They also address the impact of the conflict on American culture, cancel culture concerns, offensive rhetoric, the perception of the conflict in the US, and the compatibility of being a Zionist and a feminist or humanitarian. Additionally, they delve into personal experiences, Twitter personas, age gap discourse, the fracture of the American cultural left, and the importance of humanity amidst escalating tensions.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib hosts three guests, Sarah Haider of A Special Place in Hell, Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute and Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept. Razib, Haider, Hamid and Hussain discuss the current state of the culture from the perspective of “brown” observers of the public sphere dominated by woke vs. anti-woke factions. Despite ideological differences, all four are skeptical of the ideological orthodoxies regnant in American culture, even though one, Hamid, identifies strongly as a partisan Democrat who is liberal. In a wide-ranging conversation (which begins with a review of how to pronounce each other’s names), they discuss the case of Raquel Evita Saraswati, a woman Haider knew casually from the social activism sphere, who represented herself as a queer Muslim of Arab, Latino and South-Asian background. Saraswati, a Muslim who somewhat perplexingly co-opted the name of a Hindu goddess as her surname, was born Rachel Elizabeth Seidel and is of British, German and Italian ancestry. Due to her fifteen years of lying about her ethnic background, she was recently forced out of a position as chief equity and inclusion officer for the American Friends Service Committee. Haider and Hamid, in particular, discuss the pressure felt in some social justice movements for people to present incongruous backgrounds, like being a “queer Muslim,” and how it has created a demand that is being satisfied by grifters like Saraswati. Saraswati highlights the role of religion and how it is inextricably connected to brown identity in the US, whether it is coded Muslim or Hindu. Razib and Haider, both atheists from a Muslim background, and Hamid and Hussain, both believing Muslims, discuss the American religious scene in the wake of New Atheism and the social and functional value of religion in an age where moral frameworks have been overthrown and updated. Hamid questions Haider on her views on the value of religious wisdom in maintaining and perpetuating social norms that she supports, like the idea that there are two sexes and her deemphasis on the importance of “gender identity.” Hussain explains that religion, in a philosophical sense, should be considered distinctively from a more primal and animistic set of intuitions. All four meditate on the fact that they are outsiders not by dint of their race or immigrant background (or parental immigrant background), but their dissent from the dominant social norms of the ascendant professional-managerial class.

In this engaging discussion, Sarah Haider, the former executive director of Ex-Muslims of North America and co-host of the podcast 'A Special Place in Hell,' dives deep into the gender dynamics of public discourse. She shares her transition from nonprofit work to becoming a full-time public intellectual. The conversation examines how motherhood and personal authenticity influence her work. Haider also uncovers the complex challenges women face in the podcasting world, addressing the divergent communication styles of men and women.