Kind: captions
Language: en
the great light we tell ourselves that
people who are evil are not like us
they're they're a class apart everybody
in history who has sinned is a person
who's very different from me Robert
George the philosopher over at Princeton
he's fond of doing a sort of thought
experiment in his classes where he asks
people to raise their hand if they had
lived in Alabama in 1861 how many of you
would be abolitionists and everybody
raises their hand he says of course
that's not true
of course that's not true the the best
protection against evil is recognizing
that it lies in every human heart and
the possibility that it takes you over
do you ever sit back
you know in the quiet of your mind and
think am I participating in evil
the following is a conversation with Ben
Shapiro a conservative political
commentator host of the Ben Shapiro show
co-founder of the daily wire and author
of several books including the
authoritarian moment the right side of
history and facts don't care about your
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whatever your political leanings I
humbly asked that you tried to put those
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in the description and now dear friends
here's Ben Shapiro
let's start with a difficult topic
what do you think about the comments
made by yay formerly known as Kanye West
about Jewish people they're awful and
anti-Semitic
and they seem to get worse over time
they started off with
the bizarre deathcon 3 tweet and then
they went into
even more stereotypical garbage about
Jews and Jews being sexual manipulators
I think that was the Pete Davidson Kim
Kardashian stuff and then Jews running
all of the media educating in charge of
the financial sector
Jewish people I mean there's no I mean I
called it on my show there's German
Nazism and it is I mean it's like right
from Protocols of the Elders of Zion
type stuff do you think those words come
from Pain where they come from and you
know it's always hard to try and read
somebody's mind what what he looks like
to me just having experience in my own
family people who are bipolar is he
seems like a bipolar personality he
seems like somebody who is in the middle
of a manic episode and when you're manic
you tend to say a lot of things that
that
you shouldn't say and you tend to
believe that they're the most brilliant
things ever said
the Washington posted an entire piece
speculating about how bipolarism played
into the kind of stuff that that yay was
saying and um
it's hard for me to think that it's not
playing into it especially because
even if he is an anti-semite and I have
no reason to suspect he's not given all
of his comments if he had an ounce of
Common Sense he would stop at a certain
point and bipolarism tends to drive you
well past the the point where common
sense
applies so I mean I would imagine it's
coming from that I mean
from his comments I would also imagine
that he's doing The Logical mistake that
a lot of anti-semites or racist or
bigots do which is
somebody hurt me that person is a Jew
therefore all Jews are bad and that that
jump from a person did something to me I
don't like who's a member of a
particular race or class and therefore
everybody of that razor class is bad I
mean that's textbook bigotry and that's
pretty obviously what he is engaging in
here so jumping from the individual to
the group that's the way he's been
expressing it right he keeps talking
about his Jewish Asians and I watched
your interview with him and you kept
saying it so just name the agents right
just name the people who are who are
screwing you and he wouldn't do it
instead he just kept going back to the
the general the group The the Jews in
general I mean that's that's textbook
bigotry and if we're put in any other
context
he would probably recognize it as such
to the degree is worth fuel hate in the
world uh what's the way to reverse that
process what's the way to alleviate the
hate I mean when it comes to alleviating
the kind of stuff that he's saying
obviously debunking it
you know making clear that what he's
saying is is garbage
but the reality is that I think that
that for
most people who are in any way engaged
with these issues
I don't think they're being convinced to
be anti-semitic by yay I mean I think
there's a group of people who may be
swayed that anti-Semitism is acceptable
because yay is saying what he's saying
and he's saying so very loudly and he's
saying it over and over
but yeah I think that for example there
were these signs that were popping up in
Los Angeles saying yay is right well
that group's been out there posting
anti-semitic science on the freeways for
years and their groups like that posting
on systematic signs where I live in
Florida they've been doing that for
years well before yay was saying this
sort of stuff it's just like latest
opportunity to kind of jump on on that
particular bandwagon but
listen I think that people do have a
moral duty to call that stuff out so
there is a degree to which it normalizes
that kind of uh idea that Jews control
the media Jews control X Institution
is there a
way to talk about
a high representation of a group like
Jewish people in a certain
institution like the media or Hollywood
and so on without it being a hateful
conversation of course a high percentage
of of higher than
statistically represented in the
population percentage of
Hollywood agents are probably Jewish a
higher percentage of lawyers generally
are probably Jewish high percentage of
accountants are probably Jewish also a
higher percentage of of Engineers are
probably Asian like the statistical
truths are statistical truths it doesn't
necessarily mean anything about the
nature of the people who are being
talked about they're a myriad of reasons
why people might be disproportionately
in one Arena or another ranging from the
cultural to sometimes the genetic I mean
are there certain areas of the world
where people are better long distance
Runners because of their genetic
adaptations in those particular areas of
the world that's not racist that's just
fact and what starts to get racist is
when you are attributing a bad
characteristic to an entire population
based on
the notion that that some members of
that population are doing bad things
yeah there's a jump between it's also
possible to uh record label owners as a
group
have a kind of culture that F's over
artists sure doesn't treat artists
fairly and it's also possible that
there's a high representation of Jews
uh in in the group of people that own
record labels but it's that small but a
very big leap that people take from the
group that own record labels to all Jews
for sure and I think that one of the
other issues also is that
anti-Semitism is is fascinating because
it breaks down into so many different
parts meaning that if you look at sort
of different types of anti-Semitism if
you're a racist against black people
it's typically because you're racist
based on the color of their skin if
you're racist if you're racist against
the Jews you're anti-semitic then
they're actually a few different ways
that breaks down right you have
anti-Semitism in terms of ethnicity
which is like nazi-esque anti-Semitism
you have Jewish parentage you have a
Jewish grandparent therefore you are
your blood is corrupt and you are
inherently going to have bad properties
then there's sort of old school
religious anti-Semitism which is that
the Jews are the killers of Christ or
the Jews are the sons of pigs and
monkeys and therefore Judaism is bad and
therefore Jews are bad and sort of in
the way that you get out of that
anti-Semitism historically speaking is
mass conversion which most anti-Semitism
for a couple thousand years actually was
not ethnic it was it was much more
rooted in in this sort of stuff right if
you convert it out of the faith then the
anti-Semitism was quote unquote
alleviated and then there's a sort of
bizarre anti-semitism political
anti-Semitism and that is members of a
group that I don't like are
disproportionately Jewish therefore all
Jews are
are members of this group or are
predominantly represented in this group
so you'll see Nazis saying the
Communists are Jews you'll see
Communists saying the Nazis are Jews or
you'll see Communists saying that the
capitalists rather are Jews and so
that's the weird thing about
anti-Semitism it's kind of like the Jews
behind every corner it's basically a big
conspiracy theory unlike a lot of other
forms of racism which are not really
conspiracy theory anti-Semitism tends to
be a conspiracy theory about Believers
of power being controlled by a shadowy
Cadre of people who are getting together
behind closed doors to control things
yeah the most absurd illustration of
anti-Semitism and just like you said is
Stalin versus Hitler over Poland
that every bad guy was a Jew right it
was like so every enemy there's a lot of
different enemy groups uh intellectuals
political and so on Military and behind
any movement that is considered the
enemy for the Nazis and any movement
that's considered the enemy for uh the
Soviet Army are the Jews
what is the fact that Hitler took power
teach you about human nature when you
look back at the history of the 20th
century what what do you learn from that
time
I mean there are a bunch of lessons to
Hitler taking power the the first thing
I think people
ought to recognize about Hitler taking
power is that the power had been
centralized in the government before
Hitler took it
so if you actually look at the history
of Nazi Germany the Weimar Republican
effectively collapsed the power had been
centralized in the chancellory uh and
and really under Hindenburg for a couple
of years before that and so it was only
a matter of time until someone who was
bad grabbed the power and so the
struggle between the Reds and the Browns
in Nazism in in pre-nazi Germany led to
this kind of up spiraling of radical
sentiment that allowed Hitler in through
the front door not through the back door
right he was elected so you think
Communists could have also taken power I
mean there's no question coming it's
going to take him power there were
serious force in pronouncing Germany do
you think there was an underlying
current that would have led to an
atrocity if the Communists have taken
power wouldn't have been quite the same
atrocity but obviously the Communists in
Soviet Russia at exactly this time were
committing the haladimir yeah right so
they so it was there were there were
very few good guys in terms of good
parties the moderate parties were being
dragged by the radicals into alliance
with them to prevent the worst case
scenario from the other guy right so if
you look at I'm sort of fascinated by
the the history of this period because
it really does speak to how does a
democracy break down I mean the 20s
Republic was a very liberal democracy
how does a liberal democracy break down
into complete Fascism and then into
genocide and there's a character who you
know was very prominent in the history
of that time and in Franz von papen who
was actually the second to last
Chancellor of the Republic before Hitler
so he was the chancellor and then he
handed over to Schleicher and then he
ended up Schleicher ended up collapsing
and that ended up handing power over to
Hitler it was papenhood stumped for
Hitler to become Chancellor uh papin was
a was a Catholic Democrat he didn't like
Hitler he thought that Hitler was a
radical and a nut job but he also
thought that Hitler being a buffoon as
he saw it was going to essentially be
usable by the right forces in order to
get the in order to prevent the
Communists from taking power
maybe in order to restore some sort of
legitimacy to the regime because he was
popular
in order for papin to retain power
himself
and then immediately after Hitler taking
power Hitler basically kills all of
Peyton's friends papin out of quote
unquote loyalty stays on he ends up
helping the Angeles and Austra you know
all this stuff is really interesting
mainly because what it speaks to is the
great light we tell ourselves that
people who are evil are not like us
they're they're classified people who do
evil things people who support evil
people people they're not like us and
that that that's an easy call everybody
everybody in history who has sinned is a
person who's very different from me
Robert George the philosopher over at
Princeton he's fond of doing a sort of
thought experiment in his classes where
he asks people to raise their hand if
they had lived in Alabama in 1861 how
many of you would be abolitionists and
everybody raises their hand he says of
course that's not true
of course that's not true right the the
best protection against evil is
recognizing that it lies in every human
heart and the possibility that it takes
you over and so you have to be very
cautious in how you approach
these issues and the back and forth of
Politics the sort of bipolarity of
Politics the the or the uh polarization
in politics might be a better way to put
it you know makes it very easy to to
kind of fall into the Rock'em sock'em
robots that eventually could
theoretically allow you to support
somebody who's truly
frightening and hideous in order to stop
somebody who you think is more
frightening and hideous you see this
kind of language by the way now
predominating almost all over the
Western World right my political enemy
is an enemy of democracy my political
enemy is going to end the Republic my
political enemy is going to be the
person who destroys the country we live
in and so
that person
has to be stopped by any means necessary
and that's that's dangerous stuff so the
Communists had to be stopped in Nazi
Germany and so they're the devil and so
any useful buffoon
as long as they're effective against the
Communists would do do you ever wonder
because the people that are
participating in evil may not understand
that they're doing evil
do you ever sit back
you know in the quiet of your mind and
think am I participating in evil I mean
that so my business partner and I uh one
of our our favorite memes is uh from
there's a British comedy show The Name
Escapes Me of these two guys who are
members of the SS and they're dressed in
the SS uniforms and the black uniforms
the skulls on them and they're saying to
each other one says to the other guy you
notice like the the British the the
symbol is something is something nice
and it's like it's like an eagle and but
uh it's a skull and crossbones you see
the Americans you see that they're blue
uniforms they're very nice and pretty
awesome jet black are we the baddies and
you know that's it and the truth is we
look back at at the Nazis and we say
well of course they were the baddies
they wore black uniforms they had Jack
Boots and they had this and of course
they were the bad guys but evil rarely
presents its face so clearly so yeah I
mean I think you have to constantly be
thinking along those lines and hopefully
you try to avoid it yeah you can only do
the best that a human being can do but
yeah I mean the answer is yes if it I
would say that
I spend
an inordinate amount of time reflecting
on whether
I'm doing the right thing and I may not
always do the right thing I'm sure a lot
of people think that I'm doing the wrong
thing on a daily basis but um it's
definitely a question that has to enter
your mind as a as a historically
aware and hopefully more ladies in
person do you think you're mentally
strong enough if you realize
that you're on on the wrong side of
History to switch sides very few people
in history seem to be strong enough to
do that I mean I think that the answer I
hope would be yes you never know until
the time comes and you have to do it I
will say that having heterodox opinions
in a wide variety of areas is uh is
something that that I have done before
I'm the only
person I've ever heard of in in public
life who actually has a list on their
website of all the dumb stupid things
I've ever said uh so where I go through
and I either say this is why I still
believe this or this is why what I said
was terrible and stupid yeah um and I'm
sure that list will get a lot longer
yeah look forward continue addition to
that yeah exactly yes it actually is a
super super long list people should
check it out and it's quite honest and
raw
uh what do you think about it's
interesting to ask you given
how pro-life you are about yay's
comments about comparing the Holocaust
to the 900 000 abortions in the United
States a year so
I'll take this from two angles as a
pro-life person I actually didn't find
it offensive because if you believe as I
do that unborn and pre-born lives
deserve protection then the slaughter of
just under a million of them every year
for the last almost 50 years is a
historic tragedy on par with a holocaust
from the outside perspective I get why
people would say there's a difference in
how people view the pre-born as to how
people view say a seven-year-old who's
being killed in the Holocaust like the
visceral power and evil of the Nazi
shoving full-grown human beings and and
small children into gas Chambers can't
be compared to
a person who even from pro-life
perspective may not fully understand the
consequences of their own decisions or
from a pro-choice protective fully
understands the consequences but just
doesn't think that that person is a
person that that's actually different so
I I understand both sides of it I wasn't
offended by yay's comments in that way
though because if you're if you're a
pro-life human being then you do think
that what's happening is a great tragedy
on scale that involves the
dehumanization of an entire class of
people
the the pre-born so the philosophical
you understand the comparison I do it
sure
so in his comments in the jumping from
the individual to the group I'd like to
ask you you're one of the most effective
people in the world that attacking the
left
and sometimes they can slip into attack
in the group
do you worry that there that's the same
kind of oversimplification that yay is
doing about Jewish people that you can
sometimes do with the left as a group so
when I speak about the left I'm speaking
about a philosophy
I'm not really speaking about individual
human beings as
the leftists like group and then try to
name who the members of this individual
group are I also make a distinction
between the left and liberals there are
a lot of people who are liberal who
disagree with me on taxes disagree on
foreign policy disagree with me on a lot
of things the people who I'm talking
about generally and I talk about the
left in the United States are people who
believe that alternative points of view
ought to be silenced because they are
damaging and harmful simply based on the
disagreement so that's one distinction
the second distinction again is when I
talk about the right versus the left
typically I'm talking about a battle of
competing philosophies and so I'm not
speaking about typically
it would be hard to if you put a person
in front of me and said is this person
of the left or of the right having just
met them I wouldn't be able to label
them in the same way that if you met
somebody in the name of Greenstein you'd
immediately got you or you made a black
person's black person and the the
adherence to a philosophy makes you a
member of
a group if I think the philosophy is bad
that doesn't necessarily mean that you
as a person are bad but it does mean
that I think your philosophy is bad yeah
so the grouping is based on the
philosophy versus something
like a race like this the the color of
your skin or race is in the case of the
Jewish people so it's a different thing
you can be a little bit more nonchalant
and careless and attacking a group
because it's ultimately attacking a set
of ideas well I mean it's really
nonchalant in attacking the set of ideas
and I don't know that nonchalant would
be the way I'd put it I tried I tried to
be exact when you're you know you don't
you don't always hit but you know the if
I say that I oppose the Communists right
and and then presumably I'm speaking of
people who believe in the Communist
philosophy now the question is whether
I'm mislabeling right whether I'm taking
someone who's not actually a communist
and then shoving them in that group of
Communists right that would be
inaccurate the the dangerous thing is it
expands the group as opposed to you
talking about the philosophy you you're
you're throwing everybody who's ever
said I'm curious about communism I'm
curious about socialism there's because
there's like a gradient you know it's
like uh to throw something at you I
think Joe Biden said MGA Republicans
right right
you know I think that's a very careless
statement because the thing you jump to
immediately is like for Trump right
versus I think
the in the in the charitable
interpretation that means a set of ideas
yeah my actually problem with with the
mega Republicans line from from Biden is
that he went on in the speech that he
made in in front of Independence Hall to
actually try and Define what it meant to
be American Republican who's a threat to
the Republic was the kind of language
that he was using and later on in the
speech he actually suggested well you
know there are moderate Republicans and
the moderate Republicans are people who
agree with me on like the inflation
reduction acts like well that that can't
be the the dividing line between a mega
Republican and a moderate like a
moderate Republican somebody who agrees
with you that you got to name me like a
republican who disagrees with you fairly
strenuously but is not in this group of
threats to the Republic you make that
distinction we can have a fair
discussion about whether the idea of
election denial for example make
somebody you know a threat to
institutions that that's that's a that's
a conversation that we can have and then
we'll have to discuss how much power
they have you know what the actual
perspective is what delve into it but
you know I think that he was being
overbroad and sort of labeling all of
his political enemies under one rubric
now again in politics the stuff sort of
happens all the time I'm not going to
plead Clean Hands here because I'm sure
that I've been inexact
um but somebody what would be good in
that particular situation is for
somebody to sort of read me back the
quote and I'll let you know where I've
been inaccurate I'll try to do that and
also you don't shy away from humor and
occasional trolling and mockery and all
that kind of stuff for the for the fun
for the chaos all that kind of stuff I
mean you know I I try not to to do
trollery for trollery sake but you know
it if the show's not entertaining and
not fun people aren't going to listen
and so you know if you can't have fun
with politics the truth about politics
is we all take it very seriously because
it has some serious ramifications
politics is Veep it is not House of
Cards the the general rule of politics
is that everyone is a moron unless
proven otherwise that virtually
everything is done out of stupidity
rather than malice and that if you
actually watch Politics as a comedy
you'll have a lot more fun and so the
the difficulty for me is I take politics
seriously but also I have the ability to
sort of flip the switch and suddenly It
all becomes incredibly funny because it
it really is like if you just watch it
from pure entertainment perspective and
you put aside the fact that it affects
hundreds of millions of people then
watching
you know
president Trump being president I mean
he's one of the funniest humans who's
ever lived watching Kamala Harris be
Kamala Harris and talking about how much
he loves Venn diagrams or electric buses
I mean that's that's funny stuff so if I
can't make fun of that then my job
becomes pretty morose pretty quickly
yeah it's funny to figure out what is
the perfect balance between
uh seeing the humor and the absurdity of
the game of it versus taking it
seriously enough because it does affect
hundreds of millions of people it's a
weird balance to strike it's like uh I
am afraid with the internet that
everything becomes a joke
I totally agree with this I I will say
this I I try to make less
jokes about the ideas and more jokes
about the people in the same way that I
make jokes about myself I'm pretty
self-effacing in terms of my humor and I
would say at least half the drugs on my
show are about me
right when I'm when I'm reading ads for
for Tommy John and they're talking about
their no as you guarantee I'll say
things like you know that would help me
in high school because it would have I
mean just factually speaking um so you
know that if I can speak that way by
myself I feel like everybody else can
take it as well
difficult question in 2017 there was a
mosque shooting in Quebec City six
people died five others seriously
injured the 27 year old gunman consumed
a lot of content online
and checked Twitter accounts a lot of a
lot of people but one of the people he
checked quite a lot of is you 93 times
in the month leading up to the shooting
if you could talk to that young man what
would you tell him and maybe other young
men listening to this that have hate in
their heart in that same way what would
you tell them you're getting it wrong
if anything that I or anyone else in
mainstream politics says drives you to
violence you're getting it wrong you're
getting it wrong now again when it comes
to stuff like this I have a hard and
fast rule that I've applied evenly
across the Spectrum and that is I never
blame people's politics for other people
committing acts of violence unless
they're actively advocating violence so
when uh Phantom Bernie Sanders shoots up
a congressional baseball game that is
not Bernie Sanders's fault I may not
like his rhetoric I might disagree with
him on everything Bernie Sanders did not
tell somebody to go shoot up in
Congressional baseball game when a
nutcase in San Francisco goes and hits
Paul Pelosi with a hammer I'm not going
to blame Kevin McCarthy the house
speaker for that when somebody threatens
Brett Kavanaugh I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna suggest that that was Joe Biden's
fault because it's not Joe Biden's fault
I mean we can play this game all day
long and I find that the people who are
most intensely focused on playing this
game are people who tend to oppose
the politics of the person as opposed to
actually believing sincerely that this
has driven somebody into the arms of the
the god of violence but you know I I
have 4.7 million Twitter followers I
have 8 million Facebook followers I have
5 million YouTube followers I would
imagine that some of them are people who
are violent I would imagine that some of
them are people who do evil things or
want to do evil things
and um I wish that there were a wand
that we could wave that would prevent
those people from deliberately or or
mistakenly misinterpreting things as a
call of violence uh it's it's just a
negative byproduct of the fact that you
can reach a lot of people and so
you know if somebody could point me to
the comment that that I suppose quote
unquote drove somebody to go and
literally murder human beings uh then I
would appreciate it so I could so I
could talk about the comment but I I
don't
mainly because I just think that
if we remove agency from individuals
and we if we blame broad-scale political
rhetoric for every act of violence We're
Not Gonna the the the people who are
going to pay the price are actually the
the general population because Free
Speech will go away if the idea is that
things that we say could drive somebody
who is unbalanced to go do something
evil
the necessary byproduct is hate is that
is that speech is a form of hate hate is
a form of violence speech is a form of
violence speech needs to be curbed and
that to me is deeply disturbing
so
definitely he that man that 27 year old
man is the only one responsible for the
evil he did but what if he and others
like him are not not cases
what if they're people with pain
with anger in their heart what would you
say to them you are exceptionally
influential and other people like you
that speak passionately about ideas what
do you think is your opportunity to
alleviate the hate in their heart if
we're speaking about people who aren't
mentally ill and people who are just
misguided I'd say to him the thing I
said to every other young man in the
country you need to find meaning and
purpose in forming connections that
actually matter in in a belief system
that actually promotes
General prosperity and and promotes
helping other people and this is why you
know the message that I most commonly
say to young men is it's time for you to
grow up mature get a job get married
have a family take care of the people
around you become a useful part of your
community
I've I've never at any point in my
entire career suggested violence as a
resort to
political
political issues and the whole point of
having a political conversation is that
it's a conversation if I didn't think
that that it were worth trying to
convince people of my point of view I
wouldn't do what I do for a living
so violence doesn't solve anything no it
doesn't
as if
this wasn't already a difficult
conversation
let me ask about uh ilhan Omar you've
called out her criticism of Israel
policies as anti-semitic is there a
difference between criticizing a race of
people like the Jews and uh and
criticizing
um the policies of a Nation like Israel
of course of course I criticize the
policies of Israel on a fairly regular
basis I would assume from a different
angle than Noah Omar does
um but yeah I mean I criticize the
policies of of a wide variety of states
and to take an example I mean I've
criticized Israel's policy and given
control of the temple mounts the Islamic
walk which effectively prevents anybody
except for Muslims repairing up there
I've also criticized the Israeli
government for their colored Crackdown
right they can criticize the policies of
any government but that's not what Ohio
doesn't actually believe that there
should be a state of Israel she believes
that Zionism is racism and that the
existence of a Jewish state in Israel is
in and of itself the great sin that is a
statement she would make about no other
people in no other land should not say
that the French don't deserve a state
for the French she wouldn't say that
somalis wouldn't deserve a state in
Somalia she wouldn't say that that
German sources of a state in Germany she
wouldn't say for the 50 plus Islamic
states that exist across the world that
they don't deserve states of their own
it is only the Jewish state that has
fallen under her significant scrutiny
and and she also promulgates lies about
one specific state in the form of
suggesting for example that Israel is an
apartheid state which is most eminently
not considering that the last Unity
government Israel included an era party
that their Arabs who said on the Israeli
Supreme Court and all the rest and then
beyond that obviously she's engaged in
in some of the same sort of
anti-symmetrics that you heard from yay
right the stuff about It's All About the
Benjamins that American support for
Israel is All About the Benjamins and
she's had to be traded by members of her
own party about this sort of stuff
before
can you empathize with the plight of
Palestinian people absolutely I mean I I
you know some of the uglier things that
I've ever said in my career are things
that I said very early on when I was 17
18 I started writing syndicated comment
I was 17. I'm now 38. so virtually all
the dumb things I say virtually ill many
of the dumb things the plurality of the
dumb things that I've said came from the
ages of I would say 17 to maybe 23. and
they are rooted again in sloppy thinking
I I feel terrible for people who have
lived under the thumb and currently live
under the thumb of Hamas which is a
national terrorist group or the
Palestinian Authority which is a corrupt
oligarchy that steals money from its
people and leaves them in misery or
Islamic Jihad which is an actual
terrorist group and the the basic rule
for the region in my view is if these
groups were willing to make peace with
Israel they would have a state literally
tomorrow and if they are not then there
will be no Bees and it really is that
simple if Israel the the formula that's
typically used has become a bit of a
bumper sticker but it happens to be
factually correct if the Palestinians
put down their guns tomorrow there would
be a state if the Israelis put down
their guns there'd be no Israel
yeah
you get attacked a lot on the internet
I gotta ask you about your own
psychology
um how do you not let that break you
mentally
and how do you avoid letting that lead
to a resentment of the groups that
attack you I mean it's so there are a
few sort of practical things that I've
done so for example I would say that
four years ago Twitter was all consuming
Twitter is an ego machine especially the
notifications button right the
notifications button is just people
talking about you all the time in the
normal human tendency as well people
talking about me I gotta see what
they're saying about me which is a
recipe for Insanity so uh my wife
actually said Twitter is making your
life miserable you need to take it off
your phone so Twitter is not on my phone
if I want to log on to Twitter I I have
to go onto my computer and I have to
make the conscious decision to go onto
Twitter and then take a look at what's
going on I could just imagine you like
there's a computer in the basement you
descend into the Czech Twitter that's
pretty much in the darkness if you look
at when I actually tweet it's generally
like in the run up to recording my show
or when I'm prepping for my show later
in the afternoon for example that
doesn't affect you negatively mentally
like put you in a bad mental space not
particularly if it's restricted to sort
of what what's being watched now I will
say that I think the most important
thing thing is you have to surround
yourself with a group of people who are
who you trust enough to make serious
critiques of you when you're doing
something wrong but also you know that
they have your best interests at heart
because the internet is filled with
people who don't have your best
interests at heart who hate your gods
and so you can't really take those
critiques seriously or does wreck you
and the world is also filled with
sycophants right then the the more
successful you become there are a lot of
people who will tell you you're always
doing the right thing I'm very lucky I
got married when I was 24 my office 20.
so she's known me long before I was
famous or wealthy or anything and so
she's a good sounding board I have a
family that's willing to that's willing
to call me out on my bullshit as you
talk to yay about I have friends who are
able to do that I I try to have open
lines of communications with people who
I believe have my best interests at
heart but one of the sort of conditions
of being friends is that when you see me
do something wrong I'd like for you to
let me know that so I can correct it and
I don't want to leave that Impressions
out there the sad thing about the
internet just looking at the critiques
you get I see very few critiques from
people that actually want you to succeed
I want you to grow I mean they're very
uh they're not sophisticated they're
just they're I don't know they're
they're cruel the critiques are just
they're it's not the actual critiques
it's just cruelty and that's that's most
of Twitter I mean as Twitter is a place
to to
smack and be smacked I mean that's the
anybody who uses Twitter for uh for an
intellectual conversation I think is uh
engaging in category error I use it to
spread love I think yeah you're the only
one it's you it's you and no one else my
friend all right well on that topic what
do you think about Elon buying Twitter
what do you like um what are you hopeful
on that front what would you like to see
Twitter improve so I'm very hopeful
about Elon buying Twitter I mean I think
that
Elon is significantly more transparent
than what has taken place up till now
he seems committed to the idea that he's
going to broaden the Overton window to
allow for conversations that simply were
banned before everything ranging from
efficacy of masks with regard to covid
to whether men can become women and all
the rest a lot of things that would get
you banned on Twitter before without any
sort of real explanation it seems like
he's dedicated to at least explaining
what the standards are going to be and
being broader in allowing a variety of
perspectives on the outlet which I think
is wonderful I think that's also why
people are freaking out I think the the
kind of wailing and gnashing of teeth
and wearing of sackcloth and Ash by so
many members of the Legacy Media I think
a lot of that is because
Twitter essentially was an oligarchy in
which certain perspectives were allowed
in certain perspectives just were not
and that was part of a broader social
media reimposed oligarchy uh in the
aftermath of 2017. so in order for just
to really understand I think what what
it means for Elon to take over Twitter I
think that we have to take a look at
sort of the history of media in the
United States in two minutes or less the
United States the media for most of its
existence up until about 1990 at least
from about 1930s until the 1990s
virtually all media was three major
television networks a couple major
newspapers in The Wire Services
everybody had a local newspaper with
wire services that basically did all the
foreign policy and all the national
policy McClatchy Reuters AP AFP et
cetera so that Monopoly or oligopoly
existed until the rise of the internet
there were sort of pokes at it and talk
radio and Fox News but there certainly
was not this plethora of sources then
the internet explodes and all of a
sudden you can get news everywhere and
the way that people are accessing that
news is
you're I believe significantly younger
than I am but we used to do this thing
called bookmarking where you would uh
bookmark a series of websites and then
you would visit them every morning
and then uh and then social media came
up and just from AOL or yeah exactly you
had the dial up and you'd actually it
was actually a can connected to a string
and you would actually just they would
go
and and uh and then uh there came a
point where social media arose and
social media was sort of a boon for
everybody because you no longer had to
bookmark anything you just followed your
favorite accounts and all of them would
pop up and you followed everything on
Facebook and it would all pop up and it
was all centralized and for a while
everybody was super happy because this
was the brand new wave of the Future
made everything super easy suddenly
Outlets like mine were able to see new
eyeballs because it was all centralized
in one place right you didn't have to do
it through Google optimization you could
now just put it on Facebook and so many
eyeballs were on Facebook you'd get more
traffic and everybody seemed pretty
happy with this Arrangement until
precisely the moment Donald Trump became
president at that point then the sort of
pre-existing supposition of a lot of the
powers that be which was
Democrats are going to continue winning
from here on out so we can sort of use
these social media platforms as ways to
to push our information and still allow
for there to be other information out
there the immediate response was we need
to re-establish this this siphoning of
information it was misinformation and
disinformation that won Donald Trump the
election we need to pressure the social
media companies to start cracking down
on misinformation and disinformation and
actually see this in the historical
record I mean you can see how Jack
dorsey's talk about Free Speech shifted
from about 2015 to about 2018. you can
see Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech
Georgetown in 2018 in which he talked
about free speech and its value and by
2019 he was going in front of Congress
talking about how he was responsible for
the stuff that was on Facebook which is
not true he's not responsible for the
stuff on Facebook right it's a platform
is a t responsible for the stuff you say
on your phone the answer is typically no
so when that happened all of these
because all the eyeballs have now been
centralized in these social media sites
they were able to suddenly control what
you could see and what you could not see
and the most obvious example was
obviously leading up to 2020 the
election and that the killing of the
hunter Biden story is a great example of
this and so Elon coming in and taking
over one of the social media services
and saying I'm not playing buyer rules
right there's not going to be this sort
of group of people in the halls of power
who are going to decide what we can see
and hear instead I'm going to let a
thousand flowers bloom there will be
limits but it's going to be on a more
case-by-case basis we're going to allow
perspectives that are mainstream but
maybe not mainstream in the halls of of
Academia or in the halls of media let
those let those be said I think it's a
really good thing now that comes with
you know some responsibilities on
onigon's personal part which would be
you know to be
for example I think more responsible and
dissemination of information himself
sometimes right like he got himself in
trouble the other day for tweeting out
that that story about Paul Pelosi that
was speculative and untrue and I think I
don't think what he did is you know
horrific he deleted it when he found out
that it was false but and that's
actually free speech working right he
said something wrong people ripped into
him he he realized he was wrong he's
elated it which seems to be a better
solution than preemptively Banning
content which only raises more questions
than it than it actually stopped
with that said
as the face of of responsible free
speech
you know and and that's sort of what
he's pitching at Twitter he I think
should enact that himself and be a
little more careful in the stuff that he
tweets out well that's a tricky balance
uh the reason a lot of people are
freaking out is because one he's putting
his thumb on the scale by saying he is
more likely to vote Republican he's
showing himself to be center right and
sort of just having a political opinion
versus being this amorphous thing that
doesn't have a political opinion
um I think if if I were to guess I
haven't talked to him about it but if I
were to guess he's sending a kind of
signal that's important for the Twitter
the company itself because if we're
being honest most of the employees are
left-leaning so you have to kind of send
a signal that like a resisting mechanism
to say like uh since most of the
employees are left is is good for uh for
Elon to be more right to balance out the
way the actual engineering is done to
say we're not going to do any kind of
activism activism inside the engineering
if if I were to guess that's kind of the
effective
um aspect of that of that mechanism and
the other one by posting the Pelosi
thing is probably to expand the Overton
window like saying we can play we can
post stuff we can post conspiracy
theories and then through discourse
figure out what is and isn't true yeah
again like I say I mean I think that the
that is a better mechanism in action
than what it was before I just think it
gave people who hate his guts the
opening to to kind of slap him for for
no reason but I can see the strategy of
it for sure and I think that the you
know the the general idea that that he's
you know kind of pushing right where the
company had pushed left before I think
that there there is actually uh
unilateral polarization right now in
politics at least with regard to social
media in which one side basically says
the solution to disinformation is to
shut down free speech from the other
side and the other side is basically
like people like me are saying the
solution to this information is to let a
thousand like I'd rather have people on
the left also being able to put out
stuff that I just agree with than for
there to be anybody who's sort of in
charge of these social media platforms
and using them as editorial sites I mean
they're plenty I'm not criticizing MSNBC
for not putting on right-wing opinions I
mean that's fine I run a conservative
side and you know we're not going to put
up left-wing opinions on a wide variety
of issues because we are a conservative
site but if you pitch yourself as a
platform that's a that's a different
thing if you pitch yourself as the Town
Square as as Elon likes to call it then
I think Elon has a better idea of that
than than many of the former employees
did especially now that we have that
report from The Intercept suggesting
that there are people from Twitter
working with DHS to to monitor quote
unquote disinformation and being rather
vague about what this information meant
yeah I don't think activism has a place
in what is fundamentally an engineering
company that's building a platform
uh like the people inside the company
should not be putting a thumb on the
scale of what is and isn't allowed you
should create a mechanism for the for
the people to decide what isn't isn't
allowed do you think Trump should have
been removed
from Twitter
should his account be restored uh his
account should be restored and this is
coming from somebody who really dislikes
an enormous number of Donald Trump's
tweets um again he's a very important
political personage
even if he weren't I don't think that he
should be banned from from Twitter or
Facebook in coordinated fashion by the
way I hold that opinion about people who
I think are far worse than than Donald
Trump right people I everyone knows I'm
not an Alex Jones guy I don't like Alex
Jones I think Alex Jones oh I think Alex
should be back on Twitter I do actually
because I think that there are plenty of
people who are willing to say that what
he's saying is wrong and I'm not a big
fan of this idea that that because
people I disagree with and people who
have personally targeted me by the way I
mean Alex Jones has been has said some
some things about me personally that I'm
not real fond of you guys not well we're
not besties no it turns out yeah you
know all I've said is I don't really
enjoy a show he said some other stuff
about the Antichrist and such but that
that's that's a bit of a different thing
I suppose you know even so yeah you know
I'm I'm just not a big fan of this idea
like I've defended people who have
really gone after me on a personal level
have targeted me that the Town Square is
online
Banning people from the Town Square is
unpersoning them unless you violated a
criminal statute you should not be
unpersoned in American society as a
general rule that doesn't mean that
companies that are not platforms don't
have the ability to respond to you I
think
Adidas is right to terminate his
contract with Kanye for example with the
guy
um you know that's but
Twitter ain't Adidas
so the way your stance on free speech to
the degree it's possible to achieve on a
platform like Twitter is you fight bad
speech with more speech with better
speech
and that's
um so if Alex Jones and Trump was
allowed back on
in in the coming months and years
leading up to the 2024 election you
think that's going to make for a better
world in the long term I think that on
the principle that people should be
allowed to do this and the alternative
being a group of thought bosses telling
us what we can and cannot see yes so I
think in the short term it's going to
mean a lot of things that I I don't like
very much sure I mean that's that's the
cost of doing business you know like I
think that one of the one of the costs
of freedom is people doing things that I
don't particularly like and I would
prefer the freedom with with all the
with all the stuff I don't like than not
the freedom let me Linger on the love a
little bit uh you and a lot of people
are pretty snarky on Twitter uh
sometimes to the point of mockery
derision even a bit of if I were to say
bad faith in in the kind of mockery
um and you see it as a war like I
disagree with both you and Elon on this
Elon sees Twitter as a war zone or Lisa
saw it that way in the past
have you ever considered being nicer on
Twitter like
um as a voice that a lot of people look
up to that if if Ben Shapiro becomes a
little bit more about love that's gonna
inspire a lot of people or no this is
just too fun for you the answer is yes
sure it's occurred to me like it let's
put it this way there are a lot of
tweets that actually don't go out that I
delete uh I'll say the Twitter Twitter's
new function that 30 second function is
is a friend of mine every so often I'll
tweet something and I'll I'll think
about it a second I'll be like do I need
to say this probably not can you make a
book
uh published after you pass away of all
the tweets that you didn't send oh no my
kids are still going to be around
you know the Legacy
um but yeah I mean sure the answer is
yes and there's a good piece of what we
would call an orthodox this is like he's
giving me a mustard smooth right now
this is uh like the the kind of you know
be a better person stuff I I agree with
you I agree with you and uh and yeah and
I will say that Twitter is sometimes too
much fun I try to be and I try to be at
least if not even-handed then
um equal opportunity in my derision and
I remember that during the 2016
primaries I used to post uh rather
snarky tweets about virtually all of the
candidates Republican and Democrat uh
and uh every so often I'll still do some
of that I do think actually the amount
of snark on my Twitter feed has gone
down fairly significantly I think if you
go back a couple of years it was
probably a little more snarky uh today
I'm trying to use it a little bit more
in terms of strategy to get that
information now that doesn't mean I'm
not gonna make jokes about for example
you know Joe Biden I will make jokes
about Joe Biden he's the president of
the United States nobody else will mock
him so the entire comedic establishment
has decided they actually work for him
so the president of the United States no
matter who they are get the snark from
yes yes and and president Trump I think
is is fairly aware that he got this Mark
for me as well like this when it comes
to snarking the president I'm not going
to stop that I think the president
deserves to be snarky so you're not
afraid of attacking Trump no I mean I've
I've done it before
can you say what your favorite and least
favorite things are about President
Trump and President Biden one at a time
so maybe one thing that you can say
super positive about Trump and one thing
super negative about Trump okay so the
the super positive thing about Trump is
that because he has no preconceived
views that are establishmentarian he's
sometimes willing to go out of the box
and do things that haven't been tried
before and sometimes that works I mean
the best example being the entire
foreign policy establishment telling him
that he couldn't get a middle eastern
deal done unless he centered the
Palestinian Israeli conflict and instead
he just went right around that and ended
up cutting a bunch of Peace deals in the
Middle East or moving the embassy in
Jerusalem right sometimes he does stuff
and it's really out of the box and it
actually works and that's that's kind of
awesome in politics and and neat to see
the downside of trump is that he has no
capacity to to to use any sort of
uh there's no there's no filter between
brain and mouth well whatever happens in
his brain is the thing that comes out of
his mouth I know a lot of people find
that charming and wonderful and from
time to and it is very funny um but I
don't think that that it is a a
particularly excellent personal quality
in a person who has as much
responsibility as president Trump has I
think he says a lot of damaging and bad
things uh on Twitter I think that he
um seems you know consumed in some ways
by his own grievances which is why I've
seen him focusing in on Election 2020 so
much and I think that that is very
negative about President Trump so I'm
very grateful to president Trump as a
conservative for many of the things that
he did I think that a lot of his
personality issues are are pretty severe
what about Joe Biden so I I think that
the thing that I like most about Joe
bides
um I will say that Biden two things one
Biden seems to be a very good father
by all available by all available
evidence right there are a lot of people
who are put out you know kind of tape of
him talking to Hunter and Hunter's
having trouble with drugs or whatever
and I keep listening to tape and
thinking
he seems like a really good dad like the
stuff that he's saying to his son is
stuff that God forbid if that were
happening with my kid I'd be saying to
my kid uh and so you know you can't help
but feel for the guys had an incredibly
difficult
go of it with his with his first wife
and the death of of members of his
family and then bow dying I mean like
that kind of stuff obviously is deeply
sympathetic and his his you know he
seems like a deeply sympathetic father
um as as far as his politics he seems
like a slap on the back you know kind of
guy and I don't mind that I think that's
that's nice so far as it goes it's sort
of an old school politics where things
are done with handshake and personal
relationships and the thing I don't like
about him is I think sometimes that's
really not genuine I think that that
sometimes
um you know I think that's his personal
tendency but I think sometimes he allows
the the prevailing winds of his party to
carry him to incredibly radical places
and then he just doubles down on the
radicalism in some pretty disingenuous
ways and and there I would cite the the
Independence Day speech with or the
Independence Hall speech which I thought
was truly one of the worst species I've
seen a president give so you don't think
he's trying to be a unifier in general
not at all I mean I I that's that's what
he was elected to do he was elected to
do two things not be alive and be a
unifier those were the two things and
like and when I say not be alive I don't
mean like physically dead
this is where the scenario comes in but
he but what I do mean is that he is he
was elected to not be particularly
activist
basically the Mandate was don't be Trump
be sane don't be Trump calm everything
down and instead he got in he's like
what if we spend seven trillion dollars
what if we what if we pull out of
Afghanistan without any sort of plan
what if I start labeling all of my
political enemies enemies of the
Republic what what if I start
bringing Dylan Mulvaney to the White
House and talking about how it is a
moral sin to prevent the general
mutilation of minors I mean like this
kind of stuff is very radical stuff and
this is not a president who has pursued
a unifying agenda which is why his
approval rating sank from 60 when he
entered office to low 40s or high 30s
today unlike president Trump who never
had a high approval rating right Trump
came into office and he had like a 45
approval rating and when he left office
he had about a 43 approval rating and
bounced around between 45 and 37 pretty
much his entire presidency Biden went
from being a very popular guy coming in
to a very unpopular guy right now and if
if you're Joe Biden you should be
looking in the mirror and wondering
exactly why yeah do you think that
pulling out a form of Afghanistan could
be flipped as a pro for Biden in terms
of he actually did it I think it's going
to be almost impossible I think the
American people are incredibly
inconsistent about their own views on
foreign policy
in other words we like to be
isolationist until the time comes time
for us to be defeated and humiliated uh
when when that happens we tend not to
like it very much
you mentioned Bond being a good father
can you make the case for and against
the the hunter Biden laptop story for it
being a big deal and against it being a
big deal sure so the case for it being a
big deal is basically twofold one is
that it is clearly relevant if the
president's son is running around to
foreign countries picking up bags of
cash because his last name is Biden well
his father is Vice President of the
United States and it raises questions as
to influence peddling for either the
vice president or the former vice
president using political connections
did he make any money who was the big
guy right all these open questions that
obviously implicates you know the
questions to be asked and then the
secondary reason that the story is big
is actually because the reaction of the
story The Banning of the story is in and
of itself a major story if there's if
there's any story that implicates a
presidential candidate in the last month
of an election and there is a media
blackout
including a social media blackout that
obviously raises some very serious
questions about informational flow and
dissemination in the United States so no
matter how big of a deal the story is it
is a big deal that there's a censorship
of any relevance when there's a
coordinated collusive blackout yeah
that's that's a serious and major
problem uh so those are the two reasons
why it would be a big story the two
reasons a reason why it would not be a
big story perhaps uh is if it turns out
and we don't really know this yet but
let's say that Hunter Biden was
basically off on his own doing what he
was doing you know being a derelict or a
drug addict or acting badly uh and his
dad had nothing to do with it and Joe
was telling the truth and he really but
the problem is we never actually got
those questions answered so if it turned
out to be nothing of a story the nice
thing about stories that turn out to be
nothing is that after they turn out to
be nothing they're nothing the the
biggest problem with this story is that
it wasn't allowed to take the normal
life
cycle of a story which is original story
breaks follow-on questions are asked
follow-on questions are answered story
is either now a big story or into
nothing one when the life cycle of a
story is cut off right at the very
beginning right when it's born then that
allows you to speculate in any direction
you want you can speculate it means
nothing it's nonsense it's Russian it's
a Russian laptop it's it's
disinformation or on the other hand this
means that Joe Biden was personally
calling Hunter and telling him to pick
up a sack of cash over in Beijing and
then he became president and he's
influence pedaling so you know this is
why it's important to allow these
stories to go forward so this is why
actually the bigger story for the moment
is not the laptop It's the reaction to
the laptop because it cut off that life
cycle of the story and then you know at
some point I would assume that there
will be some follow-on questions that
are actually answered I mean the house
is pledging if it goes Republican to
investigate all of this again I wouldn't
be supremely surprised if it turns out
that that there was no direct
involvement of Joe in this sort of stuff
because it turns out as I said before
that all of politics is Veep and this is
this is always the story with half the
scandals that you you see is that
everybody assumes that there's some sort
of deep and abiding clever plan that
some politician is implementing it and
then you look at it and it turns out now
it's just something dumb right this sort
of perfect example of this you know
president Trump with the classified
documents in Mar-A-Lago so people on the
left leg it's probably nuclear codes
probably he's taking secret documents
and selling them to the Russians or the
Chinese and the real most obvious
explanation is Trump looked at the
papers and he said I like these papers
and then he just decided to keep them
right and then people came in and said
Mr President you're not allowed to keep
those papers he said who are those
people I don't care about what they have
to say I'm putting them in the other
room in a box
it is highly likely that that is what
happened and it's very disappointing to
people I think when they realize it the
human brain I mean you know this better
than I do but the human brain is built
to find patterns right it's what we like
to do we like to find plans and patterns
because this is how we survived in the
wild is you found a plan you found a
pattern
you crack the code of the universe when
it comes to politics the the conspiracy
theories that we see so often it's
largely because we're seeing
inexplicable events
unless you just assume everyone's a
moron if you assume that there's a lot
of stupidity going on everything becomes
quickly explicable if you assume that
that there must be some rationale behind
it you have to come up with increasingly
convoluted conspiracy theories to
explain just why people are acting the
way that they're acting and I find that
I don't say 100 of the time but 90 94 of
the time the The Conspiracy Theory turns
out just to be people being dumb and
then other people reacting in Dumb Ways
to the original people being dumb but
it's also to me in that same way very
possible uh very likely that the hunter
Biden Hunter Biden getting money in
Ukraine I guess for Consulting all that
kind of stuff is is a nothing Burger is
uh he's qualified he's getting money as
he should there's a lot of influence
peddling in general in terms that's not
corrupt I think the most obvious
explanation there probably is that he
was
fake influence pedaling meaning he went
to Ukraine and he's like guess what my
dad's Joe and they're like well you
don't have any qualifications in oil and
natural gas and you don't really have a
great resume but your dad is Joe and
then that was kind of the end of it they
gave him a bag of cash hoping he would
do something he never did anything I
think you're making it sound worse than
it is I think that's in general
Consulting is done in that way your name
it's not like you're through with you
you're not it's not like he is some rare
case and this is an illustration of
corruption if you can criticize
consulting which I would that's fair
which they're basically not providing
you look at a resume and who's who like
if you went to Harvard I can criticize
the same thing if if you have Harvard on
your resume you're more likely to be
hired as a consultant maybe there's a
network there of people that you know
and you hire them in that same way if
your last name is Biden if you're last
there's a lot of last names that sound
pretty good for sure for sure and it's
not like I committed that much by the
way right an open interview he was like
if your last name Warren bite when you
got that job and he's like probably not
it's not like he's getting a ridiculous
amount of money he was getting like a
pretty standard Consulting kind of money
which also would criticize because they
get a ridiculous amount of money but I
sort of even to push back on the life
cycle or to steal Madness the the side
that was concerned about the hanaban
laptop story I don't know if there is a
natural life cycle of a story because
there's something about the virality of
the internet that we can't predict that
a story can just
take hold and the conspiracy around it
builds especially around politics where
the interpretation
some popular sexy interpretation of a
story that might not be connected to
reality at all will become viral and
that from Facebook's perspective is
probably what they're worried about is
uh uh organized misinformation campaign
that makes up a sexy story or sexy
interpretation of the of the vague story
that we have and that has an influence
on the populace I mean I think that's
true but I think the question becomes
who's the great adjudicator there right
who adjudicates when the story ought to
be allowed to go through even a bad life
cycle or a lab allowed to go viral as
opposed to not now it's one thing if you
want to say okay we can spot the Russian
accounts that are actually promoting
this stuff they belong to the Russian
government gotta shut that down I think
everybody agrees this is actually one of
the slides that's happened
linguistically that I really object to
is the slide between disinformation and
misinformation you notice there's this
Evolution and in 2017 there's a lot of
talk about disinformation there's
Russian disinformation the Russians were
putting out deliberately false
information in order to skew election
results was the accusation and then
people started using disinformation or
misinformation and misinformation is
either mistaken information or
information that is quote unquote out of
context that becomes very subjective
very quickly as to what out of context
means and it doesn't necessarily have to
be from a foreign Source it can be from
a domestic Source right it could be
somebody misintered doing something here
it could be somebody interpreting
something correctly but PolitiFact
thinks that it's out of context and that
that sort of stuff gets very murky very
quickly and so I'm deeply uncomfortable
with the idea that Facebook I mean
Zuckerberg was was on with Rogan and
talking about how you know the FBI had
basically set lookout for Russian
interference in the election and then
all of these people were out there
saying that the laptop was Russian
disinformation so he basically shut it
down you know that that sort of stuff is
frightening especially because it wasn't
Russian disinformation I mean the laptop
was real and so the the fact that you
have people who seemed to let's put this
right it seems as though maybe this is
wrong it seems as though when a story
gets killed preemptively like this it is
almost universally a story that
negatively affects one side of the
political aisle I can't remember the
last time there's a story on the right
that was disinformation or
misinformation where social media
stepped in and they went we cannot have
this this cannot be distributed we're
going to all colludes that this this
information is not distributed maybe in
response to the story being proof false
it gets taken down but the what made the
hunter Biden thing so amazing is that it
wasn't relieved in response to anything
it was like the story got posted there
were no actual doubts expressed
as to the verified falsity of the story
it was just supposition that it had to
be false and everybody jumped in so I
think that confirmed a lot of the
conspiracy theories people had about
about social media and how it works yeah
so if the reason you want to slow down
the viral spread of a thing is at all
grounded in partisanship that's a
problem like you should be very honest
with yourself and ask yourself that
question is it because I'm on the left
or on the right that I want to slow this
down versus is it hate
uh bipartisan hate speech
right so that that's but it's it's
really tricky
um but I I like you I'm very
uncomfortable in general but then you're
kind of slowing down with any kind of
censorship but if if there's something
like a conspiracy theory that spreads
hate
that becomes viral
um I still lean to let that conspiracy
theory spread
because the alternative is dangerous and
more dangerous it's sort of like the
ring of power right like everybody wants
the ring because with the ring you can
stop the bad guys from going forward but
it turns out that the ring gives you
enormous power and that power can be
used in the wrong ways too
you had the daily wire which I'm a
member of uh I appreciate that thank you
I recommend everybody sign up to it
should be part of your regular diet
whether you're on the left on the right
the far left or the far right everybody
should be part of your regular diet okay
that said uh do you worry about the
audience capture aspect of it because it
is a platform for conservatives
and you have a powerful voice on there
there it might be difficult for you to
go against
the talking points or against the stream
of ideas that is usually connected to
conservative thought do you worry about
that I mean the audience would obviously
be upset with me and would have a right
to be upset with me if I suddenly
flipped all my positions on a dime I
have enough faith in my audience that I
can say things that I think are true and
that made us agree with the audience
you know on a fairly regular basis I
would say um but they understand that on
the deeper principle we're on the same
side of the at least I hope that much
from the audience it's also why we
provide a number of different views on
the platforms many of which I disagree
with but are sort of within the
generalized range of conservative
thought and that I I you know it's
something I I do have to think about
every day though yeah I mean you have to
you have to think about like am I saying
this because I'm afraid of taking off my
audience or am I saying this because I
actually believe this
and you know that's a that's a delicate
dance a little bit you have to be sort
of honest with yourself
yeah somebody like um
Sam Harris is pretty good at this at
fighting at saying the the most
outrageous thing that he knows he almost
leans into it he knows will piss off a
lot of his audience
um sometimes you almost have to test the
system
um it's like if you feel you almost
exaggerate your feelings just to make
sure to send a signal to the audience
that you're not captured by them
uh So speaking of people you disagree
with
what is your favorite thing about
Candace Owens and and what is one thing
you disagree with her on uh well my
favorite thing about Katniss is that she
will say things that nobody else will
say my least favorite thing about
Candace is that you will say things that
nobody else will say
um you know I mean listen she she says
things that are audacious and I think
need to be said sometimes sometimes I
think that she is morally wrong right I
think the way she responded to Kanye
I've said this clearly was dead wrong
and morally wrong what was her response
her original response was that she
proffered confusion of what yay was
actually uh talking about uh and then
she you know was defending her friend I
wish that the way that she had responded
was by saying he's my friend and also he
said something bad and anti-Semitic I
wish that you'd said that right so right
away right away yeah I think you can
also
this is the interesting human thing you
can be friends with people that you
disagree with and you can be friends
with people that's actually say hateful
stuff and and one of the ways to help
alleviate hate is being friends with
people that's that say hateful things
yeah and then calling them out on a
personal level when when they do say
wrong or hateful things yeah from a
place of love and respect and privately
privately is also a big thing right I
mean like like the the public demand for
for you know denunciation from friends
to friends uh is is difficult and I I
certainly have compassion for for
Candace given the fact that she's so
close with you
yeah it breaks my heart sometimes the
public the public fights between friends
and broken friendships I've seen quite a
few friendships publicly break over
covid
covered make peop made people behave
their worst in many cases which
um
yeah it breaks my heart a little bit
because like the the human connection
is uh a prerequisite for Effective
debate and discussion and and battles
over ideas
uh has there been any argument from the
opposite political aisle that has made
you change your mind about something
if you if you look back
so I will say that the
I'm thinking it through because the I I
think that my views probably on foreign
policy even more somewhat uh I would say
that I was much more interventionist
when I was younger I'm significantly
less interventionist now I'd probably
get my sample uh sure I was I was a big
backer of the Iraq War I think now in
retrospect I might not be a backer of
the Iraq War if the same situation arose
again
based on the amounts of evidence that
have been presented or based on you know
the the sort of
willingness of the American public to go
at
if you're going to get involved in a war
you have to know what the endpoint looks
like and you have to know what the
American people really are willing to
Bear the American people are not willing
to Bear open-ended occupations uh and so
knowing that you have to you know
consider that going in
so on foreign policy I've become a lot
more of a it's almost Henry Kissinger
realist uh in in some ways uh and when
it comes to
um social policy I would say that I'm
fairly
strong where I was I I may have become
slightly convinced actually by more of
the conservative side of the island
things like drug legalization I think
when I was younger I was much more pro
drug legalization than I am now at least
on the local level on a federal level I
think the federal government
can't really do much other than close
the borders with regard to fentanyl
trafficking for example but when it
comes to how drugs were on local
communities you can see how drugs around
local communities pretty easily which is
weird because you I saw you uh smoke a
joint right before this conversation
it's my biggest thing I mean I tried to
keep that secret right
um well that's an interesting about
intervention
can you can you comment about the war in
Ukraine so for me
it's a deeply personal thing
um but I think you're able to look at it
from a geopolitics perspective what is
the role of the United States in this
conflict before the conflict during the
conflict and right now in helping
achieve peace I think before the
conflict the big problem is that the
West took
almost the worst possible view which was
encourage Ukraine to keep trying to join
NATO and the EU but don't let them in
and so what that does is it achieves the
purpose of getting Russia really really
ticked off and feeling threatened but
also does not give any of the
protections of NATO or the EU to to
Ukraine I mean zielinski is on film when
he was a comedy actor making that exact
joke right is Merkel on the other line
and she's like oh welcome to the welcome
to Nato and he's like great she's like
wait is this Ukraine on the line and
oops but so you know that that sort of
policy is is sort of nonsensical if
you're gonna offer Alliance to somebody
offer Alliance to them and if you're
going to guarantee their security
guarantee their security and the West
failed signally to do that so that was
mistakes in the run-up to the war once
the War Began then the responsibility of
the West began and became to give
Ukraine as much material as is necessary
to repel The Invasion uh and the West
did really well with that I think we
were late on the ball in the United
States it seemed like Europe led the way
a little bit more in the United States
did there but in terms of effectuating
American interests in the in in the
region which being an American is what
I'm chiefly concerned about and the the
American interests were several fold one
is preserve borders two is degrade the
Russian aggressive military because
Russia's military has been aggressive uh
and they are geopolitical rival of the
United States three recalibrate the
European balance with China Europe was
was sort of balancing with Russia and
China and then because of the war they
sort of rebalanced away from China and
Russia which is a real geostrategic
opportunity for the United States
it seemed like most of those goals have
already been achieved at this point for
the United States and so then the
question becomes what's the off-ramp
here and what is the thing you're trying
to prevent so what's the best
opportunity what's what's the best case
scenario what's the worst case scenario
and then what's realistic so best case
scenario is Ukraine forces Russia
entirely out of Ukraine including
lohanesque and Crimea right that's the
best case scenario virtually no one
thinks that's accomplishable including
the United States right the White House
has basically said as much it's
difficult to imagine particularly Crimea
the Russians being forced out of out of
Crimea the ukrainians have been
successful in pushing the Russians out
of certain parts of johansenesque but
the idea they're going to be able to
push the entire Russian army completely
back to the Russian borders that would
be at best a very very long and
difficult slog in the middle of a
collapsing Ukrainian economy which is a
point that zielinski has made it's like
it's not enough for you guys to give us
military aid we're in the middle of a
war we're gonna need economic aid as
well so it's a pretty open-ended and
strong commitment can take a small
attention on that and your best case
scenario if that does militarily happen
including Crimea do you think there's a
world in which Vladimir Putin would
um
be able to convince the Russian people
that this is this was a good conclusion
to the war right so the problem is that
the best case scenario might also be the
worst case scenario meaning that there
are a couple of scenarios that are sort
of the worst case scenario and this is
sort of the puzzlement of the situation
one is that Putin feels so boxed in so
unable to go back to his own people and
say we just wasted tens of thousands of
lives here for no reason that he
unleashed the Tactical a tactical
nuclear weapon on the battlefield nobody
knows what happens after that so we put
NATO planes in the air to take out
Russian assets do Russians start
shooting down planes does Russia then
threaten to escalate even further by
attacking an actual NATO civilian Center
or or even a Ukrainian civilian center
with nuclear weapons like where it goes
from there nobody knows because nuclear
weapons haven't been used since 1945. so
that's you know that is a worst case
scenario it's an unpredictable scenario
that could devolve into really really
significant problems the other worst
case scenario could be a best case
scenario could be a worse we just don't
know is Putin Falls
what happens after that who takes over
for Putin is that person more moderate
than Putin is that personal liberalizer
it probably won't be novantly if he's
going to be
ousted or probably somebody who's a Top
member of Putin's brass right now and
has capacity to control the military
or it's possible that the entire regime
breaks down what you end up with is
Syria and Russia right where where you
just have an entirely out of control
region with no centralizing power which
is also a disaster area and so in the
nature of risk mitigation in in sort of
an attempt at risk mitigation what
actually should be happening right now
is some off-ramp has to be offered to
Putin the OfferUp likely is going to be
him maintaining Crimea and parts of
luhanskin Dennis it's probably going to
be a commitment by Ukraine not to join
NATO formally but a guarantee by the
West to defend Ukraine in case of an
invasion of its borders Again by Russia
like an actual treaty obligation now
like the BS treaty obligation and when
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in
the 90s
um and uh and that is likely how this is
going to have to go the problem is that
requires political courage not from not
from his landscape requires courage from
from probably Biden because the only
zelenski's not in a political position
where he can go back to his own people
who have made unbelievable sacrifices on
behalf of their nation and freedom and
say to them guys now I'm calling it
quits we're going to have to give them a
handstand asking give Putin an off-ramp
I don't think that's an acceptable
answer to most ukrainians at this point
in time from the polling data and from
the available data we have on the ground
it's going to actually take Biden biting
the bulletin being the bad guy and
saying to zielinski listen
we've made a commitment of material Aid
We're offering you all these things
including essentially a defense pact
we're offering you all this stuff but if
you don't come to the table then we're
going to have to start weaning you all
like there will have to be a stick there
it can should be a carrot and so that
will allow zelinski if I'd were to do
that would allows the ones to get a
blame Biden for the solution everybody
knows has to happen so once you can go
back to his own people and he can say
listen
this is the way it has to go like I
don't want it to go this way but it's
not my I'm signing other people's checks
right I mean like this is it's it's not
my money uh and Biden would take the hit
because he wouldn't then be able to
blame Ukraine for whatever happens next
which has been the easy Road off I think
for a lot of politicians in the west is
for them to just say well this is up to
the ukrainians to decide it's up to the
ukrainians to decide well is it totally
up to the ukrainians to decide because
it seems like the West is signing an
awful lot of checks and all of Europe is
going to freeze this winter
so this is the importance of great
leadership by the way that's why the
people we elect is very important
uh do you think
do you think there's power to just
one-on-one conversation or buying six
thousand skin Biden sits down with Putin
almost in person
because I or maybe I'm romanticizing the
notion but having done these podcasts in
person I think there's something
fundamentally different than
through a remote call and also like a
distant kind of uh recorded
political type speak versus like
man-to-man
so I'm deeply afraid that Putin outplays
people in the one-on-one scenarios
because he's done it to multiple
presidents already uh he gets in
one-on-one scenarios with bush with
Obama with Trump with with Biden and he
seems to be a very canny operator and a
very sort of hard-nosed operator in
those situations I think that if you're
going to do something like that like an
actual political face-to-face Summit
what you would need is for Biden to
First have a conversation with zelenski
where zelinski knows what's going on so
he's aware and then Biden walks in and
he says to Putin on camera here's the
offer
let's get it together let's make peace
you get to you get to keep this stuff
and then let Putin respond have Putin is
going to respond
um but you know the the big problem for
Putin I think and the problem with
public facing fora maybe it's a private
meeting if it's a private meeting maybe
that's the best thing there's a
public-facing forum I think it's a
problem because Putin's afraid of being
humiliated at this point um if it's if
it's a private meeting then
sure except that again I just I wonder
whether
when it comes to and a person as canny
as Putin and to
a politician that I really don't think
is a particularly sophisticated player
in in Joe Biden and again this is not
unique to Biden I think that most of our
presidents for the for the last 30 40
years have not been particularly
sophisticated players uh I think that
that's that's a that's a risky scenario
yeah I still believe in the power of
that because otherwise
um
I don't know I don't I don't think stuff
on paper and political speak will solve
these kinds of problems because From
zielinski's perspective nothing but
complete Victory will do right he is as
a nation has people sacrificed way too
much and they're all in and if you look
at because I traveled to Ukraine I spent
time there I'll be going back there
hopefully also going back to Russia just
speaking to ukrainians
they're all in
they're all in yeah nothing but complete
Victory yep that's right and so for that
the only way to achieve peace is through
like honest human to human conversation
uh giving both people a way to off-ramp
to walk away Victorious and some of that
requires
speaking honestly as a human being but
also for America to the actually not
even America honestly just the president
be able to eat their own ego a bit and
be the punching bag a little just enough
for both presidents to be able to walk
away and say listen we got the American
president to come to us and uh I think
that makes the president look strong not
weak I mean I agree with you I think it
would also require some people on the
right people like me if it's Joe Biden
to say if Biden does that I see what
he's doing and it's the right move I
think one of the things that he's afraid
of to steal me on him I think one thing
he's afraid of is he goes and he makes
that sort of deal and the right says you
just cowered in front of Russia you just
you just gave away Ukraine whatever it
is
um but uh you know it's going to require
some some people on the right to say
that that move is the right move and
then he'll buy it if Biden actually
performs that move
you're exceptionally good at debate uh
you uh you wrote how to debate leftist
and destroyed them uh you're kind of
known for this kind of stuff just
exceptionally skilled the conversation
that debate uh and getting to the facts
of the matter and using logic to get to
the to the conclusion uh in the debate
do you ever worry that this power talk
about the ring
this power you were given has corrupted
you and your ability to see what's like
to to pursue the truth versus just
winning debates I hope not I mean so I
think one of the things that that's kind
of funny about The Branding versus the
reality is that most of the things that
get characterized as destroying in
debates with facts and logic
um most of those things are basically me
having a conversation with somebody on a
college campus uh it actually isn't like
a formal debate where we sit there and
we critique each other's positions uh or
it's not me insulting anybody a lot of
the clips that have gone very viral is
me making an argument and then they're
not being like an amazing counter
argument many of the debates that I've
held have been extremely cordial let's
take the latest example like about a
year ago I debated Anna kasperian from
Young Turks it was very cordial it was
very nice right
um you know that's that that's sort of
the way that I like to debate my rule
when it comes to debate and or
discussion is that my opponent actually
gets to pick the mode in which we work
so if it's going to be a debate of ideas
and we're just going to discuss and
critique and clarify by then we can do
that if somebody comes loaded for bear
then I will responding kind because one
of the big problems I think in sort of
the debate slash discussion sphere is
very often misdiagnosis of what exactly
is going on people who think that a
discussion is debate and vice versa and
that can be a real problem and there are
people who
you know
treat what ought to be a discussion as
for example in exercise and performance
art and so what that is is mugging or
trolling or saying trolley things in
order to just get to the like that's
something I actually don't do during
debate I mean if you actually watch me
talk to people I don't actually do the
trolling thing the trolling thing is
almost solely relegated to Twitter and
me making drugs on my show when it comes
to actually debating people that sounds
actually a lot like what we're doing
right now it's just the person maybe
taking just an obverse position to mine
uh and so that's that's fine usually
half the debate or discussion is me just
asking for clarification of terms like
what exactly do you mean by this so I
can drill down on where the actual
disagreement May lie because some of the
time people think they're disagreeing
and they're actually not disagreeing and
like when I'm when I'm talking with Anna
kasparian and she's talking about
corporate and government have too much
power together I'm like well you sound
like a tea party like you and I are on
the same page about that that sort of
stuff does tend to happen a lot in
discussion
um I think that when when discussion
gets termed debate it's a problem when
debate gets term discussion it's it's
even more problematic because debate is
a different thing and I find that your
debate and your conversation is often in
good faith you're able to steal man on
the other side you're able to actually
you're actually listening you're
considering the other side the times
when I see that you you know Ben Shapiro
destroys leftist it's usually just like
you said the other side is doing the
trolling
um because they've they don't I mean the
people that do criticize you
uh for that interaction is the people
that usually get destroyed are like 20
years old and they're usually not
sophisticated in any kind of degree uh
in terms of being able to use logic and
reason and facts and so on and that's
that's totally fine by the way I mean if
people want to criticize me for speaking
on college campuses where a lot of
political conversation happens both
right and left that's fine I mean I've
had lots of conversations with people on
the other side of the aisle too I mean
right I've done podcasts with Sam Harris
and we've talked about atheism or I've
done debates with Anna kasparian or I've
talked to I've done debate with
chankweiger or I've I've had
conversations with lots of people on the
other side of the aisle in fact I
believe I'm the only person on the right
who recommends that people listen to his
shows on the other side of the aisle
right I mean I say on my show on a
fairly regular basis that people should
listen to positive America now no one on
positive America will ever say that
somebody should listen to my show that
is verboten that is not something that
can be had it's one of the strangenesses
of our politics it's what I've called
the happy birthday problem which is I
have a lot of friends who are of the
left and are publicly of the left and on
my birthday they'll send you a text
message happy birthday but they will
never tweet happy birthday lest they be
acknowledging that you were born of
woman and that this can't be allowed so
on the Sunday special I've had a bevy of
people who are on the other side of the
aisle a lot of them ranging from people
in Hollywood like Jason Blom to Larry
Wilmore to Sam to you know just a lot of
people on the left I think we're in the
near future probably going to do a
Sunday special with rokana up in
California the California Congress
person very nice guy I had him on the
show like that kind of stuff is is fun
and interesting
um but um you know I think that the easy
way out for a clip that people don't
like is to either immediately clip the
clip it's like a two minute clip and
clip it down to 15 seconds where
somebody insults me and then that goes
viral which is you know welcome to the
internet uh or uh or to say well you're
only debating colleges you're only
talking to 20 I mean I talk to a lot
more people than that that's just not
the stuff you're watching you lost your
cool in an interview with BBC's uh
Andrew Neal and you're really honest
about it after which was kind of
refreshing and enjoyable
um as the internet said they've never
seen anyone lose an interview
uh so to me honestly was like seeing
like Floyd Mayweather Jr or somebody
like knocked down
um
what was that can you take me to that
experience here's that day that day is I
have a book released didn't get a lot of
sleep the night before and this is the
last interview of the day and it's an
interview with BBC I don't know anything
about BBC I don't watch BBC I know any
of the hosts so we get on the interview
and it's supposed to be about the book
and
the host Andrew O'Neill doesn't ask
virtually a single question about the
book he just starts reading me bad old
tweets which which I hate I mean it's
annoying and it's stupid it's the worst
form of interview yeah when somebody
just reads you battle tweets especially
when I've acknowledged battle tweets
before and so I'm going through the list
with him and this interview was solidly
20 minutes I mean it was it was a long
interview and we get to and and I make a
couple of particularly annoyed mistakes
in the interview so annoyed mistake
number one is the ego play right so
there's a point in the middle of the
interview where I say like I don't even
know who you are which was true I didn't
know he was he turns out he's a very
famous person in in Britain and so you
can't make that eagle play even if he's
not famous it doesn't ever it's a dumb
thing to do and it's an ass thing to do
so like so saying that was was you know
more just kind of peak and silliness uh
and uh so that was that was a mistake I
enjoyed watching that it was like oh Ben
is human yeah
glad somebody enjoyed it uh so there is
there's that and then the the other
mistake was that I just don't watch
enough British TV so the way that
interviews are done there are much more
adversarial than American TV in American
TV if somebody is adversarial with you
you assume that they're a member of the
other side that's typically how it is uh
and so I'm critiquing some of his
questions at the beginning and I thought
that the critique of some of his
questions is actually Fair he's asking
me about abortion and I thought he was
asking it from a way of framing the
question that wasn't accurate and so I
assumed that he was on the left because
again I'd never heard of him uh and so
you know I mischaracterized him and I
apologize later for mischaracterizing
him we finally go through the interview
it's 20 minutes he just keeps going with
the battle tweets and finally I got up
and I took off the microphone I walked
out and immediately I knew it was
mistake like within 30 seconds at the
end of the interview I knew it was a
mistake uh and uh and that's why even
before the interview came out I I
believe I corrected the record that
Andrew Neal is not on the left that's a
mistake by me
um and uh and then you know took the hit
for for a bad interview uh and so as as
far as you know what I wish I had done
differently I wish I had known who he
was I wish I'd done my research I wish
that I I wish that I had treated it as
though there was a possibility there was
going to be more adversarial than it was
I think I was in cautious about the
interview because it was pitched as it's
just another book interview and it
wasn't just another book interview it
was treated much more adversarially than
that
um so I wish that that's on me I got to
research the people who are talking to
me and watch their shows and learn about
that and then obviously you know the
kind of gut level appeal to Ego or
arrogance like that that's a bad look
and and shouldn't have done that and
losing your cool is always a bad look so
the the fact that that sort of became
somewhat viral and stood out just shows
that it happened so rarely to you uh so
just to look at like the day in the life
of Ben Shapiro you speak a lot
very eloquently about difficult topics
what goes into the research the mental
part and you always look pretty like
energetic and like you're not exhausted
by the burden the heaviness of the
topics you're covering day after day
after day after day so what what goes
through the preparation uh mentally diet
wise anything like that like when do you
when do you wake up okay so I wake up
when my kids wake me up uh usually
that's my baby daughter who's two and a
half she's here on the monitor usually
about 6 15 6 20 am and so I get up my
wife sleeps in a little bit I I go get
the baby and then my son gets up and
then my oldest daughter gets up I have
eight six and two uh the the boys the
the middle child is that both the source
of stress and happiness oh my God the
height of both right I mean it's it's
the source of the greatest happiness so
the way that I characterize it is this
when it comes to sort of kids in life so
when you're single your boundaries of
happiness and unhappiness you can be a
zero in terms of happiness you can be
like a ten in terms of Happiness then
you get married it goes up to like a 20
and a negative 20. because you're happy
as stuff is with your wife and then the
most unhappy stuff is when something
happens to your spouse it's the worst
thing in the entire world then you have
kids and all limits are removed so the
best things that have have ever happened
to me are things where I'm watching my
kids and they're playing together and
they're being wonderful and sweet and
cute and I love them so much and the
worst thing is when my son is screaming
at me for no reason because he's being
insane and uh and I have to deal with
that right I mean like or or something
bad happens to my daughter at school or
something like that that stuff is really
that so yes the source of my greatest
happiness the source of my greatest
stress so they get me up at about 6 15
in the morning I feed them breakfast I'm
kind of scrolling the news while I'm
making the mags uh and uh and you know
just updating myself on anything that
may have happened overnight I go into
the office put on the makeup and the
Wardrobe or whatever and then I sit down
and do the show a lot of the prep is
actually done the night before because
the news cycle doesn't change all that
much between
kind of late at night and in the
mornings I can supplement in the morning
so I I do the show so a lot of the
preparation like thinking through what
are the big issues in the world is done
the night before yeah I mean and that's
reading you know pretty much all the
Legacy Media so I rip on Legacy Media a
lot but that's because they a lot of
what they do is really good it's really
bad I I cover a lot of Legacy Media so
it's probably covering you know Wall
Street Journal New York Times Washington
Post Boston Globe daily mail
um and then I'll look over at some of
the alternative media I'll look at my
own website daily wire I'll look at
Breitbart I'll look at the blaze I'll
look at uh I'll look at maybe the
interest apps I'll look at you know a
bunch of different sources and then I
will look at different clips online so
media it comes in handy here grabian
comes in handy here uh that sort of
stuff because my show relies very
heavily on being able to play people so
you can hear them in their own words uh
and uh and so that that's sort of the
media diet so I sit down I I do the show
and then once I'm done with the show I
usually have between now it's like 11 15
in the morning maybe because sometimes
I'll pre-record the show so I'll 11 15
in the morning I'll go home and if my
wife's available I'll grab lunch with
her if not then I will go and work out I
try to work out like
five times a week with a trainer
something like that and uh and then I
will just regular gym stuff just uh yeah
the gym yeah weights and and Plyometrics
and
some CrossFit kind of stuff and
yeah I mean uh but beneath this beneath
this mild steel as a hulking Monster uh
and uh and so uh I'll I'll do that then
I'll um
I will do reading and writing uh so I'll
I'm usually working on a book at any
given time uh or if you shut off the the
rest of the world yes so I put some
music in my ears usually Brahms Orbach
uh sometimes Beethoven or Mozart it's
those four those are on rotation the rap
no rap no rap despite my extraordinary
rendition of whap yeah I'm not in fact
around you still do you still hate web
um the song it's uh I will say I do not
think that it is the peak of Western
civilized art okay I I don't think that
100 years from now people will be gluing
their faces to a whap and protest at the
environment but uh Brahms and the rest
will be still around yes I would assume
if people still have a functioning
prefrontal cortex in any sort of wrong
words from Ben Shapiro all right so you
got some classical music in your ears
and you're focusing uh are you at the
computer when you're writing yeah I'm
I'm at the computer
um usually we have a kind of a room that
has some sun coming in so it's nice in
there or I'll go up to a library that we
just completed for me uh so I'll go up
there and I'll and I'll write physical
book folks uh yeah I love physical books
and because I because I keep Sabbath I I
don't use Kindle because when I'm
reading a book and I hit Sabbath I have
to turn off the Kindle so that means
that I have tons and tons and tons of
physical books when you move from Los
Angeles to Florida I had about 7 000
volumes I had a discard probably 4 000
of them
um and then I've built that back up now
so I'm probably gonna have to go through
another round where I put them somewhere
else I tend to tab books rather than
highlighting them because I can't
highlight on Sabbath so I have like the
little stickers and I put them in the
book so a typical book from me you can
see it on the book club will be like
filled with tabs on the side things that
I want to take now actually uh I got a
person who I I
um pay to go through and write down in
files the quotes that I've that I like
from the book so I have those handy
um so which is a good way for me to
remember what it is that I've that I've
read
because I I read probably
somewhere between three and five books a
week uh and then the uh in a good week
five uh and then I you know write I read
and then I go pick up my kids from
school at 3 30. so according to my kids
I have no job I there I'm there in the
mornings until they leave for school I
pick them up from school I hang out with
them until they go to bed which is
usually 7 30 or so so I'm helping them
with their homework and I'm playing with
them and I'm taking them on rides in in
the brand new Tesla which my son is
obsessed with uh and uh and then I put
them to bed and then I sit back down I
prep for the next day go through all
those media sources I was talking about
compile kind of a schedule for what I
want the show to look like and and run a
show it's very detail-oriented nobody
writes anything for me I write all my
own stuff
um so every word that comes out of my
mouth is my fault and uh and then you
know hopefully I have a couple hours to
or an hour to hang out with my wife uh
before before we go to the awards you
write do you edit a lot or does it just
come out you're thinking like what are
the key ideas I want to express uh no I
don't tend to edit a lot so I I thank
God I'm able to write extraordinarily
quickly so I write very very fast in
fact fact in a previous life I was you
also speak fast so similar yeah exactly
and I speak in paragraphs so it's it's
exactly the same thing uh in a previous
life I was a ghost writer so I used to
be sort of known as a turnaround
specialist in the publishing industry
and be somebody who came to the
publisher and says I have three weeks
and to get this book done I don't have a
word done and they would call me up and
be like this person needs a book written
and so in three weeks I'd knock out
sixty thousand words or so is there
something you can say to the process
that you follow to think like how you
think about ideas like you stuff is
going on in the world
and trying to understand what is
happening what are the explanations what
the forces behind this do you have a
process or or just uh you uh wait for
the Muse to give you the interpretation
I mean I think that it I don't think
it's a formal process but because I read
so there's two ways to do it one is
sometimes
you know that sometimes The Daily Grind
of the news is going to refer back to
core principles that are broader and
deeper
so I thank God because I've read so much
on so many different things of a lot of
different point of views
um then if if something breaks and a
piece of news breaks I can immediately
sort of channel that into in the mental
Rolodex these three big ideas that I
think are are really important and then
I can talk at length about what those
ideas are and I can explicate those uh
and and so you know for example when we
were talking about must taking over
Twitter before and I immediately go to
the history of media right that's that's
me tying it into a broader theme yeah uh
on you know and I do that I would say
fairly frequently we're talking about
um
say subsidization of industry and I can
immediately tie that into okay what's
the history of subsidization in the
United States going all the way back to
Woodrow Wilson and Ford through FDR's
industrial policy and how does that tie
into sort of broader Economic Policy
internationally so it allows me to tie
into bigger themes because the what I
tend to read is mostly not news what I
tend to read is mostly books
I would say most of my media diet is
actually not the stuff like that's
that's the icing on the cake but the
actual cake is the hundreds of pages in
history econ
geography that that I'm that I'm social
science that I'm reading every week and
so that that sort of stuff allows me to
think more deeply about these things so
that's one way of doing the other way of
doing it is Russia breaks in the news I
don't know anything about Russia I
immediately go and I purchase five books
about Russia and I read all of them and
so one of the unfortunate things about
our uh our the fortunate thing for me
and the unfortunate thing about the
world is that if you in the unfortunate
thing about the world is you read two
books on a subject you are now
considered by the media and expert on
this subject uh so that's you know sad
and shallow but that is the way that it
is the good news for me is that my job
isn't to be a full expert on any of
these subjects and I don't claim to be
right I'm not a Russia expert I know
enough on Russia to be able to
understand when people talk about Russia
what the system looks like how it works
and all of that and then to explicate
that for the common man which a lot of
people who are infused with the
expertise can't really do if you're so
deep in the weeds that you're like a
full-on academic expert on a thing
sometimes it's hard to translate that
over to a Master audience which is
really my job well I think it can
actually it's funny with the two books
you can actually get a pretty deep
understanding if you read and also think
deeply about it it allows you to
approach a thing from first principles a
lot a lot of times if you're a
quote-unquote expert you get um you get
carried away by the momentum of what the
the field has been thinking about versus
like stepping back all right what is
really going on the The Challenge is to
pick the right two books right so that
usually what I'll try to find is
somebody who knows the topic pretty well
and have them recommend or a couple
people and have them recommend books so
a couple years ago I knew nothing about
Bitcoin I was at a conference and uh a
couple of people who you've had on your
show actually uh were there and I asked
them give me your top three books on
bitcoin and so then I went and I read
like nine books on bitcoin and so if
you're nine books on bitcoin you at
least know enough to get by yeah uh and
so that so I can actually explain what
Bitcoin is and why it works or why it
doesn't work in some cases and and
what's happening in the markets that way
so that that's you know very very
helpful well the Putin is an example
that's a difficult one to find the right
books on
I think the new Czar is the one I read
where was the most objective the one I
read I think about Putin was it was one
called strong man
it was very highly critical of of Putin
but it gave like a good background on
him yeah so I'm very skeptical sort of
things that are very uh they're critical
of Putin uh because it feels like
there's activism injected into the
history like the way the rise and fall
the Third Reich is written about Hitler
I like because there's almost not a
criticism of Hitler it's a description
of Hitler which is very
um it's easier to do about a historical
figure which with William Shire with the
rise and fall of the Third Reich it's
impressive because you lived through it
but it's very tough to find objective
descriptions about the history of the
man and a country of Putin of zelenski
of any difficult Trump was the same and
you I feel like everybody that's the
hero villain archetype right and it's
like either somebody's completely a hero
or completely a villain and the truth is
pretty much no one is completely a hero
or completely a villain people in fact
I'm not sure that I love descriptions of
people as heroes or villains generally I
think that people tend to do heroic
things or do villainous things in the
same way that I'm not sure I love
descriptions of people as a genius my
dad used to say this when I was growing
up he used to say they didn't believe
that there were Geniuses he said he
believed that there were people with a
genius for something because people you
know yes they're people who are very
high IQ and we call them Geniuses but
does that mean that they're good at EQ
stuff not necessarily but there are
people who are geniuses at EQ stuff in
other words it would be more specific to
say that somebody's a genius at
engineering than to say just broad
spectrum they're a genius and that does
avoid the problem of thinking that
they're good at something that they're
not good at right it's a little more
specific so because you read a lot of
books other can you look back and so it
was a tough question because so many
it's like your favorite song but are
there books that have been influential
in your life
that an impacting your thinking or maybe
once you go back to that
um
that still carry insight for you the
Federalist Paper is a big one in terms
of sort of how American politics works
the first econ book that I thought was
really great because it was written for
teenagers essentially is one called the
economics and one Lesson by Henry Haslet
it's like 150 pages I recommend it to
everybody sort of 15 and up it's it's
easier than say Thomas Hall's basic econ
which is four or 500 pages and it's
looking what like macroeconomics that
kind of stuff
um and uh and then uh in terms of that
there's there's a great book by Carl
Truman called ryzen Triumph of the
modern self which I think is the best
book in the last 10 years and that's
been sort of impactful on some of the
thoughts I've been having what's the key
idea in there the key idea is that we've
shifted the nature of how identity is
done in the west from how it was
historically done that basically for
nearly all of human history the way that
we identify as human beings is as a mix
of our biological drives and then how
that interacts with the social
institutions around us and so when
you're a child you're a bunch of
unfettered biological drives and it's
your parents job to civilize you and
civilize you literally means bring you
into civilization right you learn the
rules of the road you learn how to
integrate into institutions that already
exist and are designed to shape you and
it's how you interact with those
institutions that makes you you it's not
just a set of biological drives and then
in the modern world we've really driven
toward the idea that what we are is how
we feel on the inside without reference
to the outside world and it's the job of
the outside world to celebrate and
reflect what we think about ourselves on
the inside and so what that means that
we are driven now toward fighting
institutions because institutions are in
positions so everything around us
societal institutions these are these
are things that are crimping our style
they're making us not feel the way that
we want to feel and if we just destroy
those things then we'll be Freer and
more liberated it's it's a it's a I
think much deeper model of of how to
think about why our social politics
particular are moving in a particular
direction is that a ground shift has
happened and how people think about
themselves and and this has had some
somewhat kind of shocking
effect in terms of social politics so
there's negative consequences in your
view of that but
um is there also positive consequence of
more power uh more agency to the
individual I think that you can make the
argument that institutions were weighing
too heavily in how people form their
identity but I think that what we've
done has gone significantly too far on
the other side we basically decided to
blow up the institutions in favor of
unfettered
feeling slash identity and I think that
that is not only a large mistake I think
it's going to have Dior ramifications
for everything from suicidal ideation to
institutional longevity in in politics
and and in society more broadly So
speaking about the nature of self you've
been an outspoken proponent of pro-life
um can you can we start by
you trying to steal me on the case for
pro-choice that abortion is not murder
and uh a woman's right to choose is a
fundamental human right freedom so I
think that the the the only way to steal
man the pro-choice case is to
and be ideologically consistent
is to suggest that there is no interest
in the life of The Unborn
that counterweighs at all freedom of of
choice uh so the so what that means is
we can take the full example we can get
sort of the partial example so if we
take the full example what that would
mean is that up until point of birth
which is sort of the democratic party
platform position uh that there is that
a woman's right to choose ought to
extend for any reason whatsoever up to a
point of birth the only way to argue
that is that bodily autonomy is the only
Factor there is no countervailing factor
that would ever outweigh bodily autonomy
um that that would be the the strongest
version of the argument another version
of that argument would be that the
reason that bodily autonomy ought to
weigh so heavily is because women can't
be the well the equals of men if the
vicissitudes of biology are allowed to
decide their Futures right if if the if
if pregnancy changes women in a way that
it doesn't change men it's a form of sex
discrimination for women to ever have to
go through with pregnancy which is an
argument that was made by Ruth Bader
Ginsburg kind of
um those are the arguments the the kind
of softer version is the more I would
say emotionally resonant version of the
argument which is that bodily autonomy
ought to outweigh the interests of the
fetus up till point x and then people
have different feelings about what point
x looks like is it up to the point of
viability is it up to the point of the
heartbeat is it up to 12 weeks or 15
weeks and that really is where the
American public is right or the American
public is broadly speaking not not state
by state where there are various really
really varied opinions but like broadly
speaking it seems like the American
public by pulling data one somewhere
between a 12 and 15 week abortion
restriction and they believe that up
until 12 or 15 weeks there's not enough
there for to not be specific but to be
kind of how people feel about it to
outweigh a woman's bodily autonomy and
then beyond that point then there's
enough of an interest in the life of the
pre-born child uh it's developed enough
then now we care about it enough that it
outweighs a woman's bodily autonomy
what's the strongest case for pro-life
in your mind I mean the strongest case
for pro-life is that from conception a
human life has been created it is a
human life with potential that human
life potential with potential now has an
independent interest in its own
existence if I may just uh ask a good
question so conception is when a sperm
fertilizes an egg yes
okay just to clarify the biological
beginning of what concession means I
mean that because that is the beginning
of human life now there are other
standards that people have drawn right
some people say implantation in the
uterus some people will suggest
liabilities brain development or heart
development but the the clear dividing
line between a human life exists in
human life does not exist is the
biological creation of an independent
human life with its own DNA strands and
Etc which happens at concession
conception once you acknowledge that
there is that independent human life
with potential and I keep calling it
that because people sometimes say
potential human life it's not a
potential human life it's a human life
that is not developed yet to the full
extent that it will develop
once you say that and once you say that
it has its own interest now you have to
now the burden of proof is is to explain
why bodily autonomy
ought to allow for the snuffing out of
that human life if we believe that human
life ought not to be killed for for
quote unquote No Good Reason you have to
come up with a good reason right the
burden of proof is now shifted now you
will find people who will say well the
good reason is that it's not
sufficiently developed outweigh the
mental trauma or emotional trauma that a
woman goes through if for example she
was raped or the victim of incest okay
and that that is a fairly emotionally
resonant argument but it's not
necessarily this positive you can you
can make the argument that just because
something horrific and horrible happened
to a woman does not rob the human life
of its interest in life one of the big
problems in trying to draw any line for
the self-interest of life in the in the
human life is that it's very difficult
to draw any other line that doesn't seem
somewhat arbitrary if you say that
independent heartbeat yeah well you know
people have pacemakers if you say brain
function people have various levels of
brain function as adults if you say
viability babies are not viable after
they are born if I left a newborn baby
on a table and did not take care of it
it would be dead in two days so you know
when once you start getting into sort of
these lines it starts to get very fuzzy
very quickly and so if you're looking
for sort of a bright line moral rule
that would be the brightline moral rule
that's that's sort of the pro-life case
well there's still mysterious difficult
scientific questions of things like
consciousness
so what do you does the question of
consciousness
how does it come into play into this
debate so I don't believe that
Consciousness is the
sole Criterion by which we judge the
self-interest in human life
so
we are unconscious a good deal of Our
Lives
right that does not we will be conscious
again right when when you're unconscious
when you're asleep for example
presumably your life is still worth
living if somebody came in and killed
you that'd be a serious moral quandary
at the very least but the birth of
Consciousness the the lighting up of the
flame the initial lighting of the flame
there does seem to be something special
about that and it's a it's a mystery of
when that happens well I mean Peter
Singer makes the case that basically
self-consciousness doesn't exist until
you're two and a half right so he says
that even infanticide should be okay or
is it the bioethicist over Princeton so
you're getting some real dicey territory
once you get into Consciousness also the
truth is the Consciousness is more of a
spectrum than it is a than it is a a
dividing line meaning that there are
people with various degrees of brain
function we don't actually know how
conscious they are and you can get into
eugenic territory pretty quickly when we
start dividing between lives that are
worth living based on levels of
consciousness and life that are not
worth living based on levels of
consciousness do you find it
the the aspect of uh women's freedom
do you feel the tension between the
ability to choose
the trajectory of your own life versus
um the the rights of the unborn child
in one situation yes in one situation no
if you've had
sex with a person voluntarily and as a
product of that you are now pregnant
no you've taken an action with a
perfectly predictable result even if you
took birth control this is the way that
human beings have procreated for
literally all of human existence and by
the way also how all mammals procreate
so the idea that this was an entirely
unforeseen consequence of your activity
I find I I have less sympathy for you in
that particular situation because you
could have made decisions that would not
LED you to this particular impasse in
fact this used to be the basis of
marriage right was when when we were a
apparently more terrible Society we used
to say that people should wait until
they get married to have sex a position
that I still hold and the reason for
that was because then if you have sex
and you produce a child then the child
will grow up in a two-parent family with
stability so you know they they not not
a ton of sympathy there when it comes to
rape and incest obviously heavy heavy
sympathy and so that's why I think you
see statistically speaking a huge
percentage of Americans including many
pro-life Americans people who consider
themselves pro-life would consider
exceptions for rape and incest one of
the sort of dishonest things that I
think happens in abortion debates is
arguing from the fringes this tends to
happen is pro-choice activists will
argue from rape and incest to the other
99.8 percent of abortions or you'll see
people on the pro-life side argue from
partial birth abortion to all of
abortion
that you actually have to take on sort
of the mainstream case and then decide
whether or not that's acceptable or not
but to you the exception just ethically
without generalizing it
um that is a valid ethically exception I
I don't hope that there should be a an
exception for rape or incest because
again I hold by the bright line rule
that wants a human life with potential
exists then it has its own interest in
life that cannot be curbed by your
self-interest
um the the only exception that I hold by
is the same exception that literally all
of her life is hold by which is the life
of the mother is put in danger such a
tough tough topic because if you believe
that that's the line then we're
committing mass murder
well or at least Mass killing so I would
say that murder typically requires a
level of mens rea that may be absent in
many cases of abortion right this is
because the usual follow-on question is
we'll have to murder why not prosecute
the woman and the answer is because the
vast majority of people who are who are
having abortions don't actually believe
that they're killing a person
they they have a very different view of
what is exactly happening so you know I
would say that there are all sorts of
interesting hypotheticals that come in
to play when it comes to abortion and uh
you can play them any which way
um but
levels it let's put it this way there
are gradations of wrongs I don't think
that all abortions are equally
blameworthy even if I would even if I
would ban
virtually all of them right okay I think
that they're mitigating circumstances
that make while being wrong some
abortions less morally blameworthy than
others I think that you know there there
is a I can admit a difference between
killing a a two-week-old embryo in the
womb and stabbing a seven year old in
the face like I can I can recognize all
that while still saying I think that it
would be wrong to terminate a pregnancy
do you think the question of One Life
Begins which I think is a fascinating
question
um is the question of science or a
question of religion I mean One Life
Begins it's a question of science when
when that life becomes valuable enough
for people to want to protect it uh is
is going to be a question that is beyond
science science doesn't have moral
judgments to make about the value of
human life this is one of the problems
that Sam Harris and I have had this
argument many times and it's always kind
of interesting you know because Sam is
of the opinion that you can get to Art
From his right that science says is
therefore we can learn odd so human
flourishing is the goal of life and I
always say to him I don't see where you
get that from evolutionary biology yeah
you can you can you can assume it just
say you're assuming it but don't pretend
that that is a conclusion that you can
draw straight from
biological reality itself because
obviously that doesn't exist in the
animal world for example nobody assumes
the innate value of every ant
I think I know your answer to this but
let's let's test it because I think you
you're going to be wrong so there's a
robot behind you do you think there will
be a time in the future when it will be
unethical and illegal to kill a robot
because they will have sentience
my guess is you would say no Lex there's
because there's a fundamental difference
between humans and robots and I just
want to get you on record because I
think you'll be wrong
um I mean it depends on the level of
development I would assume of of the
robots I mean you're assuming a
complexity in the robots that that
eventually imitates what we in the
religious life would call the human soul
yes the ability to choose freely for
example yes which I believe is sort of
the capacity for uh for human beings the
ability to suffer yeah if if all of that
could
be
approved and not programmed meaning the
freely willed capacity of a machine to
do
X Y or Z you could you could not
pinpoint exactly where it happens in the
program right yeah it's not
deterministic yeah
um then it would raise serious moral
issues for sure I'm not trying to answer
that question are you afraid of that
time I'm not sure I'm afraid of that
time I mean it's
any more than I'd be afraid if aliens
arrived on in in the world and had these
characteristics well there's just a lot
of moral complexities and they don't
necessarily have to be in the physical
space they could be in the digital space
uh there's an increased sophistication
and number of bots on the internet
including on Twitter uh as they become
more and more intelligent there's going
to be serious questions about what is
our moral duty to protect ones that have
or claimed to have an identity and
that'll be really interesting actually
what I'm afraid of is the opposite
happening meaning that people the word
the worst that should happen is that we
develop robots So Sophisticated that
they appear to have free will and then
we treat them with human dignity that
should be the worst that happens what
I'm afraid of is the opposite is that
that we if if we're talking about this
particular hypothetical that we develop
robots that have all of these apparent
abilities and then we dehumanize them
which leads us to also dehumanize the
other humans around us which you could
easily see happening and the devaluation
of life to the point where it doesn't
really matter I mean people have always
treated unfortunately newly discovered
other humans this way so I I don't think
there's actually a new problem I think
it's a it's a pretty old problem it'll
just be interesting when it's made of
human hands yeah it's uh it's it's an
opportunity to celebrate Humanity or to
um
to bring out the worst in humanity uh so
the derision that naturally happens like
you said with pointing out uh the other
let me ask you about climate change
there's uh let's go from the meme to the
to the profound philosophy okay the meme
was there's a clip of you talking about
climate change and saying that the
Aquaman meme uh you said that for the
sake of argument if the water level
arises five to ten feet in the next
hundred years people will just sell
their homes and move
and then the meme was Zelda who uh can
you argue both sides of that the
argument that they're making is a straw
man the argument that I'm making is over
time I don't mean that if a tsunami is
about to hit your house you can list it
on eBay that's not that's not what I
mean obviously what I mean is that human
beings have an extraordinary ability to
adapt it's actually our best quality uh
and that as water levels rise real
estate prices in those areas tends to
fall that over time people tend to
abandon those areas they tend to leave
they tend to right now sell their houses
and then they tend to move and
eventually those houses will be
worthless and you won't have anybody to
sell to but presumably not that many
people will be living there by that
point which is one of the reasons why
the price would be low because there's
no demand so it's over a hundred years
so all of these price Dynamics are very
gradual relative to the other price
Dynamics correct that's why the joke of
it of course is that like I'm saying
that tomorrow there's a tsunami on your
Source step and you're like oh Bob will
buy my house Bob ain't gonna buy your
house like we all get that but it's a
funny man I laughed at it how's your
view on climate change the the human
um can contribution to climate change
what we should do in terms of policy to
respond to climate change how has that
changed over the years I would say
the truth is for for years and years
I've believed that climate change was a
reality in that anthropogenic climate
change is a reality uh I don't argue
with the ipcc estimates I know
climatologists at places like MIT or
Caltech and they know this stuff better
than I do so you know the the notion
that climate change is just not
happening or that human beings have not
contributed to climate change I find
doubtful the question is to what extent
human beings are contributing to climate
change that 50 is 70 is at 90 I think
there's a little bit more play in the
joints there so it's not totally clear
the one thing I do know and this I know
with with factual accuracy is that all
of the measures that are currently being
proposed are unworkable and will not
happen so when people say climate Paris
climate Accords even if those were
imposed you're talking about lowering
the potential trajectory of climate
change by a fraction of a degree if if
you're talking about the if you're
talking about you know Green New Deal
Net Zero by 2050. the carbon is up there
in the air and the climate change is
going to happen also you're assuming
that geopol the geopolitical Dynamics
don't exist so everybody is going to
magically get on the same page and we're
all going to be
imposing massive carbon taxes to get to
Net Zero by 2050. I mean like hundreds
of times higher than they currently are
and that's not me saying that's Cloud
Schwab saying this of the world economic
Forum who's a big advocate of exactly
this sort of policy and the reality is
that we're going to have to accept that
at least 1.5 degrees Celsius of climate
change is baked into the kick by the end
of the century again not me talking
William nordhaus The Economist who just
won the Nobel Prize in the stuff talking
and so what that suggests to me is what
we've always known human beings are crap
at mitigation and excellence in
adaptation right we are we are very bad
at mitigating our own faults we are very
good at adapting to the problems as they
exist which means that all of the
estimates that billions will die that
there will be Mass starvation that we
will see the migration in just a few
years of hundreds of millions of people
those are wrong what you'll see is a
gradual change of living people will
move away from areas that are inundated
on the coast you will see people
building sea walls you'll see people
adapting new technologies to sell carbon
out of the air you will see
geoengineering right this is the sort of
stuff that we should be focused on and
the sort of bizarre focus on what if we
just keep tossing hundreds of billions
of dollars at the same three
Technologies over and over in the hopes
that if we subsidize it this will
magically make it more efficient I've
seen no evidence whatsoever that that is
that is going to be the way that we get
ourselves out of this necessity being
the mother of invention I think human
beings will adapt because we have
adapted and we'll continue to adapt so
to the degree we invest in the the
thread of this it should be into the
policies that help with the adaptation
versus the mitigation right sea walls
geoengineering developing technologies
that carbon out of the air again if I
thought that there was more Sort of hope
for the green technologies currently in
play Then subsidization of those
Technologies I might be a little bit
more for but I haven't seen tremendous
progress over the course of the last 30
years in the reliability of for example
wind energy uh or or the ability to
store solar energy to the extent
necessary to actually power a grid
what's your thoughts on nuclear energy
is nuclear energy right nuclear energy
is a proven source of energy and we
should be radically
extending the the use of nuclear energy
it's one of one to me that honestly this
is like a litmus test question as to
whether you take climate change
seriously if you're on right or left and
you take climate change seriously you
should be in favor of nuclear energy if
you're not I know that you're just you
have other priorities yeah the
fascinating thing about the climate
change debate is the Dynamics of the
fear-mongering over the past few decades
because uh some of the nuclear energy
was tied up into that somehow there's a
lot of fear about nuclear energy it
seems like there's a lot of social
phenomena social dynamics involved
versus dealing with just science it's
interesting to watch and if on my darker
days it makes me cynical about our
ability to use reason and science to uh
to deal with the threats of the world I
think that our ability to use reason in
science to deal with threats of the
world is almost a time frame question so
I think that we're again we're very bad
at looking down the road and saying you
know because people can't handle for
example even things like compound
interest yeah right like the idea that
if I put a dollar in the bank today that
15 years from now that's going to be
worth a lot more than a dollar people
can't actually see that and so the idea
of let's foresee a problem then we'll
deal with it right now as opposed to 30
years down the road typically we let the
problem happen and then we solve it and
it's bloodier and worse than it would
have been if we had solved it 30 years
ago but it is in fact effective and
sometimes it turns out the solution that
we're proposing 30 years in advance is
not effective and that's that's a that
can be a major problem as well well
that's then the Steel Man the the case
for fear-mongering for irrational
fear-mongering we need to be scared
shitless in order for us to do anything
so that that's that you know I'm
generally against that but maybe on a
population scale maybe some of that is
necessary for us to respond appropriate
for long two long-term threats we should
be scared jealous I don't think that we
can actually do that though uh like I
like first of all I think that it's it's
platonic lives are generally bad uh and
then second of all I don't think that we
actually have the capacity to do this I
think that the people who are you know
the the sort of Elites of our society
who get together in rooms and talk about
this sort of stuff and I've been in some
of those meetings at my at my synagogues
Friday night actually no but but uh but
I didn't make the joke but I'm glad you
did yeah you know I've been in rooms
like Davos like rooms and when people
discuss these these sorts of topics and
they're like what if we just tell people
that it's going to be a disaster with
two nominees and day after tomorrow it's
like you guys don't have that power you
don't and by the way you'd dramatically
undercut your own power because of covid
to do this sort of stuff because a lot
of the sort of what if we scare the
living hell out of you to the point
where you stay in your own house for two
years and we tell you you can't send
your kids to school and then we tell you
that the vaccine is going to prevent
transmission and then we also tell you
that we need to spend seven trillion
dollars in one year and it won't have
any inflationary effect and it turns out
you're wrong on literally all of those
things
the the last few years have done more to
undermine institutional trust than any
time in in probably American history
it's pretty pretty amazing yeah I tend
to agree with that the only thing we
have to fear is fear itself
let me ask you back to the question of
God
and a big ridiculous question who's God
who is God so I'm going to
um
I'm gonna use sort of the Aquinas
formulation of of what God is right that
if you
if there is a cause of all things not
physical things if there is a cause
underlying the the reason of the
universe then that is the thing we call
God
so not a big guy in the sky with a beard
you know like he he is the the force
underlying the logic of the universe if
there is a logic to the universe uh and
he is the
Creator in the judic view of that
universe
and he uh and he does have an interest
in us living in accordance with the laws
of the universe that if you're a
religious Jew are encoded in the in the
Torah but if you're not a religious Jew
it would be included in the National and
the natural law by sort of Catholic
theology why do you think God created
the universe or as as popularly asked
what do you think is the meaning
behind it what's the meaning of life
what's the meaning of life uh so I think
that the meaning of life is to fulfill
what God made you to do and that is a
series of roles
I think that human beings and here you
have to look to sort of human nature
rather than looking kind of to Big
questions
I've evolved something that I've really
been working on you know I'm writing a
book about this actually uh that that I
call colloquially role Theory and
basically the idea is that the way that
we interact with the world is through a
series of roles and those are also the
things we find most important and most
implementable and they they're sort of
virtue ethics right which which suggests
that if we act in accordance with virtue
like Aristotle then we will be living
the most fulfilled and meaningful life
and then you have sort of deontological
effects like content effects that it's a
rule-based ethic
if you follow the rules then you'll then
you'll find the meaning of life and then
what I'm proposing is that there's
something that I would call role ethics
which is there are a series of roles
that we play across our lives which are
also the things that we tend to put on
our tombstones and find the most
meaningful so what when you go to a
cemetery you can see what people found
the most meaningful because it's the
stuff they put on the stone that has
like four words on it right like beloved
father beloved mother sister brother
and you might have a job once in a while
a Creator you know a religious person
right these are all roles that have
existed across societies and across
humanity and those are the things where
we actually find meaning and the way
that we navigate those roles brings us
meaning and I think that God created us
in order to fulfill those roles for
purposes that I can't begin to
understand because I am him and the more
we the more we recognize those roles and
the more we we live those roles and then
we can express Freedom within those
roles I think that the Liberty exists
inside each of those roles and that's
what makes all of our Lives different
and fun we all parents in different ways
but being a parent is a meaningful role
we all have spouses but you know how you
interact that relationship is what makes
your life meaningful and interesting
yeah that that is that is what we were
put on Earth to do and if we perform
those roles properly and those roles do
include things like being a Creator like
we have a creative Instinct as human
beings being a Creator or being an
innovator being uh being a defender of
your family you know being somebody who
builds up being a social member of your
community which is something that we're
built to do if we fulfill those roles
properly then we will have made the
world a better place than we than we
inherited it and we'll also have have
had the joy of experiencing the the sort
of flow they talk about in in Psychology
where when you engage in these roles you
actually do feel a flow so these roles
are fundamental part of the human
condition yes so you're the the book
you're working on is is constructing a
a system to help us understand
it's it's looking at let's assume that
all that's true the real question in the
book is how do you construct a
flourishing and useful
society and politics uh so a society
level if this is our understanding of a
human being how do we construct a good
Society right exactly because I I think
that a lot of political theory is right
now based in either
JS Mill kind of thought which is all
that a good politics does allows you
wave your hand around until you hit
somebody in the face or a rosian thought
which is what if we constructed Society
in order to achieve the most for the
least essentially you know what if we
constructed society around what actually
makes humans the most fulfilled and that
is the the
fulfillment of these particular roles
and where does Liberty come into that
right how do you avoid the idea of a
tyranny in that right how do you you
have to be a mother you must be a father
you must be where does where does
freedom come into that can you reject
those roles totally as a society and be
okay the answer probably is not so you
need a society that actually
promotes and and protects those roles
but also protects the freedom inside
those roles and that raises a more
fundamental question of what exactly
Liberty is for and I think that both the
right and the left actually uh tend to
make a mistake when they discuss Liberty
the left tends to think that Liberty is
an ultimate good that Simple Choice
makes a bad thing good which is not true
and I think the right talks about
Liberty in almost the same terms
sometimes and I think that's not true
either the question is whether Liberty
is
of inherent value or instrumental value
is Liberty good in and of itself or is
Liberty good because it allows you to
achieve X Y or Z and I've thought about
this one a lot and I I tend to come down
on the latter side of the aisle I mean
this is the US me areas where I move
this may be an area where I've moved is
there anything when you think more
shallowly about politics or maybe more
quickly because this is how we talk in
America is about Liberties and rights we
tend to think that the right is what
make not like the political right rights
make things good Liberties make things
good the question really is what are
those rights in Liberties for now you
have to be careful so that that doesn't
shade into tyranny right you can only
have Liberty to do the thing that I say
that you can do
but there have to be spheres of Liberty
that are roiling and interesting and
filled with debate but without
threatening the chief institutions that
surround those Liberties because if you
destroy the institutions the Liberties
will go too if you knock down the
pillars of the society the Liberties
that are on top of those pillars are
going to collapse and I think that
that's if people are feeling as though
we're on the verge of tyranny I think
that's why
this is fascinating by the way
instrumental perspective on Liberty I'm
just gonna have to give me a lot to
think about
um let me ask a personal question uh was
there ever a time that you had a crisis
of Faith where you questioned your
belief in God sure and I I would less
call it a crisis of Faith than an
ongoing question of Faith which I think
is I hope most religious people
and the the word Israel right in Hebrew
Israel means to struggle with God that's
that's the that's literally what the
word means and so the idea of struggling
with God right we're if you're Jewish or
banay Israel right the the idea of
struggling with God I think is endemic
to The Human Condition if you understand
what God's doing then I think you're
wrong
and if you think that that question
doesn't matter then I think you're also
wrong
I think that God is a very necessary
hypothesis it's a struggle the struggle
with God is life that is the process of
life that's right because you're never
going to get to that answer otherwise
your God you aren't so what does God
allow cruelty and suffering in the world
one of the tough questions so we're
going deep here uh there there's two
types of Cruelty and suffering so if
we're talking about human cruelty and
suffering because God does not intervene
to prevent people from exercising their
free will because to do so would be to
deprive human beings of the choice that
makes them human
and this is the center of the Garden of
Eden basically is that God could make
you an angel in which case you wouldn't
have the choice to do the wrong thing
but so long as we are going to allow for
cause and effect in a universe shaped by
your choice cruelty and evil are going
to exist and then there's the question
of just the natural cruelty and
vicissitudes of life
and the answer there is I think that God
obscures himself
I think that if God were to appear in
all of his glory to people on a regular
basis I think they would make
faith and you wouldn't need it there'd
be no such thing as faith right it would
just be reality right nobody has to
prove to you that the sun rises every
day
um but if if God is to allow us the
choice to believe in him which is the
ultimate Choice from a religious point
of view then he's going to have to
obscure himself behind tragedy and
horror and and all those other things I
mean this is a fairly well-known
kabbalistic concept called Tsum Tsum in
Judaism which is the idea that when God
created the universe he sort of withdrew
in order to make space for all of these
things to happen so God doesn't have an
instrumental perspective on Liberty uh
right in in a chief sense he does
because the the best use of Liberty is
going to be belief in him and you can
misuse your Liberty right help
there will be consequences if you
believe in an afterlife or if you
believe in sort of a generalized better
version of Life led by faith uh then
Liberty does have a purpose but he also
believes that you have to give people
from a cosmic perspective the Liberty to
do wrong without threatening all the
institutions of society I mean that's
that's why it does say in the Bible that
if man sheds Blood by man shall his
blood be shed right there are
punishments that are that are
in biblical thought for doing things
that are wrong so for a human being who
lacks the faith in God so if you're an
atheist can you still be a good person
of course 100 and there are a lot of
religious people who are crappy people
how do we understand that tension well
from a religious perspective what you
would say is that it is perfectly
plausible to live
in accordance with a set of rules that
don't damage other people without
believing in God you just might be
understanding the reason for doing that
wrong is what a religious person would
say
um there's the conversation again that I
had with Sam basically is you and I
agree I said this to him you and I agree
on nearly everything when it comes to
morality like we probably disagree on 15
to 20 of things the other 80 is because
you grew up in a judeo-christian society
and so do I and we grew up 10 miles from
each other you know around the turn of
the Millennium so there's that
um so you can perfectly well be an
atheist living a good moral decent life
because you can live a good moral decent
life with regard to other people without
believing in God I don't think he built
a society on that because I think that
you know that relies on these sort of
goodness of mankind natural goodness of
mankind I don't believe in the natural
goodness of mankind you don't no I
believe in I believe that man has
created both sinful and with the
capacity for sin in the capacity for
good but if you let them be on their own
isn't doesn't it without social
institutions to shape them I think that
that's very likely to go poorly oh
interesting well we came to something we
disagree on but that may be uh that
might reflect itself in our approach to
Twitter as well I think if humans are
left on their own
uh they they attend towards good
they definitely have the capacity for
good and evil but I when left on their
own there
um I I tend to believe they're good
I think they might be good with limits
what I mean by that is that what the
evidence I think tends to show is that
human beings are quite tribal so what
you'll end up with is people who are
good with their immediate family and
maybe their immediate neighbors and then
when they're threatened by an outside
tribe then they kill everyone
which is sort of the history of
civilization in the pre-civilizational
era which was a very violent time
pre-civilization later was quite violent
do you think on the topic of tribalism
in our modern world
what are the pros and cons of tribes is
that something we we should try to
outgrow as a civilization I don't think
it's ever going to be possible to fully
outgrow tribalism
I think it's a natural human condition
to want to be with people who think like
you or have a common set of beliefs and
I think trying to obliterate that in the
name of a universalism likely leads to
utopian results that have devastating
consequences utopian sort of
universalism has been failing every time
it's tried whether you're talking about
now it seems to be sort of a liberal
universalism which is being rejected by
a huge number of people around the world
in various different cultures whether
you're talking about religious
universalism which typically comes with
religious tyranny or they're talking
about communistic or a nazisk sort of
universalism which comes with mass water
so this is you know universalism I'm not
a believer in uh I think that you have
you know some values that are fairly
limited that all human beings should
hold in common and that's pretty much it
like I think that everybody should have
the ability to join with their own
culture I think how we Define tribes a
different thing yeah so I think that
that tribes should not be defined by
innate physical characteristics for
example
because I think that thank God as a
civilization we've outgrown that and I
think that that is um
that is a childish way to view the world
and all the tall people aren't a tribe
all the black people know all the white
people aren't a tribe so the tribes
should be formed over ideas versus
physical characters that's right which
is why actually to go back to sort of
the beginning of the conversation when
it comes to Jews you know I I'm not a
big idea I'm not a big believer in
ethnic Judaism right I'm I'm as a person
who takes Judaism seriously Judaism is
more to me than you were born with the
last name like Berg or Steen and so I
just agree with you but he would
disagree with me but that's because he
was a tribalist right who thought in
racial terms so uh so maybe robots will
help us see humans as One Tribe maybe
that as long as this is Reagan's idea
right Reagan said well if there's an
alien invasion then we'll all be on the
same side so I'll go over to the Soviets
and we'll talk about it there's some
deep truth to that
uh what does it mean to be a good man
the various role that a human being
takes on
uh in this role theory that you've
spoken about what does it mean to be a
good
it means to perform now I will do
Aristotle it means to be perform the
function well
what Aristotle says is the good is not
like moral good moral evil in the way
that we tend to think about it he he
meant that a good cup holds liquid
and a good spoon hold soup it means that
like a thing that is broken can't hold
those things right so yeah the idea of
being a good person means that you're
fulfilling the function for which you
were made it's a teleological view of of
humanity so if you're a good father this
means that you are bringing up your
child in durable values that is going to
bring them up healthy capable of
protecting themselves and passing on the
traditional wisdom of the ages to Future
Generations while allowing for the
capacity for Innovation that'd be being
a good father right being a good spouse
would mean protecting and unifying with
your spouse and building a safe family
and a place to raise children being a
good citizen of your community means
protecting the fellow citizens of your
community while incentivizing them to
build for themselves and they it becomes
actually much easier to to think of how
to this is why I like the role Theory
because it's very hard since sort of in
virtue Theory to say be generous okay
how does that manifest I don't know I
don't know what that looks like
sometimes being generous might be being
not
generous to other people right when when
Aristotle says that you should be
benevolent like what does that mean this
is very vague when I say be a good dad
most people sort of have a gut level
understanding of what it means to be a
good dad and mostly well they have a gut
level understand what it means to really
be a really bad dad uh and so what it
means to be a good man is to fulfill
those roles as many of them as you can
properly and at full function and that's
a very hard job I've said before that
you know because I engage a lot with
public and all this you know the word
great comes up a lot what does it take
to be a great leader what does it to be
a great person and I've always said to
people it's actually fairly easy to be
great it's very difficult to be good and
a lot of it there are a lot of very
great people who are not very good and
they're not a lot of good people and one
of them most of them you know frankly
most good people
die mourned by their family and friends
and two generations later they're
forgotten but those are the people who
incrementally move the ball forward in
the world sometimes much more than the
people who are considered great
understand the role in your life that
involves being a cup and be damn good at
it exactly that's right hold the soup
it's very uh Jordan Peterson have been
there it's very like lobster with Jordan
exactly I think people quote you for
years and years to come on that um what
advice would you give a lot of young
people look up to you what advice
um despite the better judgment no I'm
just kidding I'm just not maybe I'm only
kidding only kidding they uh they
seriously look up to you and draw
inspiration from your ideas from your
bold thinking what what advice would you
give to them how to have how to live a
life worth living how to have a career
they can be proud of
and everything like that so
live out the values that you think are
really important and seek those values
in others I would be the first piece of
advice second piece of advice don't go
on Twitter until you're 26. uh because
your brain is fully developed at that
point uh you know the the as I said
early on you know I was on social media
and writing columns from time I was 17.
uh you know it was a great opportunity
and as it turns out a great temptation
to say enormous numbers of stupid things
uh when when you're young I mean you're
kind of trying out ideas and you're
putting them on you're taking them off
and social media permanentizes those
things and engraves them in stone and
then that's used against you for the
rest of your life so I tell young people
this all the time like if you found me
on social media be on social media but
don't post like watch uh if you want to
take an information and more importantly
you should read books
um as far as you know other advice I'd
say engage in your community
there's no substitute for engaging in
your community and engage in
interpersonal action because that that
will soften you and make you a better
person
I become a better person since I got
married I become an even better person
since I've had kids so you can imagine
how terrible I was before all these
things uh and uh
uh engaging your community it does does
allow you to build the things that
matter on the most local possible level
I mean the outcome by the way of the
sort of politics of the politics
fulfillment that I was talking about
earlier is a lot of localism because the
roles that I'm talking about are largely
local roles so that stuff has to be
protected locally I think we focus way
too much in this country and others on
like World beating Solutions National
Solutions solutions that apply to
hundreds of millions of people how I get
to the solutions that apply for like
five and then we get to the solutions
that apply to like 20 and then we get to
the solutions that involve 200 people or
a thousand people let's solve that stuff
and I think the solutions at the higher
level flow bottom up not top down what
about mentors and maybe Role Models have
you had have you had a mentor or maybe
people you look up to either you
interact on a local scale like you
actually knew them or somebody you
really looked up for me I'm very lucky I
grew up in a very solid two-parent
household I'm extremely close to my
parents I've lived near my parents
literally my entire life with the
exception of three years of Law School
uh and uh like right now they live a
mile and a half from us uh that's so
would you uh learn from about life from
from your parents and your father
um so oh man so many things from from my
parents that's good and bad that's a
hard one um I mean I think the the good
stuff for my dad is that you should hold
true to your values he's very big on you
have values those values are important
hold true to them did you understand
what your values are what your
principles are early on fairly quickly
yeah yeah um and so you know he he was
very big on that which is why for
example I get asked a lot in the Jewish
Community why I wear a keep on the
answer is it never occurred to me to
take off the keepa I always wore it why
would I take it off at any point that's
the life that I want to live and you
know that's that's the way it is uh yeah
so that was a big one from my dad from
my mom practicality my dad is more of a
dreamer my mom is much more practical
and so you know the the sort of lessons
that I learned from my dad are that you
can have this is sort of the the counter
lesson is that you can have a good idea
but if you don't have a plan from
implementation then it doesn't end up as
reality and I think actually he's
learned that better over the course of
his life too but my dad from very from
the time I was very young he wanted me
to engage with other adults and he
wanted me to learn from other people and
his one of his roles was if he didn't
know something he would find somebody
who he thought did know the thing for me
to talk to that's that's a big thing so
I'm I'm very lucky I have wonderful
parents as far as sort of other mentors
you know in terms of media Andrew
Breitbart was was a mentor uh Andrew
obviously he was kind of known in his
latter days I think more for the
militancy than than when I was very
close with him so for somebody like me
who doesn't who knows more about the
militancy can you tell me what is what
is a great what makes him a great man
what made Andrew great is that he
engaged with everyone I mean everyone so
there are videos of him
rollerblading down the Boulevard and
people would be protesting and he would
literally like rollerblade up to them
and he would say let's go to lunch
together and he would just do this like
that's actually who Andrew was what was
the thinking behind that just just what
he was he was just careless he was he
was much more outgoing than I am
actually he was he was very warm with
people like for me
you know I would say that with Andrew I
knew Andrew for say I remember when I
was 16. he passed away when I would have
been 28. so I knew Andrew for 10 12
years and people who met Andrew for
about 10 minutes
new Andrew 99 as well as I knew Andrew
because he was just all out front like
everything was out here and he was he
loved talking to people he loved
engaging with people and so this made
him a lot of fun and unpredictable and
fun to watch and all that and then I
think Twitter got to him I think by you
know Twitter is one of the lessons I
learned from Andrew was the counter
lesson which is Twitter Twitter can
poison you know Twitter Twitter can
really wreck you if you spend all day on
Twitter reading the comments and getting
angry at people who are talking about
you it becomes a very difficult life and
I think that you know in the last year
of his life Andrew got very caught up in
that because of a series of sort of
circumstances it can actually affect
your mind it can actually make you
resentful all that kind of stuff I I
tend to agree with that so but but the
lesson that I learned from Andrew is
engage with everybody take joy in sort
of the the mission that you're given and
you can't always fulfill that you know
sometimes it's really rough and
difficult I'm not going to pretend that
it's all fun and and rainbows all the
time because I didn't and some of the
stuff that I have to cover I don't like
and some of the things I have to say I
don't particularly like you know like
that's that happens but it's uh but
that's what I learned from Andrew as far
are sort of other mentors I had some I
had some teachers when I was a kid who
uh you know said things that stuck with
me I had a fourth grade teacher named Mr
nutty who said don't let potential be
written on your Tombstone which was uh
which is a pretty that's a good line
it's a great line particularly to a
fourth grader uh but uh it was that that
you know that was good in 11th grade
English teacher named Anthony Miller who
is terrific really good writer he'd
studied uh with James Joyce at Trinity
College in Dublin and so he and I really
got along and he he helped my writing a
lot
did you ever have doubt in yourself I
mean especially as you gotten into the
public eye with all the attacks did you
ever doubt your ability to stay strong
to be able to be a voice of the ideas
that you represent you definitely I
don't doubt my ability to say what I
want to say I doubt my ability to handle
the emotional blowback of saying it
meaning that that's that's difficult I
mean again
in to take just one example in 2016 the
ADL measured that I was the number one
target of anti-Semitism on planet Earth
you know that's that's not fun that's
unpleasant and when you take critiques
not from anti-semites but when you take
critiques from people generally
we talked about near the beginning how
you surround yourself with with people
who are going to give you good feedback
sometimes it's hard to tell sometimes
people are giving you feedback you don't
know whether it's well motivated or
poorly motivated and if you are trying
to be a decent person you can't cut off
the mechanism of feedback and so what
that means is sometimes you you take to
heart the wrong thing or you take a tart
too much uh you're not light enough
about you take it very very seriously
you lose sleep over it I mean I can't
tell you the number of nights where I've
just not slept because of some critique
somebody's made of me and I thought to
myself maybe that's right maybe that and
sometimes it is right and you know
that's that's some of that is good to
Stew in that criticism but some of that
can destroy you do you have a shortcut
so uh Rogan has talked about taking a
lot of mushrooms since you're not since
you're not into the mushroom thing
um what's your escape from that like
when you get low when you can't sleep
usually writing is a big one for me so I
the writing for me is cathartic I love
writing uh that that is a that is a huge
one spending time with my family uh
again I usually have a close circle of
friends who I will talk with in order to
sort of bounce ideas off of them and
then once I've kind of talked it through
I tend to feel a little bit better uh
exercise is also a big one I mean if I
go a few days without exercise I tend to
get pretty grumpy pretty quickly I mean
I could keep the six-pack going somehow
man there you and Rogan agree uh well we
haven't
aside from Twitter mentioned love what's
the role of Love In The Human Condition
Ben Shapiro
man don't get asked for for Love Too
Much in fact um I was uh I was you don't
get that question on college campus no I
typically don't actually uh in fact we
were at an event uh recently as a daily
wire event and in the middle of this
event was a meet and greet with some of
the audience in the middle of this event
this guy walks by with this girl they're
talking and they're talking to me and
their time kind of runs the Security's
moving them he says no no wait hold on a
minute and he gets down on one knee and
he proposes the girl in front of me and
I said to him this is the weirdest
proposal in human history what what is
happening right now like I was your
choice of cupid here like so well you
know we actually like got together
because we listened to your show and I
said I can perform it like a Jewish
marriage right now I'm gonna need like a
glass we're gonna need some wine it's
gonna get weird real fast yeah but uh
yeah so so love doctor I'm typically not
asked too much about the the role the
role of Love
um is
important in Binding Together
human beings who ought to be bound
together and the role of respect is even
more important in Binding Together
broader groups of people I think one of
the mistakes that we make in politics is
trying to substitute love for respect
and respect for love and I think that's
a big mistake so I do not bear
tremendous love in the same sense that I
do for my family for random strangers I
don't I love my family I love my kids
anybody who tells you they love your kid
as much as you love your kid is lying to
you it's not true I I love my community
more than I love other communities I
love my state more than I love other
states I love my country more than I
love other countries right like that's
that's all normal
and that's all good the problem of
empathy can be when that becomes so
tight-knit that you're not
outward looking that you don't actually
have respect for other people so in the
local level you need love in order to
protect you and shield you and give you
the strength to go forward and then
beyond that you need a lot of respect
for people who are not in the circle of
love and I think trying to extend love
to people who
either are not going to love you back or
are uh are going to slap you in the face
for it or who you're just not that close
to it's either it runs the the risk of
being air SATs and fake or it uh or it
can actually be counterproductive in
some senses
well there's some sense in which you
could have love for other human beings
just
based on the humanity that connects
everybody right so you love this this
whole project that we're a part of and
actually
sort of another thing we disagree on so
loving a stranger
like having that basic empathy and
compassion towards a stranger
even if it can hurt you I think it's
ultimately like a
that is the that to me is what it means
to be a good man to live the a good life
is to have that compassion toward
strangers because to me it's almost it's
easy and natural and obvious to love
people close to you but to step outside
yourself and to love others I think
that's what that's the fabric of a good
Society you don't think there's value to
that I think there can be but I think
we're also discussing love almost in two
different senses meaning that when I
talk about love what I think of
immediately is the love I bear for my
wife and kids
or my parents or my siblings I love
friendship uh or the love of my close
friends yeah okay but I'm but I think
that it's that using that same term to
describe how I feel about strangers I
think would just be inaccurate and so
that's why I'm I'm suggesting that
respect might be a more solid and
realistic foundation for the way that we
treat people far away from us for people
who are strangers respect for their
dignity respect for their priorities
respect for their role in life uh it
might be too much of an ask in other
words there might be the rare human
being who's capable of literally loving
a homeless man on the street the way
they do love his own family but if you
respect the homeless man on the street
the way that you respect
your own family uh because everyone is
deserved everyone deserves that respect
I think that you get to the same end
without without forcing people into a
position of
of unrealistically expecting themselves
to feel a thing they don't feel you know
one of the big questions in religion
that comes up is God makes certain
requests that you feel certain ways
right you're supposed to be this
Sinclair you're supposed to be happy
about certain things or you know you're
supposed to love that neighbor as
thyself right you'll notice that in that
in that statement it's a Thy Neighbor
right it's not just like generally
anyone it's love that neighbors that's
in any case the the I think that extends
to anyone that follows you on Twitter
Thy Neighbor because God anticipated The
Social Network aspect that doesn't is
not constrained by geography
yeah I'm gonna differ with you on the
interpretation on that but in any case
yeah uh the the sort of uh you know the
the kind of extension of
love outwards might be too big and ask
so maybe we can start with respect and
then hopefully out of that respect can
grow something more if people earn their
way in because I think that one of the
big problems when we were talking about
universalism is when people say like I'm
a world citizen I love people of the
other country as much as I love myself
or as much as I love my country it tends
to actually lead to an almost cram down
utopianism
uh that I think can be kind of difficult
because with love comes a certain
expectation of of solidarity
and I think right I mean when you love
your family you love your wife like
there's a certain level of solidarity
that is required inside the home in
order to preserve the most loving kind
of home and so if you love everybody
then that sort of implies a certain
level of solidarity that may not exist
so maybe the idea is for me
start with respect and then maybe as
people respect each other more then love
is an outgrowth of that as opposed to
starting with love and then hoping that
respect develops yeah there's a danger
that that word becomes empty and instead
is used for dogmatic kind of
um
utopianism I mean this is this is the
way that for example religious
theocracies very often work we love you
so much we have to convert you
so let's start with respect what I would
love to see
um after our conversation today is to
see a Ben Shapiro that continues the
growth on Twitter of being even more
respectful than you've already been and
uh maybe one day uh converting That Into
Love on Twitter that would if I could
see that in this world that would make
me die a happy man wow that's a little
bit if I can make that happen for love
in the world for me as a gift for me
I'll try to make that happen I do have
one question I'm gonna need you to tell
me can I like which jokes are okay are
jokes still okay so yeah can I can I
just run your Twitter from now on you
just send it to me I'll pre-screen you
the jokes and you can tell me if this is
a loving joke or if this is a hateful to
be very surprised before by the all the
heart emojis this are popping up on your
Twitter but thank you so much for being
bold and fearless and exploring ideas
and uh your Twitter aside thank you for
being just good faith and all the
arguments and all the conversations
you're having with people it's a huge
honor thank you for talking to me thanks
for having me I really appreciate it
thanks for listening to this
conversation with Ben Shapiro to support
this podcast please check out our
sponsors in the description and now let
me leave you with some words from Ben
Shapiro himself
freedom of speech and thought matters
especially when it is speech and thought
with which we disagree
the moment the majority decides to
destroy people for engaging in thought
it dislikes
thought crime becomes a reality
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time