EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,119 words- 0:08 – 1:38
Studio banter, image management, and Shapiro’s public persona
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, we're live, Ben Shapiro.
- BSBen Shapiro
Hey, how's it going, dude?
- JRJoe Rogan
I, uh ... V- very good. How's it going with you, man?
- BSBen Shapiro
It's going well. I love ... I love the new digs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thank you.
- BSBen Shapiro
I haven't been here since you, you finished it over and I walked in, I thought to myself, "I've been doing my business wrong." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, you got what, three employees?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, there's not that many folks working on this.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, so in my offices we have like 80 and, um, our offices are not nearly this cool. So I'm gonna go back to my office and fire everyone- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
... and then have your folks come in and design because, I mean, it's either a lot of people or I could have cars in my office.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but you wouldn't go down this route. You're, you're more of a conservative gentleman than myself.
- BSBen Shapiro
That, that n-
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at you, you're wearing a suit jacket, you're your own boss.
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Nobody tells you how to dress, and yet you dress like a grownup.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, well, uh, you know, I, I won't pretend that nobody tells me how to dress. (laughs) We have people who tell me how to dress, we have people who do my hair, the whole thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you have all that stuff? You have, like, fashion folks and wardrobe?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I, because I used to ... I mean, if you look at the old photos of me, I have like the Hitler hair.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
I've got, like, the, the hair ... That's the only thing about me that's hilarious was my old hair, and I've got the, the hair that kind of comes down over the forehead. And I still walk into the office wearing basically an undershirt every day 'cause I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to that stuff, but we, we ha-
- JRJoe Rogan
You should be able to.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, I mean that's, that's the prerogative of being the boss.
- JRJoe Rogan
Maybe you'd be more relatable, maybe if you showed up wearing, like, flip-flops and a T-shirt.
- BSBen Shapiro
That kinda kills my brand though, no?
- JRJoe Rogan
Does it?
- BSBen Shapiro
Like, i- i- i-
- 1:38 – 3:52
“Alt-right” labeling, antisemitic targeting, and media misrepresentation
- JRJoe Rogan
But this is one of the things that bothers me so much about you being so misrepresented. When I read things about you, l- there was a ... The, the article that we were just talking about, the alt-right sage without the rage, they called you, and you're not even remotely alt-right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
In fact, you were the leading target of anti-Semitic abuse for all of 2016, weren't you, online?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which is no ally of mine. So, yeah ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, I'm ... Not only am I not alt-right, I've spent the last four years, like, legitimately battling the alt-right, talking about how evil I think their ideology is, how evil I think white supremacy is. I mean, first of all, like, people with yarmulkes, typically not the favorites of the alt-right. And then beyond that, I mean, I think their ideology is legitimately a devastatingly awful twist on what Western civilization is supposed to be. What was amazing is the review of my new book, and my new book has several sections in there dedicated to how terrible the alt-right is. And then the interview they did with me doesn't talk about alt-right stuff at all, but they just assume, I'm on the conservative right, that must mean that I am alt-right. And it's like, "No, you stupid ..." (laughs) "No, no."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) It's the problem with these labels, they're disingenuous. People are labeling people in a very simple m- manner to try to categorize them as the enemy. And instead of just addressing these points, like, uh, I love watching your debates where you do Q&As with college students and with people in the audience, because you can see you w- agree with you or disagree with you. You have well-formulated ideas, this isn't just some bullshit that you're sp- spouting out. You've thought these things through.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, I've been doing this for legitimately more than half my life. I'm 35 and I started when I was 17, and I started writing a syndicated column at that point. And when you're 17, you think a lot of dumb stuff, and then-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- BSBen Shapiro
... you get older and you educate yourself and you spend a lot of time reading and a lot of time studying. Hopefully you have some cogent arguments after 20 years of doing anything. I mean, but it's ... The, the demonization is pretty astonishing. I mean, we had o- on Andrew Yang, he's the only Democratic candidate who has agreed to go on the Sunday special that I do. We did a full hour on UBI, it was perfectly nice, it was perfectly coherent and, and, and conciliatory, and yet people will suggest that everything I do is about destroying people on the other side-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... because of all the Ben Shapiro Destroys videos and all that kind of stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's, there are certain groups of people where that's their shtick. They're like, they're goons, right? They just go after people online for attention.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yep.
- 3:52 – 9:21
Cancel culture mechanics: old tweets, context collapse, and apology incentives
- JRJoe Rogan
This is, this is a, a shtick. This is not you, and this is what bothers me so much. And I know that you've said some things in the past, like particularly about Arabs and, like, when you were a younger man that you said, "I, I shouldn't have said that."
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, that's exactly right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
That's exactly right. Some of those things were taken out of context, like that one particular tweet-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
... which is a bad tweet, was a tweet that was part of a tweet thread in which I was specifically contrasting Israel and the Hamas leadership and saying that the Israeli government likes to build and the Hamas leadership would prefer that their citizens live in sewage and bomb things. But that was a bad tweet, obviously.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
My entire history on, on Muslim relations is one ... I, like, I supported the ability of Ilhan Omar to wear a hijab on the, on the floor. Right? I opposed President Trump's originally proposed Muslim ban. Uh, in the last three weeks I've had on Mujib Nowaz, I've had on, uh, Qanta Ahmed, I had on yesterday, uh, a reformed Muslim. Like, these are conversations that have to be had, but to take ... This, this is one of the things that bugs me so much. I've, I've tweeted, I think 140,000 times, I've written millions of words, I'm sure you can find something I don't even remember having written that is bad.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I have a running list, by the way. I try to be honest about this. I, I'm one of the only people I know who has ... I have a running list, it's called So Here's a Giant List of All the Dumb Stuff I've Ever Done.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. (laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
And I actually go through all this ... Like, you can look it up, this is not me saying this now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, you can go and, and look up all the things that I think I've done wrong and I'll apologize for some, and I'll say some were dumb, and I'll say some I'm fine with and you're just taking it out of context. But, I mean, that ... I hope that's what honest people try to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
But th- this is the problem, you're not dealing with honest people. Wh- when people are trying to categorize you as alt-right, or they're, they're trying to put you into this category of internet goon, they're, th- and they, they're, quote, tweet, they're just taking some little tiny phrase that you said seven years ago and trying to say, "This is you. This is you now."
- BSBen Shapiro
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so ... That's such a disingenuous thing to do.
- BSBen Shapiro
I, I hate it and I hate it across the aisle, by the way.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
Like, I was a defender of James Gunn. I, I thought James Gunn shouldn't have been fired from Guardians of the Galaxy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I thought so too.
- BSBen Shapiro
Over the old tweets, I thought that was bullshit.
- JRJoe Rogan
They were just dumb jokes.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right, that, that's exactly right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And even if somebody tweeted something bad, like, 10 years ago, bringing it up now is not an attempt to actually make the public space better. And you're not actually offended by that thing the person tweeted 10 years ago that you didn't notice. What it is is that you want to get rid of this person or hurt this person, so you're gonna bring up something from 10 years ago and then you're gonna try and club them into submission with it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Because if you actually ask them their opinion about it, they might have a more nuanced view on what they said, maybe they apologize.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
You know, may- maybe they think, "I don't even remember saying that."
- 9:21 – 12:26
Deplatforming and “heterodox” figures: responsibility for audiences and comments
- JRJoe Rogan
What... Yeah, let's talk about that because what are, what are your thoughts about this idea of deplatforming? And, you know, this is something that we were just discussing before the podcast, um, where the CEO of YouTube and Kara Swisher, is her name?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, from Recode, I think.
- JRJoe Rogan
Kara Swisher, they were talking about removing you from YouTube, and I thought it was the CEO of YouTube. It was Ar- actually Kara who said, "I would if I could."
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But-
- BSBen Shapiro
She was pissed because her son apparently listens to my podcast. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's kind of funny if she's being funny saying I ca- but it was, it would be... I thought it was the CEO of YouTube, which would make it much more disturbing.
- BSBen Shapiro
No, she was trying to imply that ... She was trying to do the same thing that they, they do with you or with Dave Rubin or Jordan Peterson, which is that anybody who is sort of heterodox, because in that group I think I'm the only registered Republican. Every- Anybody who's heterodox is now being portrayed as-
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you mean heterodox?
- BSBen Shapiro
Meaning just thinks differently from kind of the down line Democratic Party platform. You, you're not like down the line with Hillary.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
You're not ... Like Sam Harris is a Democrat.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Sam Harris is heterodox because he disagrees that Islam is by necessity a religion of peace, for example.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Or he thinks that we have to look at actual statistics in order to make evidentiary-based points about discrimination and disparity.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? And this makes him an enemy of people like Ezra Klein at vox.com. Right? Th- th- this sort of stuff, they then say that you're a feeder for white supremacy. Right?They, they, they can't actually get you on what you say.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
So it turns into, "Well, you know, some members of your audience do things that, that are really bad." And it's like, well, dude, I have like millions of people who are members of my audience. I have five million Facebook followers, I have two million on Twitter, and you're way bigger than I am. I assume that some of those people are gonna be crazy. I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I would assume. Yeah. The idea that you're respon- well, this is what YouTube tried to do. You know, about the comment thing.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where YouTube was gonna try to make people responsible for the comments in their videos, which ... What does a normal, Jamie, like a normal video that we get, how many comments does it get?
- BSBen Shapiro
I don't know, like 10,000.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
That's like an average one. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
How the fuck?
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs) (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
How the fuck? Am I supposed to have some dude with his itchy trigger finger standing by in front of a keyboard just waiting for something offensive to pop up? And this was in response to something that happened with them where there was pedophiles who were watching videos of children doing things and they were commenting stuff in the k-... You know, like th-
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- 12:26 – 16:35
Platform vs. publisher: tech companies as moral arbiters and legal liability
- BSBen Shapiro
And Jordan Peterson has no relationship with the shooter whatsoever. "It's my fault. I have no relationship with the shooter and denounce everything that that piece of crap stands for." And suddenly it's my ... It's, it's really ugly and it's gonna ... It, it will come home to roost. I mean, here's what's gonna happen, is Facebook and YouTube are gonna fall prey to their own standards. Because if their standard is that you're responsible for your followers or I'm responsible for my followers or Jordan or anybody else is responsible for all the people who view their stuff, okay then, why isn't Facebook responsible for all the people posting on its platform? If they are, right, if Facebook becomes responsible for all the people posting on its platform, they'll be bankrupt in a week.... they've got a problem. They really do, because they have to decide whether they are a platform or whether they are a do-gooder publication.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? I run a, I run a, a publication, Daily Wire. It's openly conservative. We make no bones about that. And we are responsible for the content that appears on our platform. And if we say something defamatory, we will be sued. If we say something that is false, then we will be sued, presumably. If you post something false on Facebook, Facebook doesn't get sued. But now Facebook has deemed itself the morality police and they'll ban people they don't like, and they'll decide what editorially ought to be elevated and what ought not to be elevated. Does that sound more like the phone company to you? Or does that sound more like my website where I decide what gets published and what doesn't? Right? 'Cause Facebook's case for exemption from these laws is, "Well, we're like the phone company," right? When you're on the phone with somebody, if that person says something criminal, AT&T isn't responsible for the person saying something criminal or terrible. It's just the phone company.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
But Facebook isn't doing that. Facebook is, is jumping into the middle of conversations and then saying, "Well, we don't really like this conversation, so we're just gonna kinda shut it down. Not because of legal threat, but because we just don't like it."
- JRJoe Rogan
So are they actually doing that? Like say if you put a post up on Facebook and they don't like the way you worded things or described things, will they actually shut down your post? What, what will they do?
- BSBen Shapiro
So they've done it in the past to some conservative pub- ... It's pretty controversial 'cause they're not transparent at all.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
I can tell you that at the beginning of 2018, we, we lost about 35% of our traffic because Facebook started cracking down on mostly conservative sites. They said that it was kind of news sites generally, but that's not what the statistics showed. They're doing it more often with things that we all sort of agree are bad.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? We all agree white supremacy is bad, white nationalism is bad. Now they say they're gonna censor that stuff. But here's where I'm uncomfortable. I think that that stuff is awful and evil and I ... Those people are the ones, are the re- they're the reason I have personal security. But once you get into the business of Facebook gets to decide which speech is good and which speech is bad, they're an editor.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
They're an editor. Even if I agree with their assessment of what stuff is good and what is bad, I am not comfortable with them in the driver's seat there. And if they are gonna be in the driver's seat, then they should be held liable for all the stuff that's on their platform. I mean, why isn't the ... Twit- Twitter, same thing, right? Why is it that Louis Farrakhan is still on that platform, but Alex Jones is not? Like, I don't like Alex Jones' material. I've been very, very critical of Alex Jones. I didn't think he should get b- banned from, from Twitter unless he actually violated the law, unless he was responsible for a violent threat, unless he was defamatory or something.
- JRJoe Rogan
They, they're definitely going down this road of being the moral arbitrators. They're, they're the ones who get to decide what the conversations are. And h- And that's an insane responsibility. The responsibility of getting to dictate what should and should not be discussed, and to have it be a handful of people and have these people almost, almost exclusively live in the Pacific No- you know, north of San Francisco.
- BSBen Shapiro
In San Jose, exactly. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Tha- that whole tech community. I mean, it's all tech liberals who really, if you're around those people, they live in this really strange, uber wealthy bubble of super genius spectrum people who are coders and super capitalists and people that are raising money all over the place and designing technology. And they have an ideology. And it's not necessarily a bad one, just, just being ho- honest and upfront about what it is. It's, it's incredibly progressive, which is very unusual for big business, right? For big business to be just openly, transparently progressive and pushing social justice, it's very unusual.
- 16:35 – 22:35
Corporate progressivism, “Don’t be evil,” and the politics-as-cover argument
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, I think that there is a, uh, sort of misunderstanding of when we say what big business is, what big business is. So I think that there's a wide variety of owners of businesses in how they think about politics, obviously.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Bill Gates is a progressive guy. Warren Buffett's a progressive guy. They're-
- JRJoe Rogan
They are now.
- BSBen Shapiro
W- Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? But was-
- BSBen Shapiro
W- Uh, I, I think Bill, Bill Gates has been for a while.
- JRJoe Rogan
Was Bill Gates progressive his whole life?
- BSBen Shapiro
For those- It's, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
He's ruthless with Microsoft.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, so, I think that there are a lot of pe- Listen, I think that, that the vast majority ... I think Mark Zuckerberg is ruthless with Facebook-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
... and he's progressive. I think Jack Dorsey is as ruthless as the next guy when it comes to profit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, he's still gotta be answerable to his shareholders.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
So I think, I think a lot of the progressivism is sort of a, a way to excuse your own in- your own involvement in the capitalist market. You know, they're just-
- JRJoe Rogan
But when Facebook took off "Don't be evil."
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, that was their thing, "Don't be evil." They decided to remove that.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah. It was Google, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh yes. Did I say Facebook?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm sorry. Google. Yeah, when Google did that. I meant Google. B- It's funny when you think something but you're saying another thing.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, when they did that, it's like, "Why would you ever take off 'Don't be evil'?" Like keep that.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
But here, here's my thing. Here's my thing. I think that if our tech companies were honest, they should take that stuff off. Like stop pretending you're do-gooding. You're not do-gooding. You're providing a platform, and maybe the platform is the good, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 22:35 – 33:41
Libertarian drift: marijuana policy, harm, and the limits of criminalization
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you ever, is y- have your, uh, have conservative values moved in one way or another? Have they-
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, I, I would say that-
- JRJoe Rogan
... have they shifted at all?
- BSBen Shapiro
... my personal values probably haven't shifted very much, but my political values have shifted libertarian.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, so I used to be a proponent of criminalization of marijuana. I'm no longer. I've been in favor of decriminalization of pot.
- JRJoe Rogan
What changed that for you?
- BSBen Shapiro
Uh, a couple of things. One was just a general sense the government sucks at everything.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
And the more I see the government try to crack down on things, the more prevalent it becomes. I mean, people were dealing pot on my sixth grade, seventh grade playground in public school.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
So obviously, like, that was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Welcome to LA. (laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
(laughs) Yeah, exactly. Uh, and, and then-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's terrible.
- BSBen Shapiro
... just, uh, a general, a general perception not only that the government sucks at everything, but that you gotta own your own actions. And also examining more of the evidence about the impact of, of pot on people's lives. And, and, you know, a- again, it, th- there's you ruining your own life through use of, of drugs, and then there's drugs that legitimately ruin other people's lives, right? There, they're-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
... drugs that remove your ability to even reason or think. I think there are only two reasons to criminalize drugs in any fashion. One is if there are drugs, like, for example, PCP, that legitimately make you violent, uh, and then you are going out and committing acts of violence against people. Then there's a case. Uh, or if you're talking about a, a drug where it legitimately robs you of your capacity to reason. If there were a b- uh, heroin, if you're able to actually crack down on it successfully, but even there I'm not sure that the proper government solution is criminalization because we've criminalized it and it's still incredibly prevalent. So it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you on th- a- and I, and I agree with you in terms of drugs being d- extremely detrimental. And the other part is that there's comparable drugs that are legal.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, and comparable drugs meaning, uh, not even really comparable, drugs that are far more devastating, like alcohol. Like, y- you, you could just go to any grocery store and buy a, a jug of whiskey and kill yourself with it.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not difficult. You just drink the whole thing and you're dead.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, and we have laws on the books already that prevent externalities.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
If you drive high it's the same as driving drunk.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
So I'm not sure that you need additional laws to do that. And also, you know, I'm not opposed to zoning laws. Like, I don't think a pot shop should open up right next to my house, right? They're-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
... residential zoning. That's fine. Uh, same-
- 33:41 – 45:39
Psychedelics, religion, and “shortcuts” to meaning (death anxiety & PTSD therapy)
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Um, l- I don't want to let this marijuana thing go just yet.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
One of, one of the things that I wanted to bring up to you was this idea that if you're a religious person, d- don't you think that there's certain things that maybe God put here for us to consume, to change your perspective, to allow you to reach new levels of consciousness? Don't you think it's entirely possible that some of these things that are here, and I know you haven't experienced them-
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but they might literally have been put there by God? And there's some evidence to say that a lot of the texts from the Bible, um, that, uh, in particular, there was, uh ... I think it was the University of Tel Aviv somewhere in, in Jerusalem where these scholars were. They were trying to decipher what it meant when Moses encountered the burning bush.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they believe that it may have been the acacia tree, which is very rich in dimethyltryptamine, which is a psychedelic substance that actually that the brain produces and it's very common in plants. And they think that this might have been when he met God and God was a burning bush, that this might have been some crude translation of them being involved in some sort of a psychedelic experience. Now, it sounds outlandish unless you've had that psychedelic experience. And when you have, you very well could think that you were in a conversation with God. This is H- on Earth. And, uh, this is something that may very well have been lost information or this may very well have been rituals that people participated in to bring them closer together and to reinforce that sense of community that you do get from a church and you g- do get from, uh, a group of people that share moral beliefs and values. And there's a, there's real good discussion that a lot of these experiences that became these religious doctrines came from psychedelic experiences. Now, as someone who's never experienced that before, I know this is probably a very strange thing to try to even wrap your head around. It's ... It is entirely alien until you experience it, but it might very well be religious.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, I've, I've heard that from other people who have, who have been ... who have used those kinds of drugs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, Sam actually made this argument to me too about-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... about the use of psychedelics. Um, and I mean, maybe. I mean, again, I-
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, God made apples.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, okay, so th-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- BSBen Shapiro
... this argument I'm ... Uh, I, I will say, I'm not super fond of the argument that God made something and therefore it's ours to use or ab- I mean, like I keep kosher. Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
Like God made pigs, I don't eat them. So- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
So I, I, I am not a huge fan of the argument that because something is here or because an urge is natural-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
... therefore we ought to imbibe or therefore we ought to participate in a particular activity. You know, one of the things that I, that I'm very big on ... I'm, I'm a, I'm a rationalist when it comes to religion, as much as you can be a rationalist with regard to religion, to the extent that I think that it's up to us to use our reasonable faculties to determine the proper use of things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
So which is why you shouldn't overuse drugs, even if you're going to use drugs, for example.
- JRJoe Rogan
But th- this is part of the problem with making things illegal. When you make things illegal, then you really don't know what it is or how it affects the body or what's the right dose or the wrong dose. And then people get involved in these terrible situations where they're taking things and they're just guessing what it is.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, th- there's truth to that, but it's also true that on a social level, I'm not talking about legal, 'cause we totally agree-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
... on the legal level. Uh, on the social level, it ...... there's a couple of things that are true of, for example, the orthodox Jewish community. Low rates of addiction because people have that social fabric-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
... they don't feel the necessity. Also, you know, as you say, substance use in moderation can actually be quite a good thing. So, low rates of alcoholism in the Jewish community, and part of that is the fact that you are given Kiddush wine from the time you're a kid, right? I mean, you actually-
- 45:39 – 51:09
Discipline, religion as practice, and the “social fabric” solution to addiction
- BSBen Shapiro
As long as when people reengage, they're reengaging on a level of commonality, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. But that's a different thing, and this is what we share. You and I are both disciplined people, and it's one of the things I really respect about you. You're a very hard worker. You're always on the ball. You're very disciplined. And I know that a lot of conservative people a- admire that and they admire that in folks, and they think that people who are liberal are not disciplined. They think that they're lazy. It falls into this like weak, beta male sort of category of people that are progressive and liberal. And I think that's, I think that's a misunderstanding. I think you guys... You and I both agree that the struggle is very important. But I'd struggle physically so that I don't have to struggle mentally. I struggle physically so that I can have a, a better way of looking at things with less stress.
- BSBen Shapiro
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
So e- we have this shared belief that things should be a struggle. M- my strug- I force my struggle on myself so that I can have a better perspective, and this is something that you and I differ on. Like, I think you exercise, right?
- BSBen Shapiro
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
How, how often do you do it?
- BSBen Shapiro
I try to every day.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Makes a big deal. It's a big difference.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yeah, it's a huge d- it's a huge-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
... it's a huge deal. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I mean, I think y- we, we both understand that struggle is a... it's an important part of understanding yourself.
- BSBen Shapiro
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you do not push yourself, if you do not struggle, you're not gonna really get who you are, what your boundaries are. And if you're self-indulgent, if every day you're stuffing things in your face that you want to, like it's good to have a rule. Like, "Hey, for this next month, you can't eat this or you can't do that." Or, "I want you to start fasting 16 hours a day." Is it that hard? Just eat for eight hours a day and fast for 16? But no, but that... Just doing something like that and setting these guidelines for yourself and putting yourself into a, uh, a disciplined state could be extremely beneficial. Like Jocko Willink says, "Discipline equals freedom." It is a-
- BSBen Shapiro
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
... great formula and it's real.
- BSBen Shapiro
Well, it's e- and again, it is the basis of a lot of religion. I mean, a lot of religion-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
... is very practice-based. It's one of the reasons I like Judaism as opposed to other religions. It's a very practice-based religion. You know, sometimes you can take that too far in one direction, which is I say you need to balance reason with, with dictates-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
... that are, that are meant to make you better. But that goes all the way back to Aristotle. I mean, Aristotle talks about how you have to practice to be good, right? You have to practice-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
... to be virtuous. What makes you a virtuous person is acting repeatedly in accordance with w- with right reason. And that is setting rules for yourself, right? That is not violating every rule.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
I, I think when, when we talk about on the conservative side, you know, folks on the left being lazy, I, I don't mean that in terms of work. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg is a hard worker, I assume. I think Jack Dorsey, when he's not getting bitten by, by mosquitoes seems like a hard worker.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BSBen Shapiro
But, you know, most, most of the people... Most people who have jobs are hard workers. I don't think it's about that. I think it's a, it's, it's a certain perspective on the necessity of rules-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
... and, and the mindset that if I don't know what a rule is for, I'm going to remove it. So G.K. Chesterton has this, this very famous, uh, kind of contrast that he draws between people who tend to be right wing politically and people who tend to be left wing politically. He says people who tend to be left wing politically, you're walking through a... You're walking through the woods and you come across a fence. You don't know why the fence is there. And you say, "I don't know why this fence is here. I'm removing it." And the person who's right wing walks through the forest and sees the fence and says, "I have no idea why the fence is here. I'm gonna go find out why the fence is here, and then maybe I'll remove it." And that's the, the kind of Burkean conservative attitude toward rules. The, the attitude that-This rule was put here for a reason. Now, maybe the rule sucks. Maybe the rule has to go. But let's try and figure out what was at the root of the rule before we just wipe out all the fences and then try to rebuild from the ground up all these new fences. And that's especially true in a civilization that's the most prosperous and free civilization ever created. I mean, if the system really sucked, that would be one thing. But I think people are kind of ungrateful about the fact that we live in the best possible time, in the best possible place.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, agreed.
- 51:09 – 1:06:52
Welfare, mobility decline, and victimhood narratives vs. personal responsibility
- BSBen Shapiro
So w- but w- one of the statistics that really bothers me is that the level of American mobility has declined rapidly in the United States. So the number of people who are leaving their home states to go somewhere else to work a job, for example, is at decades low. Why? It's easier to get anywhere. Now there's 7 million unfilled jobs. Uh, I keep hearing from, you know, folks who I, you know, personally like, people like Tucker Carlson, uh, that, you know, "You, you grew up in this small town and the town is dying. The industry left. Well, you ha- th- the government somehow owes it to you that you get to grow up in this town and stay in that town even if all the industry left." And I just think to myself, "By whom? Who, who, who gave you this guarantee that you get to stay there?" And I know, listen, I'm, I'm a lucky guy. I grew up in a two-parent household.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
We didn't grow up wealthy, but we were middle-middle class. Like, I grew up in a, a small house in Burbank with two bedrooms and I had three sisters. It was me and my three sisters in, in one bedroom (laughs) and one bathroom for six people. That's not poor. That's middle class. That's a great life. And I understand some people don't have that life. But one thing that is guaranteed to you is the opportunity for adventure in this country. So go and move. Like, why, why are we inculcating a feeling of victimhood in a society where if you make the right decisions, you will do well? I mean, not you might do well. If you make basic, basic right choices, you will finish better than you started in American society. I mean, we're talking like the most basic choices, like finish high school and don't have a baby out of wedlock and get a job. Like, you do those three things and the Brookings Institute says that you will not be in permanent poverty in the United States. Like, that's amazing. That was not true for the vast majority of human history. For the vast majority of human history, you did all of those things, there wasn't high school, but you did all the other things, and then you were, lived like a serf on a farm until you died at age 37 of diphtheria or something. So it's, it's just, uh, uh, the, the lack of optimism in a society where it should be running rampant is, is kind of astonishing to me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's perspective, right? I mean, uh, rich kids grow up with, uh, this perspective of constantly being rich and people grow up with this perspective of, you know, how they view the United States as this negative thing or that they don't know how to change their life, they don't know how to take action because they haven't had anyone around them that's done it, and that's part of the problem with small town mentalities, is that you kind of inherit the vibe of the people that are around you. And if they're ignorant or if they're, they're, uh, shallow minded or if they're, th- they're stuck in this one town and they're never gonna leave and you get caught in that vibe, you can one day wake up and you're 32 and you've never done anything.
- BSBen Shapiro
I mean, this is what J.D. Vance-
- JRJoe Rogan
And you're like, "Fuck."
- BSBen Shapiro
... talks about in Hillbilly Elegy, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
The, the people who are in these small towns and they've basically been told that they have two choices. They can go on welfare or they can leave.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
And it's like, "Okay, fine, I'll go on welfare."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
"You know, everybody around me is, why, why not?" Is, there's nothing morally deficient about going on, on welfare.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
It, it's actually one of the, the bigger problems I have with the welfare state generally is that it disconnects the person receiving the aid from the person giving the aid.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
You want an ... Like, in, in our religious community, to take an example, there, th- there's a time a few years back where a guy came to me, I'd bought some art from him, he's a, uh, an artist, and, uh, really does good work. He came to me and he said, "My family doesn't have enough money to make the m- rent this month. Can you offer me an advance on art that you'll buy somewhere down the road?" And of course I'm like, "Sure." So I sign him a check and he understood that five years later, he came back to me and he said, "You know, you still haven't bought that piece of art. I owe you a piece of art." Because he knew who gave him the money-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, right.
- BSBen Shapiro
... and so he was willing to understand that that was an act of charity and he wanted to make sure that, that that was paid back. You see this in Cinderella Man, right, with Russell Crowe-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BSBen Shapiro
... the, the moment where he f- makes his money, he walks back into the welfare office and he r- rolls out a wad.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? Like, that, that feeling that the government isn't just a giant cash machine that is- exists to pay you money, but that that money actually comes from somewhere, either it's coming from the future because we're gonna have to pay back the debt or it's coming from somebody's tax money, and that we all owe something to each other.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BSBen Shapiro
And, uh, uh, by the same token, the, th- what, what I owe to my neighbors is that if they're in trouble, then it is my obligation as a good person to try and help them out on a personal level.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BSBen Shapiro
Right? And the charity in religious communities is extremely high. That's, that's the social fabric that I'm talking about.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BSBen Shapiro
Without, without that sort of dutiful sense to one another, you can't have rights, because if you just have rights-... then, and, and no duties, then there will be no one to take care of each other. It's why, while I'm libertarian when it comes to government, I'm very conservative when it comes to the need to build a social fabric and communities and, and, and have people with working families and, and communities of working families.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I, I really think that that's one of the best things that comes out of religion, is when you have a tight-knit community like yours and you do have that sense of charity where you really are a community of people that care for each other and look out for each other. The problem is, of course, doing that large scale, and then the problem is doing it in some sort of a non-denominational way, where people, they, they don't have to have the exact same beliefs, but they still share these core values of community and taking care of each other. I mean, that's what people really benefit from. When they've done studies with people, when they show happiness and what is happiness correlated with, it's almost always correlated with friends and loved ones and family.
Episode duration: 2:34:19
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode sCD9zjf_YRU
