Author and cultural commentator Andrew Clavin joins me to talk about what is happening in society today, and what we as men can do about it. We discuss extreme feminism, the male equivalent of the Red Pill, and Meg Tao. Why men like Andrew Tate have come into influence for millions of men, and why the powers that be are getting people to turn against each other.
00:00:00.000Take a quick look around you and you'll easily see the degradation of the family, the undermining of both masculinity and femininity, the perversion of virtue and even things like man and woman, and the dismantling of societal norms that have served the world for good for centuries.
00:00:17.020It's not hard to see that in many ways some of our most influential institutions, government, academia, entertainment, and even medicine are actively working against us.
00:00:26.460My guest today, author and cultural commentator Andrew Clavin joins me to talk about what is happening in society today and what we as men can do about it.
00:00:35.820We discuss extreme feminism and the male equivalent, Red Pill and Meg Tao, the difference between happiness, fulfillment, and joy, and of course which to pursue,
00:00:46.180why men like Andrew Tate have come into influence for millions of men and why that's not a good thing,
00:00:52.220how the powers that be are getting people to turn against each other, and so much more.
00:00:57.160You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
00:01:03.200When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
00:01:07.660You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
00:01:12.700This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
00:01:16.940At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:01:21.900Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am Ryan Mickler.
00:01:28.280My goal is to bring you interesting, educated, smart, successful people on the podcast.
00:01:35.620Guys like Jocko Willink and David Goggins and Tim Kennedy and Tim Tebow and Terry Crews and Ben Shapiro
00:01:42.760and all of the other 510-ish guests that I've had on the podcast at this point.
00:01:49.300And really up to this point, we've done over 1,500 podcasts.
00:01:53.640And I just want to say thank you for tuning in over the past nine and a half years now.
00:01:58.100We're almost at our 10-year anniversary, so very excited about that.
00:02:01.800And I want to welcome you here, whether you've listened to all of them
00:02:04.520or this is your very first podcast listening to the Order of Man podcast today.
00:04:28.640And it's interesting to hear somebody who has a perspective from the other side of the aisle.
00:04:35.380And what I mean by that is, you know, the more liberal left side of the aisle and then to see the differences and see how you've evolved and your thought process has changed.
00:04:45.640It's interesting when you have somebody who's so well-rounded because usually, like myself, I'm not.
00:04:51.380I'm in an echo chamber and I'm pretty set in my ways.
00:04:54.280You know, it is the difference, though, between knowing people and growing up with people and being around people who are on the other side and only seeing them on social media where they're awful.
00:05:06.780You know, people are awful on the Internet.
00:05:09.080But in real life, a lot of times, people you disagree with furiously can be incredibly nice people at the same time.
00:05:16.160And so, yeah, I try to remember that because the people in power stink, but the people who vote for the people in power a lot of times are just voting the way their parents voted or not really paying attention or whatever.
00:05:26.500So they're much nicer than you think they are.
00:06:03.380So, you know, most of us want women to have rights.
00:06:06.480Most of us want people to be treated fairly and all these things.
00:06:09.860But they get infested by leftism and they're no longer doing what they pretend to be doing.
00:06:15.800And that's why they're so infuriating.
00:06:17.620And when you talk to an actual – I always tell this to guys because guys get angry at women because of the women they see on television or on the internet.
00:06:24.300I always say, look at the women around you.
00:06:41.860You know, when you interact with the large majority of the women who you interact with on a daily basis, you know, they're decent, loving, nurturing, kind, supportive, empathetic women.
00:06:53.220And conversely, I would suggest that the majority of men that women interact with, whether it's at work or at home, are strong and bold and capable and assertive and want to be good leaders and all the things that we naturally think of as what it means to be a man.
00:07:09.760And it's very – it is very rare that you run into a long-lasting, happy marriage where the man is not in some sense the head of the family and the woman, you know, is very happy about that and happy to have that support and happy to have that leadership.
00:07:23.520That's almost the way people just fall into relating.
00:07:27.380It's only when they start talking about it that they get uncomfortable, you know, because then they feel, oh, the feminists are watching and I have to say things in a certain way and I can't say things in another way.
00:07:36.940And it's a shame because I think that we should defend that order of family.
00:07:41.140I think that it is the way families are happiest and work best and we shouldn't have to defend it, but we do, you know.
00:07:48.960Yeah, it's interesting because I often reference the word patriarch and for me that has – to me, has a positive connotation.
00:07:57.680He leads his family or his community well.
00:08:00.100He cares about his people, whether that's his family or people in his church congregation or people that he's serving in politics.
00:08:07.780A patriarch is a good thing, but then you start talking about the patriarchy and you just add that Y on the end and all of a sudden, you know, it completely changes the connotation and I think that has to do with words being bastardized and, you know, manipulated to push forward an agenda that in the grand scheme of things does not really serve men or women well.
00:08:34.360Right, because it's not – it really is about the leftism.
00:08:37.360It was – it's – if it were a movement that just said, you know, women should have choices, they should have legal rights, they should have – you know, I think 100 percent of America would support that.
00:08:53.400But still, I think that what they're really after is the destruction of the family, the movement of women out of the home into the workplace, the changing of women into naturally, you know, nurturing and homemaking people into economic entities, which is, you know, one of the things that Marx and Engels both talked about being very important.
00:09:16.340We have to destroy this bourgeois home that keeps the, you know, values of the bourgeois in place.
00:09:25.760The problem is, is that when you talk about feminism, you use that word, what you're really talking about is this attack on the home and the family and only giving women credit when they do things like men.
00:09:37.080And the only time – you know, you always have to hear, oh, a woman is strong.
00:09:41.100And I always think, you know, if I wanted to marry somebody strong, I'd have married a guy.
00:09:45.100You know, I married a woman because I wanted something entirely different in my life.
00:09:50.160And that has, you know, been incredibly – an incredible gift in my life.
00:09:54.380And I just think that we don't – if we don't honor that, if we don't honor what women actually are good at and actually do, we're not honoring women at all.
00:10:02.700We're just basically letting the left sort of dictate how to end this family that gets in their way of taking over everything, basically.
00:10:11.140The term strength is interesting because, you know, when we look at the traditional definition of it, it represents, you know, physical strength, endurance, the ability to move objects, you know, not let anything get in its way.
00:10:28.560And certainly that's one way we can look at it.
00:10:30.680But there's also another side, and that is the strengths that a person has.
00:10:35.580So I think in a lot of ways a woman can be strong not by being – having a physical prowess necessarily or the ability to dominate in the boardroom.
00:10:45.920But a woman's strength is in raising children, turning her house into a home, supporting her husband on a virtuous path.
00:10:58.300Like those are also strengths that we should celebrate in honor in women.
00:11:02.480Yeah, and if you've ever seen a woman in labor, as I have twice, you know, you don't doubt their strength and endurance and all of this.
00:11:10.300But I do think – look, it's watching TV and seeing these five-foot-nothing women take down men or chase, you know, women cops in television shows, chase perpetrators who are men and catch up to them, which isn't going to happen.
00:11:50.220I mean, it went on for months, these people attacking me, challenging me to a duel, and I just thought, like, no, you don't understand.
00:11:56.740You wouldn't be fighting, like, an aged scribe.
00:11:59.860You'd be fighting another warrior your age, and you would just be sliced away – you know, you'd vanish before him into smoke.
00:12:06.820And, you know, I just hate the fact that they sell that to young girls who now actually do believe that if they went to a kickboxing class, they're in a position to defend themselves from the attack of a man.
00:12:19.580And as, you know, somebody who studied martial arts for a long time, a good martial arts teacher will tell a woman, if you can hit somebody and run, that's what you do.
00:12:27.240Because over time, no matter how well-trained you are, you are going to be – succumbed to bigger strengths.
00:12:32.420So is a man going to succumb to someone who's twice his size and, you know, has all that weight on him.
00:12:36.840And I just think that it's just awful.
00:12:39.320It is awful what we have done to women and made them feel degraded for being who they are.
00:12:43.920And I think it's a sin, you know, that this essential part of human life, which is the other half of the human race, should be thought only to be worthwhile if they act like men.
00:13:42.280You know, I've trained with women, and it's interesting, the difference between – I've trained with brown and black belt women, and it's different when a black belt female grabs your wrist compared to a white belt who's a man grabs your wrist.
00:14:19.220And, you know, it's not where we're supposed to be – we're not supposed to be competing at that, and we should show each other respect for the things that we're good at and the strengths that we bring to the table.
00:14:29.060And the whole point of that feminism, which is, you know, let's call it leftist feminism, is to put a wedge between us, is to create enmity between us.
00:14:38.460And it works especially on men who don't get out enough, who think that what they see on television is what is out there in real life, who feel bullied by the HR department or whatever.
00:14:49.260I get these letters all the time, and, you know, these people, you know, sort of shaking their fists in women in general or taking on, you know, looking at influencers who basically recommend abusing women as a show of strength, which infuriates me.
00:15:05.120And I say, you know, stop looking at these people on the screen and go out and look at real people and see if they match up to those people on the screen because 100 times out of 101 times, they simply don't.
00:15:17.100And most women are looking for the sort of thing that you have to offer and you shouldn't feel put upon just because some, you know, idiot HR in the HR is telling you you're a bad guy, you know.
00:15:29.480Yeah, I think, you know, it is interesting because we have, you know, based on my work, I often talk about the dangers of this extreme feminism or femininity and moving more and more aggressively, not towards equal rights, but towards being against men.
00:16:08.940I think forming a marriage and forming a family is one of the great, not only one of the great joys of life, it is life.
00:16:15.340You know, when you have, I was talking to a guy yesterday and just saying when you have a child, you stop living in two dimensions and you start living in three dimensions, you actually are alive.
00:16:23.160And they always take these polls where they say parents are less happy than people who aren't parents.
00:16:42.140And that is what life is, and it's at the core of life.
00:16:44.620This relationship between a man and a woman, I think, is at the core of life.
00:16:48.120And it's just absolutely toxic for a society for people not to recognize that and realize, obviously, there are differences and tensions and all that stuff.
00:17:38.340We can fight them on an individual level.
00:17:40.880We simply have to just not accept what they're telling us as true and act as if it weren't true instead of falling.
00:17:46.340You know, those movements that you're talking about, those red pill movements that I was actually referring to before with these influencers, you know, you're right.
00:17:56.900What they are is they are the guys who fell for the push.
00:18:00.800You know, they fell for this line that has been sold to them that somehow the women are out there calculating against them.
00:18:06.920And it's like, you know, get out of your basement and actually meet actual human beings and see if, you know, how they measure up to this theory that you have because theories don't mean anything if they don't describe real life.
00:18:18.320Well, they get really mad when you tell them they're the male version of feminism.
00:19:06.900There's so many fantastic male role models in this culture.
00:19:12.380So many people who fight and defend us, you know, patrol the streets and not just like, you know, physical people, but intellectuals and thinkers and speakers and people who act courageously in a moral way.
00:19:25.420There's so many people out there to turn to like a guy like this who's basically just a criminal and a, you know, a hateful guy and say, yeah, that's what masculine.
00:19:33.500That's just a sign of weakness inside yourself and fear.
00:19:36.200That kind of anger against women is actually fear of women, you know, masking itself as some kind of rage, basically.
00:19:43.580And it's, it's so, it's so unhealthy and especially because I know that deep down in every one of those guys' hearts, they want somebody who is feminine to be in part of their life and bring that aspect into life, which is just, you know, you're not really a whole person.
00:19:59.480I feel when you're alone, we're meant to be together, you know, look, I'm going to say something.
00:20:05.460I mean, I'm, I'm not, not, um, unaccustomed to saying something that's controversial, but when I was a kid, you know, you started dating, dating a girl and all your buddies would call you, they, they would say you're P-dub, pussy whooped.
00:20:17.220Right. And that's what they would say. And that's the term I used. And what that meant is that you're infatuated with a woman. Now, granted with your buddies, it's the same concept of bros before hoes, right? We've all heard the terms, but essentially what it's saying is that when a man finds a woman that he's infatuated or interested, that's not a bad thing.
00:20:38.340The way that you maybe approach it, um, the way that maybe you reject other important aspects of your life could be worked on and improved upon, but to be infatuated with a woman and interested with this opposite sex who can add so much value and enhancement to your life, I don't consider a negative thing.
00:20:58.800We thought that when we were boys, but as mature men, we don't say pussy whipped and we don't say bros before hoes because we realize, oh, there's a valuable component of having a woman in my life.
00:21:10.000Yeah. It's the adult version of cooties, you know, it's right, right. Yeah, exactly.
00:21:14.660You know, don't go near the girls who get cooties and then you get like your pussy whipped and it's, it's really the same thing. I mean, look, there, there does come a time and I get, you know, I get some of it. Like I, I understand, uh, you know, when a guy and a girl are pushing a baby
00:21:28.540carriage down the street, that that's not the adventurous, you're not James Bond anymore. You're actually on a new adventure. And you know, a Navy SEAL one said to me, I asked him if he was sorry not to be a Navy SEAL anymore. He said, that's like asking me if I'm sorry not to be single anymore.
00:21:42.500There's a time in your life to be single. And then there's a time in your life when you move on. And sure, there are aspects of being single that you miss, but it's a new time of your life. And I think that that is really something that, you know, you really have to sort of get used to and understand.
00:21:56.300And is there humor to it? Of course there is, but like, you know, there should be humor to everything, but it's, it's still the core of life and what brings things to life. And once you have children, you suddenly understand life in an entirely different way.
00:22:09.860Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that. You've got two, I've two, is that right? Two kids? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've got four of my own. They'll be here in two hours. So, you know, it's a life changes, you know, on the micro when they get here in two hours.
00:22:22.680Why do you think though, that men turn to figures like Tate and others who are so contentious and so much animosity towards the opposite sex that they're completely objectified and villainized and repulsed by, and yet Andrew Tate is not completely repulsed by women.
00:22:43.500So let's be clear on that too. Yeah. But why do, why do our young men turn to that? Do you think?
00:22:48.340Well, I think it's pretty simple. We, you know, there, there's a sector of society that maybe represents between 10 and 20% of society that was, they once called it the clerisy. There was a poet who called it the clerisy.
00:23:00.660And what they are is the talkers and thinkers and influencers who basically permeate the atmosphere with their opinions. So we know who they are. They're the Hollywood people.
00:23:10.600They're the TV people. They're the people who come on your news screen. You know, that we, we, in some sense, just doing this are part of them, but we're sort of outliers because we're taking a different point of view.
00:23:21.620And I think that our clerisy has been so monopolized by the left and by the philosophies and theories of the left, that if you're a young man growing up, you are going to hear that you are toxic, that it's bad that you're masculine.
00:23:36.480You know, there was just an article two days ago, I think in the New York times saying, we've got to get past, there's no such thing as good masculinity.
00:23:42.720We've got to get past this idea of good masculinity and toxic masculinity because there is no, and I just thought, yeah, that's, that's a great thing for your son to be reading.
00:23:49.800And if that is being just shouted at you, every time you turn on a television set, every time you play a video game, you can even be pushed into video games, which are a favorite occupation of young men, you know, and it keeps coming at you.
00:24:03.980You begin to think that that is the world. You begin to think that this is the culture that you're living in.
00:24:09.800And the reason I emphasize that you should look around you and sort of get out of your basement and sort of turn off your screens is because it takes that power away.
00:24:18.480You know, a while back I was under some kind of, you know, I was getting attacked on social media for a while and my wife and I went on a hiking tour in Germany and I just thought, I'm turning my phone off.
00:24:29.480I'm done. You know, I'm telling my friends, you know, you can't reach me for 10 days.
00:24:33.460We're going hiking. You know, all we're going to be doing is walking through the black forest. It'll be beautiful.
00:24:37.420I just turned off my, my phone and it all went away. It disappeared.
00:24:42.560It was like they didn't, they actually stopped existing in my life because I stopped listening to them.
00:24:48.620And if you don't do that, and if you spend all your time listening to these people, just think of how angry you're going to be because everybody is just saying, it's just one pretty blonde woman on the TV screen after another telling you, you stink, you're toxic.
00:25:03.040You need, the patriarchy needs to end. I think the patriarchy should be built back up.
00:25:07.120I'm with you on this. I mean, I think patriarchy was, it's a great thing and it works, you know, I, but I think that like, if you're just hearing that again and again, you feel under threat.
00:25:16.380And if your teacher is saying it, and if your HR, you know, person is saying it and making you feel bad, if you flirt with a girl at work or something like this, or making you feel that you're in danger, after a while, you're just going to feel persecuted.
00:25:29.100And the question of whether you're really persecuted or not is in some way up to you.
00:25:35.200If you are willing to stand up and say, you know, what I did as a kid, I, you know, because feminism had its first uprising in the eighties, this kind of toxic feminism had its first uprising in the eighties.
00:25:46.300And I just thought, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing it. I'm not going to be against it. I'm not going to be for it. I'm not letting into my life.
00:25:51.940I am a gentleman. I'm going to open doors for women. I'm going to stand up when they leave the table and I'm going to treat women like ladies.
00:25:58.400And hopefully that will make them want to act like ladies. And if it doesn't, I'm out. I'm just not going to talk to those people, you know, and that was the way I lived.
00:26:05.940And it worked out great for me. I got a great wife. I got a great life, you know, but I had to ignore what was coming into out of the TV set.
00:26:12.860Yeah, that's true. And also it doesn't matter, you know, whether she responds or not, because we as men do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, regardless of the response.
00:26:22.700You know, I was running into our local convenience store here the other day and I was walking up and I saw this woman walking up to the door about the same time from the opposite direction.
00:26:32.460And, you know, she was she had dyed blue hair and she had piercings all over and tattoos.
00:26:38.740And I'm like, well, I'm going to open the door for this woman, of course, because that's what men do. Right.
00:26:43.140And immediately I'm like, I wonder how she's going to respond.
00:26:46.780You know, is she going to be like, I can open the door myself or is she going to like not acknowledge me or try to open herself?
00:26:52.060I wondered because she's the blue haired hippie that, you know, we all kind of think of.
00:26:57.620And I opened the door and she looked at me and she said, thank you very much.
00:27:00.700I appreciate that. I said, you're welcome.
00:27:02.800And that was the extent of our interaction, because.
00:27:07.360Like, we're we're not we're not at odds with each other as much as media and these.
00:27:12.820What did you call it? The clerisy would have us believe.
00:27:16.320Yeah, we're really not at odds with each other the way they want us to believe we are.
00:28:57.560And it doesn't matter which. That's the other thing.
00:28:59.140But it is interesting, though, you know, you'll see a woman who's like, well, you know, don't pay attention to me and don't don't hit on me and don't treat me different.
00:29:07.600And then you'll go to the gym and, you know, she's got her boobs hanging out and she's got her ass like in the skimpiest shorts you can possibly find.
00:29:23.200I saw a an article the other day that did a study study and they were confused about why men were attracted to attractive women on the right.
00:29:35.220You know, the the beautiful the the the quintessential beautiful Fox anchor, for example.
00:29:40.160Right. And they were confused why men were so attracted to that.
00:29:43.320I think I think a lot of these guys are confused about this.
00:29:48.040I think I think they're deeply, deeply confused on their own.
00:29:51.280But but again, you know, it's like you don't you don't have to find women to love in the end.
00:29:57.420You only have to find a woman to love.
00:29:58.780And I think that it's just it's just not it's just not you know, if you if you read, for instance, the New York Times, I have to read this for my podcast every day.
00:30:10.180It's just it's unbelievable the nonsense that they put out.
00:30:13.640But one thing is at least three times a week, somebody writes a column targeted at destroying marriage.
00:30:20.120And it's either, you know, what would be fun?
00:30:22.500A thruple, you know, that would why don't you introduce this into your marriage, you know, or or, you know, how how wonderful it is to belong to a sex club where people whip each other or whatever, you know, whatever.
00:30:33.300And it's just like they're trying so hard to destroy this thing because they know I think they know in the end they're going to fail.
00:30:39.440In the end, the men and women like each other.
00:31:01.120But I also think it's also on just a micro level.
00:31:05.040I saw an Instagram account the other day where a woman is trying to normalize having an affair and making it this this beautiful love story about stepping out on your husband.
00:31:15.260And I don't think she has some nefarious plot to overturn marriage or the government or the way that we think about it.
00:31:22.320I think what she's trying to do is justify and rationalize something that morally she feels a little out of place to put it mildly with.
00:31:48.000And your defense gets kind of hysterical.
00:31:50.500So if you have an entire culture telling you that marriage is slavery, that, you know, affairs are great, and then you go out and have an affair.
00:31:57.300Now you're stuck because now you've cheated on the only person you promised not to cheat on.
00:32:01.060And now you've got to start to defend what you've done and sort of make yourself feel better about it.
00:32:08.680When we feel bad, we try and get other people.
00:32:10.640You know, if you've ever if you've ever known any alcohol.
00:32:12.380I'm a writer, so almost everybody I know is an alcoholic.
00:32:14.840You know, when you start to say, yeah, you know, I'm not going over, you know, two drinks or whatever, they'll stop associating with you.
00:32:21.320They will stop because they want to be around people who are just as unhappy as they are.
00:32:26.360And I think that this is, you know, it's a very powerful part of our culture is that the culture teaches people to do the wrong thing.
00:32:34.060Then once they've done it, you know, they feel guilty and they keep going down that road rather than turning around saying, oh, I made a mistake.
00:32:40.380And now I have to sort of repent and become somebody different than I was.
00:32:45.180I mean, in a lot of ways, it's the reason why I would respect a woman who would say, you know, I had an affair 10 or 15 years ago and it was one of the worst decisions of my life.
00:32:56.680And I regret it. And I wish I never would have made that decision.
00:33:00.400And now I'm on a crusade or a mission to help other women in the same situation, make a better choice.
00:33:05.260The same way I would respect a man who says, hey, you know what?
00:33:09.740I stepped out on my wife, but that was a horrible decision.
00:33:14.560And here's what I learned from it. And here's why you shouldn't do it.
00:33:17.340And relating to alcohol abuse, anybody who's listened to this podcast knows that I've struggled in the past with alcohol abuse.
00:33:25.860And and I've have a lot of people who say, oh, I can't believe.
00:33:28.500But other people are like, thank you. Thank you for being honest.
00:33:31.840You know, I respect a man who acknowledges his shortcomings and deals with it rather than the guy who hides and pretends that it doesn't exist or tries to justify or rationalize his behavior.
00:33:41.960There's there's nobody who does not have something like this in their life, you know, a terrible mistake they've made, a terrible habit they have, a thing that they've had to fight with, wrestle with their whole life.
00:33:52.120You know, we all have them. And it's like if you pretend you don't, you're doing a double disservice.
00:33:57.740I mean, first of all, you're lying, which always reduces you.
00:34:00.120And second of all, you're leaving other people out there to think like, wow, he's you know, he's so much higher than me.
00:34:05.600I can't achieve what he is doing. I can't become what he is.
00:34:08.780And you're saying, no, you actually can, because, you know, it takes the kind of work that goes into breaking these habits and repenting of these things that we have done that are bad, you know.
00:34:18.340And like I said, we've all done them. We've all got them.
00:34:20.760Everybody everybody has something they wake up at three o'clock in the morning about and sweat over.
00:34:29.000Man, I'm going to take a step away from the conversation very briefly.
00:34:31.980One of the questions I get asked most often over the past nine and a half years is where can I go to find other good men on the same path as me?
00:34:42.400It's a really good question and one that I think every man should ask himself.
00:35:05.380But that's why putting yourself in proximity to the type of men you want to be like is so crucial.
00:35:10.360And that's why going to events and experiences is so critical.
00:35:14.360And it's also why in the spring of 2025, I've decided to partner with three other men that you're likely familiar with and bring you a men's event like no other.
00:35:23.700We're banding together, myself, Larry Hagner with the Dad Edge, Connor Beaton with Man Talks, and Matt Boudreau with Apogee Strong.
00:35:30.960It's called The Forge, a gathering of men.
00:35:33.320And when you sign up, you're going to be joining hundreds of other men who are all dedicated to improving themselves the same way you are.
00:35:40.200It's May 1st through the 5th, and we only have 200 spots available.
00:35:45.220I think we've already secured 20% to 30% of those spots.
00:35:49.820So they are going very, very quickly, act fast.
00:35:53.000It's in just outside of St. Louis on May 1st through the 5th, 2025.
00:36:16.840I mean, I don't know what it would be like to not have made mistakes, you know.
00:36:20.520In a lot of ways, it would be pretty nice, but also there are those people who are like, you know, they go to work and they show up and they do the bare minimum and you're like, and they don't do anything more.
00:37:22.280No, it was interesting when you were talking earlier about happiness, and I think this is what it comes down to, is just people who are happy or content.
00:37:28.360And I can't help but think, man, that's not the aim of life.
00:37:31.680You know, some of the most pivotal and instrumental parts of my life are when I've been unhappy.
00:37:36.480On a micro level, I was thinking about this last weekend.
00:37:39.060I was on a hike with the woman I'm dating, and she loves to hike, and she's got me involved in going on more hikes together.
00:37:45.980And, you know, we're doing this nine-mile loop, and I'm miserable, and it's hot, and I'm going up this hill, and she's miserable, and she's hot.
00:37:55.320But I will suggest that both of us are a lot more fulfilled by doing that than we would have been before.
00:38:02.560So I think the metric, at least for me, is fulfillment over happiness because happiness is fleeting, and I can be fulfilled in misery.
00:38:11.400A lot like Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, a lot of fulfillment in some of the most dire, horrible, horrific circumstances a person could find themselves in.
00:38:21.780Absolutely. You know, they have that expression, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
00:38:26.660And I always say, like, a corollary of that expression is everybody wants wisdom, but no one wants to suffer.
00:38:31.580And actually, it's unfortunately suffering is the source of wisdom.
00:38:35.600And even more than that, what I look for in life is what the poets used to call gusto.
00:38:41.080You know, I call it joy, but it's the same thing.
00:38:44.080Joy is not like, you know, walking around with a smiley face all the time.
00:38:47.780You'd be insane if you did that, if you can't suffer, if you can't weep over the things that – or just feel anxious about things that frighten you as we all have things that frighten us.
00:38:56.640You know, it's like all of those things are part of life, but above and beyond that, I think there is a vitality to life, a fact that you just want to be alive through the suffering and through the joy and through the happiness and all that stuff, that it's all part of life.
00:39:11.140What I always compare it to is you go to a movie, and somebody in the movie dies, and you sob, you know, you knuckle away a tear, and you think, oh, that's really sad.
00:39:20.280And you come out, and somebody says, how was the movie?
00:39:26.500I try to live that, like, yes, even the suffering is part of life, and here you are, and what a gift that you're here, you know, under the sun.
00:39:33.620And I actually think of that in times of grief or suffering or struggle, that, yeah, this is the day.
00:39:44.540You know, it makes it fuller and richer, which is why I say when you're a parent and people say you won't be as happy, I think you will be more alive.
00:40:18.280And if you are, is it the eternal perspective that gives you a different insight into the suffering that you might experience throughout your life?
00:40:42.420And it really was such a transformative experience that at some point I sort of turned to God and said, you know, how can I repay you for what you've done to my life?
00:40:52.740You've changed my life into this incredibly beautiful thing.
00:40:57.340And the response I got was, you should be baptized.
00:42:38.000It's like every single thing, which is why I think in Christianity, you have the bread and the wine, you know, and this is the body and blood.
00:43:13.200And suddenly I'll think, like, everything is suddenly going wrong.
00:43:16.180When I was learning to fly a plane many years ago, I got a pilot's license, and I had this wonderful female teacher who said, whenever I teach men, they always clutch the wheel because they're trying to hold the plane up in the sky.
00:43:29.420And she said, just let it fly, you know.
00:43:31.660And I remember that all the time, you know, like, let God, you know, if God is your co-pilot, you're sitting in the wrong seat.
00:43:38.020Let God fly the plane, and everything else just works out great, you know.
00:43:41.640So it really, yes, the short answer to your short question is yes.
00:43:48.900What is the relationship like between you as a previously self-described secular Jew versus somebody like Ben Shapiro, who's a deeply spiritual and religious Jew?
00:44:01.340What is that dynamic like between you two?
00:44:04.060You know, first of all, Ben has been absolutely great.
00:44:07.200You know, the funny thing about Ben is he comes across, he's got that funny, fast way of talking, and he's snide.
00:44:12.060You know, I've got to say, I've got to interject just one thing.
00:44:17.680I had Ben Shapiro on the podcast, and, you know, he got on the screen like this, and I said, hi, Ben, thanks for joining me on the podcast.
00:44:27.340And I was like, that is classic Ben Shapiro.
00:44:30.900I expected nothing different from you.
00:44:33.100And it was just, I will always remember that introduction.
00:44:36.520Anyways, continue, but it was hilarious to me.
00:44:39.440So it gives this impression, and he likes to give this impression, he has fun doing it, of this kind of hard, you know, character who doesn't really care about anybody else.
00:44:50.540And one of the most lovely things about him is here, you know, for Jews who have suffered from a lot of anti-Semitism from Christians, not in America, because American Christians have been lovely, but in Europe before that for a thousand years they were suffering a lot of it.
00:45:07.720There is sometimes this kind of hostility, and especially when a Jew converts, you get hostility from Jewish people who say, like, you know, you've abandoned the team and you've abandoned the tribe.
00:45:19.440He has read my books about Christianity.
00:45:21.740I wrote a memoir of my conversion called The Great Good Thing, and he read that and really liked it and called me up and we chatted about it.
00:45:29.680I wrote a book about poetry called The Truth and Beauty, which is about the way that poetry has changed the way I read the Gospels.
00:47:07.340We spent the first half of this conversation talking a lot about the dichotomies between men and women and where we complement each other and where we get at each other.
00:47:16.860It's interesting to me that, you know, you wrote this fictional work and you have, and this is part of the series, A Woman Underground.
00:47:22.240You've made, for lack of a better term or the way I understand it, the co-protagonist, a woman in the actual series and a man who's very interested in pursuing and finding out and exploring more about who this woman is.
00:47:37.780Why did you decide to do that in the wake of the previous conversation that we had?
00:47:42.560Well, I think one of the things that I think I've explored early in my career, I would write a lot about fathers and sons.
00:47:49.100And at some point I started to think, you know, they're really the effect that mothers have on boys is really important, too.
00:47:55.120And so the Cameron Winter, who is the lead character in this, is a guy who really was kind of neglected by his mother.
00:48:01.900And he is a guy who has also been lived a kind of violent life and has come to a point where he thinks he's he's not worthy of of love, you know.
00:48:12.520And so he's kind of stuck in his own past.
00:48:40.060And in this book, in A Woman Underground, this this girl who has been the kind of idol of his life, a girl that he fell in love with as a child.
00:48:50.440And they sort of he grew up in love with her and then she went on a bad path and he lost her.
00:48:56.580She comes back into his life and he realizes she's in trouble and he's got to find her before the guy who's searching for the bad guy who's searching for finds her.
00:49:05.480And it's this confrontation with this image of a woman inside himself as opposed to the real fact of the woman outside himself and kind of having to reconcile that in very painful ways.
00:49:18.100And it's kind of the turning point in his in his life.
00:49:22.700So it's a very important part of this of this story I'm telling about Cameron Winter.
00:49:27.540It's a point when he kind of confronts his past and really has to get past his past in order to go into the future and live the life that he has been looking for all this time.
00:49:37.720And, you know, I'm really proud of this book, particularly because it solved the problem that I've been working on a long time, which is I don't want my books to be political in the sense that they.
00:49:48.100Reach out and grab the reader and say, this is what you should believe.
00:49:51.640And these are the good guys and these are the bad guys.
00:49:54.760I think a bad storytelling, as I said, we said at the beginning, I feel that there are good people on both sides.
00:50:00.020And I want to show their them in their the fullness of their life.
00:50:03.580But I don't know how you write about America today without writing about politics, because this is a highly, highly politicized moment.
00:50:10.680And so he is looking for this woman and he's looking for her through a an America that's going through a period of civic violence.
00:50:20.040And so there are people on the far right and people on the far left fighting each other.
00:50:23.540And he's a guy who's kind of understands that far left and far right are both bad news.
00:50:28.160And he's looking for that American thing that we really love and cherish, which is freedom.
00:50:32.620You know, that thing, that individual thing.
00:50:34.160So to plunge a man into that world where the both sides are fighting with each other and there's danger coming from both sides, I really felt I solved the problem of how to write a novel about a politicized America without making it a political novel, without saying without preaching to people or trying to explain my point of view, which is not about at all.
00:50:52.180It's just about this story of America as it is today, which is in a painful state.
00:50:56.860You know, I mean, I definitely can see that, you know.
00:51:00.580But to be frank, you know, I could say right now that the sky is blue and that would be politicized.
00:51:05.740So really, is it us that is politicizing it or is it just the powers that be to put us put ourselves against each other?
00:51:11.820But the other part of the story that I like and I think is important is I think it's this reconciliation between a healthy pursuit of a woman, which is in this case, maybe a little bit of the mother wound, right?
00:51:24.840A healthy pursuit of a woman versus an unhealthy pursuit.
00:51:29.160You know, I know we're looking at it through the world of fiction, but if fiction doesn't resonate in the real world with real readers, it's not real compelling.
00:51:37.640Yeah, and I personally think that fiction is the only way to deal with these things because they're things almost beyond language.
00:51:45.160You know, how do you get rid of that thing that you're, you know, sometimes you're looking for a woman to heal you instead of a woman to love, you know.
00:51:53.060And love can be very healing, but you're not looking to marry your mother.
00:51:57.060You're not looking to, you know, just be a poor thing that this girl takes care of.
00:52:01.160You know, you're looking to actually form a new family and form a new relationship and actually have an active interchange with someone of the opposite sex, which can be complex and difficult.
00:52:11.160And so you have to grow up to do that.
00:52:13.920And Cameron Winter is a man who, for all his competence as a tough guy, there's a part of him that hasn't grown up.
00:52:21.480And you're absolutely right about this, that he has to sort of get past what has been weighing him down, this kind of unhealthy obsession with this lost female, so that he can go on and actually find the kind of female who he can build a life with.
00:52:37.100And I don't think, you know, you can talk about that in nonfiction.
00:52:40.300You can give advice and you can sort of, you know, talk about psychology.
00:52:43.740But I think you have to really go through it and experience it.
00:52:46.280And the only way you can do that is in fiction, is in storytelling, stories actually lead you through these things so that you have a kind of wisdom at the end that you didn't have before and you don't even know where it came from.
00:52:57.480I mean, I can't count the number of novels that I've read where I closed it and I thought I'm different now, but I don't know how.
00:53:04.300I couldn't say how I'm different, but the story has changed me.
00:53:07.180And that's the kind of story I'm hoping to deliver in these books because they are very intimate, even though they're action books, even though they're mystery books.
00:53:13.700They're very intimate books, a book about a guy's soul kind of trying to reclaim his soul after a period when he feels he lost it.
00:53:22.140I've found a new sense of appreciation for fiction that I didn't have previously.
00:53:28.240I would say over the past, you know, two, three, four years where it was all self-development, self-help, nonfiction.
00:53:35.540I actually think it's the same thing with comedy.
00:53:37.620You know, we, we can give fiction writers, whether it's, uh, you know, Harry Potter or something like yours with the Cameron Winter series, uh, the same sort of leeway that we would give somebody like Matt Reif who does a skit, uh, or a performance that is overtly racist.
00:53:57.780Or sexist or fill in the blank with ist.
00:54:00.520And yet we give them a pass because it allows us to see things in a way that the average person is not allowed to communicate in today's society.
00:54:12.280You know, Stephen King had a great line about this.
00:54:14.160He said, we all have mad dogs inside us.
00:54:16.780And what I do is I take them for a walk.
00:54:18.560And I think that, I think that that's right.
00:54:20.800You know, in fiction, you can explore things that you're not allowed to explore in life, you know, and this, and you're right about comedy is, is a form of fiction.
00:54:27.760Actually, comedy is a form of storytelling and it, it lets you, you know, bring, bring these things out, either laugh at them or experience them or go through them and sort of find a path to the other side of them.
00:54:40.480And it's, it's a beautiful thing because otherwise, if we're, you know, I mean, look, when you're friends with somebody, what do you do?
00:54:47.060You tease them constantly, you know, you make fun of them constantly.
00:54:49.520You're constantly, you know, uh, joking around with them.