Order of Man - ANDREW KLAVAN ｜ In a Degenerate Culture, Create Your Own

00:00:00.000 Take 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.

00:00:17.020 It'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.

00:00:26.460 My 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.

00:00:35.820 We 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,

00:00:46.180 why men like Andrew Tate have come into influence for millions of men and why that's not a good thing,

00:00:52.220 how the powers that be are getting people to turn against each other, and so much more.

00:00:57.160 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.

00:01:03.200 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:01:07.660 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:01:12.700 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:01:16.940 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:21.900 Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am Ryan Mickler.

00:01:28.280 My goal is to bring you interesting, educated, smart, successful people on the podcast.

00:01:35.620 Guys like Jocko Willink and David Goggins and Tim Kennedy and Tim Tebow and Terry Crews and Ben Shapiro

00:01:42.760 and all of the other 510-ish guests that I've had on the podcast at this point.

00:01:49.300 And really up to this point, we've done over 1,500 podcasts.

00:01:53.640 And I just want to say thank you for tuning in over the past nine and a half years now.

00:01:58.100 We're almost at our 10-year anniversary, so very excited about that.

00:02:01.800 And I want to welcome you here, whether you've listened to all of them

00:02:04.520 or this is your very first podcast listening to the Order of Man podcast today.

00:02:08.460 I've got a good one lined up for you.

00:02:09.860 Before I get into that, I just want to mention my good friends

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00:02:38.380 That is not an invitation to just reach out and take all my knives.

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00:03:19.580 All right, guys, my guest today is fellow podcaster, novelist

00:03:23.320 and political and cultural commentator.

00:03:25.280 His name is Andrew Clavin.

00:03:27.520 Andrew is the author of True Crime, which was filmed by Clint Eastwood

00:03:30.940 and also Don't Say a Word, which was filmed and starred in by Michael Douglas,

00:03:35.520 among many more, including his newest book, A Woman Underground.

00:03:40.240 Andrew is also the host of The Andrew Clavin Show, hosted by The Daily Wire,

00:03:44.900 where he shares his insights into what makes the world tick today.

00:03:48.500 His essays and op-eds on politics and religion, movies and literature.

00:03:54.220 They've appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post,

00:03:58.880 The LA Times and so many other places.

00:04:01.620 Guys, you're really going to enjoy this conversation with Andrew today.

00:04:06.500 Andrew, so good to see you again.

00:04:08.200 Thanks for joining me back on the podcast.

00:04:09.720 It's nice of you to have me back.

00:04:12.260 Thank you very much.

00:04:13.620 I thought you were going to say it's nice of you to be back.

00:04:16.440 It is kind of nice of you, now that I think about it.

00:04:18.800 Now that I think about it, it's kind of nice of me as well.

00:04:22.380 If there's anybody who would appreciate that, it's you.

00:04:24.540 I love your sense of humor.

00:04:25.900 I love your wit.

00:04:27.020 I listen to your podcast.

00:04:28.640 And it's interesting to hear somebody who has a perspective from the other side of the aisle.

00:04:35.380 And 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.

00:04:45.640 It's interesting when you have somebody who's so well-rounded because usually, like myself, I'm not.

00:04:50.220 I know I'm not.

00:04:51.380 I'm in an echo chamber and I'm pretty set in my ways.

00:04:54.280 You 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.

00:05:06.780 You know, people are awful on the Internet.

00:05:09.080 But in real life, a lot of times, people you disagree with furiously can be incredibly nice people at the same time.

00:05:16.160 And 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.

00:05:26.500 So they're much nicer than you think they are.

00:05:29.220 I think that's fair.

00:05:30.360 I had a woman on the podcast not too long ago. 0.98

00:05:33.460 Her name is Kelsey.

00:05:34.620 And we had vehemently disagreed on some issues, primarily feminism and the term vulnerability.

00:05:42.200 But we've been friends, but we disagreed on that.

00:05:44.620 I invited her on the podcast thinking we'd have this powerful intellectual debate.

00:05:49.080 And it turns out we were very much aligned when we had some nuance to the conversation.

00:05:54.120 Yeah, that's interesting.

00:05:55.120 That is interesting.

00:05:55.960 And this thing with, like, feminism and all these things is they're controlled by the left, basically. 1.00

00:06:01.500 They're not what they say they are.

00:06:03.380 So, you know, most of us want women to have rights. 1.00

00:06:06.480 Most of us want people to be treated fairly and all these things.

00:06:09.860 But they get infested by leftism and they're no longer doing what they pretend to be doing.

00:06:15.800 And that's why they're so infuriating.

00:06:17.620 And 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.

00:06:24.300 I always say, look at the women around you. 1.00

00:06:25.760 Are they as bad as that?

00:06:27.640 Because most of the time, not at all, you know.

00:06:30.060 Yeah.

00:06:30.620 Well, it's the same between all of – both of the – I was going to say all.

00:06:33.860 Not all.

00:06:34.460 Both.

00:06:34.960 Both of the sexes. 0.98

00:06:35.920 Let me make sure I use the right verbiage there.

00:06:37.400 Yeah, really.

00:06:40.540 No, you're right.

00:06:41.860 You 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.

00:06:53.220 And 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.

00:07:08.940 Right.

00:07:09.380 Right.

00:07:09.760 And 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.

00:07:23.520 That's almost the way people just fall into relating.

00:07:27.380 It'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. 0.99

00:07:36.940 And it's a shame because I think that we should defend that order of family.

00:07:41.140 I 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.

00:07:48.960 Yeah, it's interesting because I often reference the word patriarch and for me that has – to me, has a positive connotation.

00:07:56.360 Yeah.

00:07:56.440 That's a man who steps up.

00:07:57.680 He leads his family or his community well.

00:08:00.100 He cares about his people, whether that's his family or people in his church congregation or people that he's serving in politics.

00:08:07.780 A 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.

00:08:34.360 Right, because it's not – it really is about the leftism.

00:08:37.360 It 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.

00:08:46.720 But what they really want –

00:08:47.420 We better say 99.7.

00:08:49.280 I was just about to correct myself.

00:08:50.760 Close enough.

00:08:50.880 Yes, I think – I agree.

00:08:53.400 But 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. 0.84

00:09:16.340 We have to destroy this bourgeois home that keeps the, you know, values of the bourgeois in place.

00:09:23.160 And I think that that's the problem.

00:09:25.760 The 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.

00:09:37.080 And the only time – you know, you always have to hear, oh, a woman is strong.

00:09:40.420 She's strong.

00:09:41.100 And I always think, you know, if I wanted to marry somebody strong, I'd have married a guy.

00:09:45.100 You know, I married a woman because I wanted something entirely different in my life. 0.99

00:09:50.160 And that has, you know, been incredibly – an incredible gift in my life.

00:09:54.380 And 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.

00:10:02.700 We're just basically letting the left sort of dictate how to end this family that gets in their way of taking over everything, basically.

00:10:11.140 The 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.

00:10:28.560 And certainly that's one way we can look at it.

00:10:30.680 But there's also another side, and that is the strengths that a person has.

00:10:35.580 So 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. 0.83

00:10:45.920 But a woman's strength is in raising children, turning her house into a home, supporting her husband on a virtuous path.

00:10:58.300 Like those are also strengths that we should celebrate in honor in women. 0.98

00:11:02.480 Yeah, 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.

00:11:10.300 But 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. 0.99

00:11:24.640 That's not an actual thing.

00:11:26.060 And then when you say – I said once on the – I don't think we talked about this the last time we were talking.

00:11:32.440 I said once on the air that I was watching some fantasy program on Netflix, and this woman was in a sword fight. 0.93

00:11:38.760 And I said, you know, women can't be in sword fights. 1.00

00:11:41.900 You know, they can fence, but, you know, that's not – it was a medieval kind of setting and all this.

00:11:47.080 And I said, no, that's not going to happen.

00:11:48.180 And it still is a controversy.

00:11:50.220 I 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.

00:11:56.740 You wouldn't be fighting, like, an aged scribe. 1.00

00:11:59.860 You'd be fighting another warrior your age, and you would just be sliced away – you know, you'd vanish before him into smoke.

00:12:06.820 And, 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.

00:12:19.580 And 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. 0.61

00:12:27.240 Because over time, no matter how well-trained you are, you are going to be – succumbed to bigger strengths.

00:12:32.420 So is a man going to succumb to someone who's twice his size and, you know, has all that weight on him.

00:12:36.840 And I just think that it's just awful.

00:12:39.320 It is awful what we have done to women and made them feel degraded for being who they are.

00:12:43.920 And 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.

00:12:58.220 It's insane.

00:13:00.200 When you were talking about sword fighting, I thought you were talking about figuratively sword fighting.

00:13:04.960 No, literally.

00:13:05.580 It's literally a duel in a movie.

00:13:07.820 But both literally and figuratively a woman is not capable of sword fighting. 0.93

00:13:11.500 So let's just put that out there.

00:13:12.960 But, you know, it is interesting because every time you talk about this, you know, you have the exceptions, right?

00:13:19.080 So somebody will say, well, you know, Serena Williams could beat you at a tennis match.

00:13:24.060 Of course.

00:13:25.600 That is not the argument.

00:13:27.680 It's a – what do they call it?

00:13:29.140 A logical fallacy in that the exception does not disprove the rule.

00:13:34.660 All things being equal, in a physical competition, a man will dominate a woman. 1.00

00:13:40.080 I've experienced this in jiu-jitsu.

00:13:42.280 You 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.

00:13:59.560 I've had this experience, yeah.

00:14:00.700 It's different.

00:14:01.740 It is very different.

00:14:02.340 You cannot deny it.

00:14:03.440 Yes.

00:14:03.680 And, you know, I call this feminist logic where if you can find an exception, the rule disappears. 1.00

00:14:08.600 You know, because the point is not that, you know, Serena Williams could beat me at a tennis match.

00:14:12.880 The point is that the number 200-ranked male beat her.

00:14:16.080 Like, not just beat her, blew her away, basically.

00:14:19.100 Right.

00:14:19.220 And, 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.

00:14:29.060 And 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. 1.00

00:14:38.460 And 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.

00:14:49.260 I 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.

00:15:05.120 And 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. 0.97

00:15:17.100 And 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. 1.00

00:15:29.480 Yeah, 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. 0.95

00:15:45.860 We don't need no man type mentality.

00:15:48.320 But to be fair, men have it too, and I'm very familiar with it.

00:15:52.680 You have movements like Red Pill.

00:15:54.940 You have movements like Meg Tao who are villainizing women just as much as some of these women are villainizing men. 1.00

00:16:02.160 And taken to the extreme, it's toxic on both sides of the equation.

00:16:06.860 I think it's incredibly toxic.

00:16:08.940 I 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.

00:16:15.340 You 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.

00:16:23.160 And they always take these polls where they say parents are less happy than people who aren't parents. 0.99

00:16:28.280 And I think happy is a stupid thing. 0.99

00:16:30.020 You're happy and you're sad one day, you know, and something else the next. 1.00

00:16:33.500 What you are is more alive.

00:16:35.300 You are going to be happier when you have a family than you've ever been before.

00:16:38.780 You're going to be sadder than you've ever been before.

00:16:40.760 You're going to be more alive.

00:16:42.140 And that is what life is, and it's at the core of life.

00:16:44.620 This relationship between a man and a woman, I think, is at the core of life.

00:16:48.120 And 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.

00:16:57.040 But that's not the point.

00:16:58.320 The point is we have been purposely turned against each other.

00:17:01.320 I think we've been purposely turned against each other racially as well.

00:17:04.680 I think the people that I meet, you know, most of the time have gotten way past the old days of racism.

00:17:11.380 And I think these are things that are not really bothering people on the ground.

00:17:15.300 They're being fed to us through this media that basically wants us at each other's throats.

00:17:21.160 And I think that the point of having us at each other's throats is that it means the powerful can manipulate us.

00:17:27.540 When we're afraid, when we're angry, when we're divided, the powerful have a clear path to power.

00:17:34.000 And that's, to me, what it's all about.

00:17:36.600 And it's simple.

00:17:38.340 We can fight them on an individual level.

00:17:40.880 We simply have to just not accept what they're telling us as true and act as if it weren't true instead of falling.

00:17:46.340 You 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.

00:17:55.780 They're just as toxic.

00:17:56.900 What they are is they are the guys who fell for the push.

00:18:00.800 You know, they fell for this line that has been sold to them that somehow the women are out there calculating against them.

00:18:06.920 And 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.

00:18:18.320 Well, they get really mad when you tell them they're the male version of feminism. 0.98

00:18:22.100 That's what they are.

00:18:22.560 That's exactly what it is.

00:18:24.200 You know what?

00:18:24.800 It's even worse than that.

00:18:26.040 They are the male product of feminism. 0.98

00:18:27.940 They are the guys who got gamed by feminism into turning themselves into this toxic beast, you know. 0.97

00:18:34.440 I like that. 0.62

00:18:35.360 That's interesting.

00:18:35.920 Being gamed by feminism.

00:18:37.480 That's somebody like Andrew Tate, to be honest with you.

00:18:39.880 He's the guy.

00:18:40.380 He's I didn't want to say any names, but he is.

00:18:43.280 No, we'll drop names.

00:18:44.340 Yeah, I'm not afraid of dropping names here.

00:18:45.880 I'm in.

00:18:46.200 I'm in.

00:18:46.680 You know, I mean, Tate, I had I've had guys, young guys come up to me and say, oh, you got to see these guys.

00:18:52.500 This guy.

00:18:52.820 He's great. 0.93

00:18:53.720 And so I looked at him and I said, you know, this is a pimp. 0.96

00:18:56.900 You know, he's a literal pimp. 0.98

00:18:58.600 I'm literally calling him names. 0.97

00:18:59.540 He's literally.

00:19:00.560 Absolutely.

00:19:01.180 If that's where you're getting your idea of masculinity, even as a joke, you know, you're being led down the

00:19:05.900 primrose path.

00:19:06.900 There's so many fantastic male role models in this culture.

00:19:12.380 So 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.

00:19:25.420 There'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.

00:19:33.500 That's just a sign of weakness inside yourself and fear.

00:19:36.200 That kind of anger against women is actually fear of women, you know, masking itself as some kind of rage, basically.

00:19:43.580 And 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.

00:19:59.480 I feel when you're alone, we're meant to be together, you know, look, I'm going to say something. 0.98

00:20:05.460 I 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. 0.99

00:20:17.220 Right. 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. 0.99

00:20:38.340 The 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. 0.79

00:20:58.800 We 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. 0.95

00:21:10.000 Yeah. It's the adult version of cooties, you know, it's right, right. Yeah, exactly. 0.99

00:21:14.660 You 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 1.00

00:21:28.540 carriage 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.

00:21:42.500 There'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.

00:21:56.300 And 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.

00:22:09.860 Yeah. 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.

00:22:22.680 Why 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.

00:22:43.500 So let's be clear on that too. Yeah. But why do, why do our young men turn to that? Do you think?

00:22:48.340 Well, 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.

00:23:00.660 And 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.

00:23:10.600 They'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.

00:23:21.620 And 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.

00:23:36.480 You 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.

00:23:42.720 We'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.

00:23:49.800 And 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.

00:24:03.980 You begin to think that that is the world. You begin to think that this is the culture that you're living in.

00:24:09.800 And 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.

00:24:18.480 You 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.

00:24:29.480 I'm done. You know, I'm telling my friends, you know, you can't reach me for 10 days.

00:24:33.460 We're going hiking. You know, all we're going to be doing is walking through the black forest. It'll be beautiful.

00:24:37.420 I just turned off my, my phone and it all went away. It disappeared.

00:24:42.560 It was like they didn't, they actually stopped existing in my life because I stopped listening to them. 0.99

00:24:48.620 And 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. 0.98

00:25:03.040 You need, the patriarchy needs to end. I think the patriarchy should be built back up. 0.98

00:25:07.120 I'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.

00:25:16.380 And 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.

00:25:29.100 And the question of whether you're really persecuted or not is in some way up to you.

00:25:35.200 If 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. 0.60

00:25:46.300 And 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.

00:25:51.940 I 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.

00:25:58.400 And 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. 0.96

00:26:05.940 And 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.

00:26:12.860 Yeah, 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.

00:26:22.700 You 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.

00:26:32.460 And, you know, she was she had dyed blue hair and she had piercings all over and tattoos. 1.00

00:26:38.740 And I'm like, well, I'm going to open the door for this woman, of course, because that's what men do. Right. 0.94

00:26:43.140 And immediately I'm like, I wonder how she's going to respond.

00:26:46.780 You 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?

00:26:52.060 I wondered because she's the blue haired hippie that, you know, we all kind of think of. 0.95

00:26:57.620 And I opened the door and she looked at me and she said, thank you very much.

00:27:00.700 I appreciate that. I said, you're welcome.

00:27:02.800 And that was the extent of our interaction, because.

00:27:07.360 Like, we're we're not we're not at odds with each other as much as media and these.

00:27:12.820 What did you call it? The clerisy would have us believe.

00:27:16.320 Yeah, we're really not at odds with each other the way they want us to believe we are.

00:27:20.660 I agree. I think it's true on race.

00:27:22.940 I think it's true. All the things that are there trying to divide us.

00:27:26.140 And so the answer is turn them off a little bit.

00:27:28.280 You know, don't listen so much, but also ignore it.

00:27:30.980 You know, live that you decide what your values are and then you live by those values.

00:27:35.320 And will that make you unpopular with some people? Too bad.

00:27:38.020 You know, are you going to lose an audience share or whatever it is you're trying to get?

00:27:41.600 You might get hassled at work. Too bad.

00:27:44.280 You know, that's what being a guy is.

00:27:45.740 It's actually establishing the culture within yourself and living that culture out.

00:27:50.660 And listen, I did it in in crazy places.

00:27:53.760 I did it in Berkeley, California in the 1970s.

00:27:56.660 And and I half the time I didn't even know that people were scowling at me, you know, because I just thought I don't care.

00:28:04.080 I'm not living this way. I'm not living.

00:28:05.880 I'm not going to live racially. I'm not going to live in, you know, with feminism. 1.00

00:28:09.220 I'm just not doing it. And it really worked out well.

00:28:11.960 You know, it had it had its moments.

00:28:13.500 I opened doors for women who yelled at me, you know, and my feeling was really.

00:28:17.340 Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, in those days.

00:28:19.480 Absolutely. You know, interesting.

00:28:21.440 I've never had that. So it's interesting.

00:28:23.380 Well, a lot of them also stopped, turned around and thanked me with passion because people, guys weren't doing it anymore.

00:28:32.140 So I got, of course, both of those things going on.

00:28:34.960 But I just thought like, hey, I'm my culture.

00:28:37.840 You know, I'm a culture of one. This is what's going on for me.

00:28:40.600 And it like I said, it really does work and it works out.

00:28:44.680 I like that. I'm just taking notes here.

00:28:46.340 And I just wrote that the culture within yourself.

00:28:48.580 That's really interesting. 0.95

00:28:49.920 I've always felt I'm either just too dumb or too principled to do anything different. 0.92

00:28:54.000 It's one or the other or probably a bit of both. 0.96

00:28:56.320 I don't know. It's a bit of both.

00:28:57.560 And it doesn't matter which. That's the other thing.

00:28:59.140 But 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. 1.00

00:29:07.600 And 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. 1.00

00:29:14.680 And it's like, I'm I'm confused. 0.99

00:29:17.780 Are you saying don't pay attention to you or or I should?

00:29:21.740 But then you have mainstream media.

00:29:23.200 I 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.

00:29:35.220 You know, the the beautiful the the the quintessential beautiful Fox anchor, for example.

00:29:40.160 Right. And they were confused why men were so attracted to that.

00:29:43.320 I think I think a lot of these guys are confused about this.

00:29:48.040 I think I think they're deeply, deeply confused on their own.

00:29:51.280 But but again, you know, it's like you don't you don't have to find women to love in the end.

00:29:57.420 You only have to find a woman to love. 1.00

00:29:58.780 And 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.

00:30:07.280 It's a hilarious, phony newspaper.

00:30:10.180 It's just it's unbelievable the nonsense that they put out. 0.54

00:30:13.640 But one thing is at least three times a week, somebody writes a column targeted at destroying marriage.

00:30:20.120 And it's either, you know, what would be fun?

00:30:22.500 A 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. 1.00

00:30:33.300 And 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.

00:30:39.440 In the end, the men and women like each other.

00:30:41.360 They want each other.

00:30:42.380 It's the pathway to a new life.

00:30:44.080 And it's just a you know, it's just a very hard thing for them to break down.

00:30:48.820 They tried it in the Soviet Union.

00:30:50.080 It didn't work.

00:30:51.060 You know, ultimately, it's not going to work here either.

00:30:55.100 I mean, I would agree to to some extent that there's a bigger play here.

00:31:00.380 I would agree.

00:31:01.120 But I also think it's also on just a micro level.

00:31:05.040 I 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. 0.63

00:31:15.260 And I don't think she has some nefarious plot to overturn marriage or the government or the way that we think about it.

00:31:22.320 I 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.

00:31:32.660 Right.

00:31:33.140 Well, I think I think that you're absolutely right about this, but it's a twofold thing.

00:31:36.680 I mean, it's kind of like with abortion.

00:31:38.580 You have the entire society telling you abortion is great.

00:31:42.100 Then you get an abortion and maybe it's not so great.

00:31:44.880 But now there's no going back.

00:31:46.680 So you have to sort of defend it.

00:31:48.000 And your defense gets kind of hysterical.

00:31:50.500 So 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.

00:31:57.300 Now you're stuck because now you've cheated on the only person you promised not to cheat on.

00:32:01.060 And now you've got to start to defend what you've done and sort of make yourself feel better about it.

00:32:05.900 And, you know, what do we all do?

00:32:07.720 Misery loves company.

00:32:08.680 When we feel bad, we try and get other people.

00:32:10.640 You know, if you've ever if you've ever known any alcohol.

00:32:12.380 I'm a writer, so almost everybody I know is an alcoholic.

00:32:14.840 You 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.

00:32:21.320 They will stop because they want to be around people who are just as unhappy as they are.

00:32:26.360 And 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.

00:32:34.060 Then 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.

00:32:40.380 And now I have to sort of repent and become somebody different than I was.

00:32:45.180 I 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.

00:32:56.680 And I regret it. And I wish I never would have made that decision.

00:33:00.400 And now I'm on a crusade or a mission to help other women in the same situation, make a better choice.

00:33:05.260 The same way I would respect a man who says, hey, you know what?

00:33:09.740 I stepped out on my wife, but that was a horrible decision.

00:33:14.560 And here's what I learned from it. And here's why you shouldn't do it.

00:33:17.340 And relating to alcohol abuse, anybody who's listened to this podcast knows that I've struggled in the past with alcohol abuse.

00:33:25.860 And and I've have a lot of people who say, oh, I can't believe.

00:33:28.500 But other people are like, thank you. Thank you for being honest.

00:33:31.840 You 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.

00:33:41.960 There'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.

00:33:52.120 You know, we all have them. And it's like if you pretend you don't, you're doing a double disservice.

00:33:57.740 I mean, first of all, you're lying, which always reduces you.

00:34:00.120 And 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.

00:34:05.600 I can't achieve what he is doing. I can't become what he is.

00:34:08.780 And 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.

00:34:18.340 And like I said, we've all done them. We've all got them.

00:34:20.760 Everybody everybody has something they wake up at three o'clock in the morning about and sweat over.

00:34:25.040 You know, we all have it, you know.

00:34:29.000 Man, I'm going to take a step away from the conversation very briefly.

00:34:31.980 One 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?

00:34:42.400 It's a really good question and one that I think every man should ask himself.

00:34:45.820 But the answer isn't always so easy.

00:34:48.260 Most men choose who they're around by default. 0.85

00:34:51.600 Maybe they don't even choose at all, but it's people in their family, their in-laws, the guys that work down the hall and his neighbors.

00:34:59.840 But are those truly the best men to surround yourself with?

00:35:03.900 Maybe, maybe not.

00:35:05.380 But that's why putting yourself in proximity to the type of men you want to be like is so crucial.

00:35:10.360 And that's why going to events and experiences is so critical.

00:35:14.360 And 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.

00:35:23.700 We're banding together, myself, Larry Hagner with the Dad Edge, Connor Beaton with Man Talks, and Matt Boudreau with Apogee Strong.

00:35:30.960 It's called The Forge, a gathering of men.

00:35:33.320 And 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.

00:35:40.200 It's May 1st through the 5th, and we only have 200 spots available.

00:35:45.220 I think we've already secured 20% to 30% of those spots.

00:35:49.820 So they are going very, very quickly, act fast.

00:35:53.000 It's in just outside of St. Louis on May 1st through the 5th, 2025.

00:35:58.460 Again, The Forge, a gathering of men.

00:36:00.800 Go to themensforge.com, themensforge.com to get registered.

00:36:05.860 Do that right after the show.

00:36:07.300 For now, let's get back to it with Andrew.

00:36:09.880 Well, I think you ought to have that.

00:36:11.600 If you don't have that, I wonder how much you're contemplating on your life and the mistakes you've made.

00:36:16.220 Yeah, yeah.

00:36:16.840 I mean, I don't know what it would be like to not have made mistakes, you know.

00:36:20.520 In 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.

00:36:30.900 They don't care about a promotion.

00:36:32.000 They don't care about anything else, accolades.

00:36:33.980 They just go do their job and you're like, hmm, I would like to know what that feels like for a day.

00:36:39.220 Not having to worry about how do I make this bigger or better or make more money or do better or be more fit.

00:36:46.280 I kind of envy that sometimes in a little bit of a way.

00:36:49.920 Yeah, you know, I know.

00:36:51.060 It's like I'm not that guy.

00:36:53.140 I wish I were sometimes, but I don't know.

00:36:55.720 You know, I'm like the A type, you know.

00:36:59.580 I want everything to be absolutely perfect.

00:37:01.520 And, you know, it's strenuous, but I'm glad I'm that way.

00:37:05.620 You know, I think I've had a wonderful, you know, working life because of it.

00:37:10.460 And, you know, people know that I'm going to show up twice instead of once.

00:37:13.520 But I understand what you're saying.

00:37:15.140 I feel the same way.

00:37:15.960 I do look at people who just kind of glide and I think like, yeah, that's good too.

00:37:19.560 I can see that.

00:37:21.120 Yeah.

00:37:22.280 No, 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.

00:37:28.360 And I can't help but think, man, that's not the aim of life.

00:37:31.680 You know, some of the most pivotal and instrumental parts of my life are when I've been unhappy.

00:37:36.480 On a micro level, I was thinking about this last weekend.

00:37:39.060 I 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.

00:37:45.980 And, 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.

00:37:53.880 Neither one of us are happy.

00:37:55.320 But I will suggest that both of us are a lot more fulfilled by doing that than we would have been before.

00:38:02.560 So I think the metric, at least for me, is fulfillment over happiness because happiness is fleeting, and I can be fulfilled in misery.

00:38:11.400 A 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.

00:38:21.780 Absolutely. You know, they have that expression, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

00:38:26.660 And I always say, like, a corollary of that expression is everybody wants wisdom, but no one wants to suffer.

00:38:31.580 And actually, it's unfortunately suffering is the source of wisdom.

00:38:35.600 And even more than that, what I look for in life is what the poets used to call gusto.

00:38:41.080 You know, I call it joy, but it's the same thing.

00:38:44.080 Joy is not like, you know, walking around with a smiley face all the time.

00:38:47.780 You'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.

00:38:56.640 You 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.

00:39:11.140 What 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.

00:39:20.280 And you come out, and somebody says, how was the movie?

00:39:22.280 You say, it was great.

00:39:23.060 It was a great movie.

00:39:23.740 I really liked it.

00:39:24.400 And I try to live like that.

00:39:26.500 I 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.

00:39:33.620 And I actually think of that in times of grief or suffering or struggle, that, yeah, this is the day.

00:39:39.720 This is the day I was given.

00:39:40.860 You know, let me rejoice in this day.

00:39:42.520 And it makes life a lot better.

00:39:44.540 You 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.

00:39:52.020 You will be happier and sadder.

00:39:53.620 You know, you will be more alive.

00:39:55.420 And for me, life is the thing.

00:39:57.500 Life is the goal.

00:39:58.420 You know, it's to really, truly live.

00:40:01.360 And, yeah, you're right.

00:40:02.320 That's not a happiness thing.

00:40:04.180 Sometimes it's happy.

00:40:05.120 Sometimes it's sad.

00:40:05.780 It's just to genuinely be here in the present moment, you know.

00:40:10.720 Andrew, I don't know the answer to this question.

00:40:12.540 I'm not sure if you're comfortable answering this question.

00:40:15.000 But are you a believer?

00:40:17.060 Are you a God-fearing man?

00:40:18.280 And if you are, is it the eternal perspective that gives you a different insight into the suffering that you might experience throughout your life?

00:40:26.360 Yeah.

00:40:26.660 You know, I was born and raised a Jew and was a secular Jew, a non-believing Jew.

00:40:32.880 And I found Christ when I was 49.

00:40:36.760 I was baptized when I was 49.

00:40:38.420 I found God about five years before that.

00:40:40.740 So I was praying to God.

00:40:42.420 And 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?

00:40:52.740 You've changed my life into this incredibly beautiful thing.

00:40:57.340 And the response I got was, you should be baptized.

00:41:00.460 And I was like, are you joking?

00:41:01.740 You know, that's going to alienate my family.

00:41:04.920 I'm working in Hollywood.

00:41:06.960 I'm not going to get a job, you know.

00:41:08.300 And it took me five months.

00:41:10.720 I argued with God for five months and finally thought, you know, God, he's right and I'm wrong about this.

00:41:16.980 And I was baptized at 49.

00:41:20.000 And yes, I mean, I have to tell you, I have a wonderful marriage.

00:41:25.260 I'm very blessed in my marriage.

00:41:27.100 But about two weeks after I was baptized, my wife turned to me and she said, you know, you have totally changed.

00:41:32.900 You have like suddenly you're like serene, you know, you're joyful, you're calm, you know.

00:41:37.800 And it has only gotten deeper and richer.

00:41:40.220 I mean, Christ has moved to the absolute center of my life.

00:41:43.540 It informs everything.

00:41:45.400 And it's the eternal perspective.

00:41:49.100 Yes, that's definitely right.

00:41:50.960 But it's also the fact that everything, the purpose of everything has become God to me.

00:41:57.320 So it's not like, I don't know.

00:42:00.940 I don't know how to describe it exactly.

00:42:02.820 It's that you're not working to make money.

00:42:06.060 You're not working to, you know, be famous or whatever you're looking for.

00:42:10.600 You're working for God.

00:42:12.380 You're always doing the thing for God.

00:42:14.300 And you hand everything over to him.

00:42:16.480 And I said at one point, I said to myself, like, I just said to myself, you're fired.

00:42:21.280 You're no longer running my life. 0.96

00:42:22.920 You know, you've done a piss poor job. 1.00

00:42:25.060 You're horrible at this. 1.00

00:42:26.440 I was like, hit the road. 0.99

00:42:27.780 You're horrible at this.

00:42:28.700 Exactly.

00:42:29.340 And I'm giving it all to God.

00:42:31.040 And, you know, and once you do that, you just sort of see like, oh, it's everything.

00:42:34.760 It's like it's not just church.

00:42:36.900 It's not just prayer.

00:42:38.000 It'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.

00:42:45.560 And you think it's all that.

00:42:46.720 Everything is that, you know, every simple thing that you do.

00:42:50.240 And, yeah, it is a great relief.

00:42:53.180 It is a great relief to fire yourself and hire God to run your life.

00:42:56.500 You know, it's like, and it does.

00:42:59.040 It gives you incredible peace.

00:43:00.620 And also, even in times of trouble, when you sometimes forget, as I think we all do, you have something to remind yourself.

00:43:08.640 You know, you can remind yourself, oh, wait a minute.

00:43:10.520 I've lost that perspective.

00:43:11.860 I mean, that's happened to me.

00:43:13.200 And suddenly I'll think, like, everything is suddenly going wrong.

00:43:16.180 When 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.

00:43:29.420 And she said, just let it fly, you know.

00:43:31.660 And 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.

00:43:38.020 Let God fly the plane, and everything else just works out great, you know.

00:43:41.640 So it really, yes, the short answer to your short question is yes.

00:43:46.000 It's a big, big change in my life.

00:43:48.900 What 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?

00:44:01.340 What is that dynamic like between you two?

00:44:04.060 You know, first of all, Ben has been absolutely great.

00:44:07.200 You know, the funny thing about Ben is he comes across, he's got that funny, fast way of talking, and he's snide.

00:44:12.060 You know, I've got to say, I've got to interject just one thing.

00:44:16.300 I'm sorry, I have to say this.

00:44:17.680 I 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.

00:44:25.020 He said, hello, it's good to be here.

00:44:27.340 And I was like, that is classic Ben Shapiro.

00:44:30.900 I expected nothing different from you.

00:44:33.100 And it was just, I will always remember that introduction.

00:44:36.520 Anyways, continue, but it was hilarious to me.

00:44:39.440 So 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.

00:44:47.600 But he's actually like a lovely guy.

00:44:49.700 Yeah, I'm sure.

00:44:50.540 And 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.

00:45:07.720 There 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.

00:45:17.180 And Ben has never been like that.

00:45:19.440 He has read my books about Christianity.

00:45:21.740 I 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.

00:45:29.680 I 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.

00:45:37.700 And he gave me a blurb for that.

00:45:39.340 He has been incredibly good about it.

00:45:42.140 And there's never been that.

00:45:43.760 I mean, you know, we tease each other all the time.

00:45:46.280 Of course, I'm sure.

00:45:47.220 You know, obviously, we were once doing one of our kind of joint podcasts, and he eats kosher popcorn.

00:45:55.460 And he said to his assistant, are you sure this is the kosher popcorn?

00:45:58.800 And the assistant said, yes, it is.

00:46:00.580 And he took a bite of popcorn, and the assistant came running back in and said, oh, my God, I was wrong.

00:46:06.600 That's not the kosher popcorn.

00:46:08.080 I turned to him and I said, now that you're not a Jew anymore, can I tell you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?

00:46:13.220 And somehow it had no effect on him whatsoever.

00:46:19.300 No, that's good.

00:46:20.140 I think he is one of the most receptive.

00:46:22.060 You know, you hear his podcast and you think, oh, this guy is unflappable or, you know, he's so stuck in his ways.

00:46:27.920 But I think he's one of the most – I don't know him well at all, really.

00:46:33.960 But he seems to be just very pragmatic, even though he has a deeply religious, spiritual sense of his life.

00:46:41.280 He's very pragmatic in whatever is going to serve the greater good.

00:46:45.180 I think he's willing to explore, it sounds like to me.

00:46:47.540 Yeah, I think that's right.

00:46:48.740 And, you know, I've known him now.

00:46:49.800 We've been working together since The Daily Wire started.

00:46:52.580 And he was really kind of a smart-aleck kid at that point.

00:46:55.320 And I was a lot older than he was.

00:46:56.860 And he's really grown in ways that have only increased my respect and affection for him.

00:47:02.220 And I think that's a good description of him.

00:47:05.220 Yeah.

00:47:05.860 I want to shift gears a little bit.

00:47:07.340 We 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.

00:47:16.860 It'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.

00:47:22.240 You'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.

00:47:37.780 Why did you decide to do that in the wake of the previous conversation that we had?

00:47:42.560 Well, 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.

00:47:49.100 And at some point I started to think, you know, they're really the effect that mothers have on boys is really important, too.

00:47:55.120 And so the Cameron Winter, who is the lead character in this, is a guy who really was kind of neglected by his mother.

00:48:01.900 And 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.

00:48:12.520 And so he's kind of stuck in his own past.

00:48:15.800 He can't quite grow up.

00:48:16.840 He can't get quite past the things that he's done.

00:48:19.640 And he has gone to this female therapist who's become a mother figure in his life.

00:48:23.180 So it's very interesting to have this grown man who's very competent, very dangerous.

00:48:27.900 He's a real tough guy.

00:48:29.740 And yet at the same time, he benefits from this maternal guidance that he gets from this therapist who really is helping him out.

00:48:37.440 And it's an actual thing in his life.

00:48:40.060 And 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.

00:48:50.440 And they sort of he grew up in love with her and then she went on a bad path and he lost her.

00:48:56.580 She 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.

00:49:05.480 And 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.

00:49:18.100 And it's kind of the turning point in his in his life.

00:49:22.700 So it's a very important part of this of this story I'm telling about Cameron Winter.

00:49:27.540 It'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.

00:49:37.720 And, 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.

00:49:48.100 Reach out and grab the reader and say, this is what you should believe.

00:49:51.640 And these are the good guys and these are the bad guys.

00:49:53.660 It's not I'm not interested in that.

00:49:54.760 I think a bad storytelling, as I said, we said at the beginning, I feel that there are good people on both sides.

00:50:00.020 And I want to show their them in their the fullness of their life.

00:50:03.580 But I don't know how you write about America today without writing about politics, because this is a highly, highly politicized moment.

00:50:10.680 And 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.

00:50:20.040 And so there are people on the far right and people on the far left fighting each other.

00:50:23.540 And he's a guy who's kind of understands that far left and far right are both bad news.

00:50:28.160 And he's looking for that American thing that we really love and cherish, which is freedom.

00:50:32.620 You know, that thing, that individual thing.

00:50:34.160 So 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.

00:50:52.180 It's just about this story of America as it is today, which is in a painful state.

00:50:56.860 You know, I mean, I definitely can see that, you know.

00:51:00.580 But to be frank, you know, I could say right now that the sky is blue and that would be politicized.

00:51:05.740 So really, is it us that is politicizing it or is it just the powers that be to put us put ourselves against each other?

00:51:11.820 But 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?

00:51:24.840 A healthy pursuit of a woman versus an unhealthy pursuit. 0.91

00:51:27.720 And how do you navigate that?

00:51:29.160 You 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.

00:51:37.640 Yeah, and I personally think that fiction is the only way to deal with these things because they're things almost beyond language.

00:51:43.380 You have to experience them.

00:51:45.160 You 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.

00:51:53.060 And love can be very healing, but you're not looking to marry your mother.

00:51:57.060 You're not looking to, you know, just be a poor thing that this girl takes care of. 1.00

00:52:01.160 You 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.

00:52:11.160 And so you have to grow up to do that.

00:52:13.920 And 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.

00:52:21.480 And 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.

00:52:37.100 And I don't think, you know, you can talk about that in nonfiction.

00:52:40.300 You can give advice and you can sort of, you know, talk about psychology.

00:52:43.740 But I think you have to really go through it and experience it.

00:52:46.280 And 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.

00:52:57.480 I 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.

00:53:04.300 I couldn't say how I'm different, but the story has changed me.

00:53:07.180 And 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.

00:53:13.700 They'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.

00:53:22.140 I've found a new sense of appreciation for fiction that I didn't have previously.

00:53:28.240 I would say over the past, you know, two, three, four years where it was all self-development, self-help, nonfiction.

00:53:33.880 That's what I was interested in.

00:53:35.540 I actually think it's the same thing with comedy.

00:53:37.620 You 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.

00:53:56.560 Right.

00:53:57.260 Right.

00:53:57.780 Or sexist or fill in the blank with ist.

00:54:00.520 And 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.

00:54:11.600 Absolutely.

00:54:12.280 You know, Stephen King had a great line about this. 0.58

00:54:14.160 He said, we all have mad dogs inside us.

00:54:16.780 And what I do is I take them for a walk.

00:54:18.560 And I think that, I think that that's right.

00:54:20.800 You 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.

00:54:27.760 Actually, 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.

00:54:40.480 And 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?

00:54:47.060 You tease them constantly, you know, you make fun of them constantly.

00:54:49.520 You're constantly, you know, uh, joking around with them.

00:54:52.240 Why?

00:54:52.500 Because that, it, it gets that stuff out into the open and it actually is a form of intimacy.

00:54:57.840 And I think, again, only fiction can do that.

00:55:00.840 And, and guys, guys have a hard time with fiction.

00:55:03.060 They always think I should be reading something that's factual.

00:55:05.760 Uh, but, but no, I think that they're, that fiction is kind of like adding life to your life.

00:55:11.520 It gives you, you know, you get a little bit of Cameron Winter's life in your life.

00:55:15.200 You get a little of some other character's life in your life and you become wiser that way.

00:55:19.720 You have more, you become bigger inside, you know?

00:55:22.460 And I think, uh, it's, it's an actual thing.

00:55:24.760 The arts are an actual thing that are useful.

00:55:27.220 And I think that, uh, men, unfortunately are sort of, I don't think they're trained away from it.

00:55:31.880 I think they have a natural kind of reluctance to, to engage with it.

00:55:36.300 But when you find the books that you love, uh, it's incredibly, uh, enlarging.

00:55:41.940 It gives you a bigger, a bigger heart and a bigger soul.

00:55:45.920 Yeah.

00:55:46.420 I mean, I definitely see, man, maybe this just comes with a level of maturity or maybe

00:55:50.440 just not even caring about what other people think, but there's definitely, um, a more

00:55:56.140 relevant element of my life that I think would be artistic, whether it's nonfiction or art

00:56:02.560 or music or, or film that I haven't resonated with in the past.

00:56:07.500 And, you know, I think about like, um, when it comes to, to fictional work, the, the series

00:56:12.940 saw the movie saw, right.

00:56:14.540 And, you know, if you really think about it, you, you, you can't help but think this guy's 1.00

00:56:20.260 a fucking psycho. 0.99

00:56:21.260 Like whoever thought about this is psychotic, but we don't call it that we call him a genius. 1.00

00:56:26.600 Right.

00:56:26.960 Right.

00:56:27.760 And yeah, because he's done it in a way that causes us to think and reflect and ponder

00:56:32.720 on things that we normally would not approach in our everyday life.

00:56:36.980 Right.

00:56:37.460 It always makes me laugh when I, when I write a villain, you know, who's really ugly or

00:56:41.340 does something ugly.

00:56:42.120 People will say to me, you know, like, how can you, how can you have that inside you?

00:56:46.340 And I always think like, how come they never asked me, how come, how do I have the hero

00:56:49.960 inside me?

00:56:50.560 Cause I've created him too.

00:56:52.780 Yeah.

00:56:53.100 Good point.

00:56:53.900 It's always the ugliness, but it is true.

00:56:56.100 You're doing, you're, you're exposing yourself as an artist in ways that other people don't,

00:57:01.260 and they don't expose themselves.

00:57:02.300 So they think it's hidden, but it's not, you know, we all see, we all know what's it, what's

00:57:06.100 in us and everybody else as well.

00:57:07.860 And so an artist is in some ways, just a guy who has the ability to communicate that.

00:57:13.220 I think I, I personally think it's, it's not important to moralize or lecture or anything,

00:57:19.240 but I think the world is a place with a moral framework.

00:57:21.940 I think that there is a God and I think God has a moral framework.

00:57:24.700 And I, I think that when you write even the ugliest of villains, you know, you, you have

00:57:30.260 to write him in that moral framework, but still, I think it is, it's fun and it's exciting

00:57:34.860 and interesting to explore all these parts of the human spirit because, you know, they're

00:57:41.640 things hopefully you're never going to do, but if you experience them in the arts, they

00:57:45.800 become part of you in a healthy way.

00:57:47.500 And I think that that, that's a wonderful thing.

00:57:49.560 Saw is a good example, a very clever movie, a really smart movie.

00:57:52.900 And, uh, I mean, I thought the sequels were terrible, but I thought that one, that first

00:57:56.620 one I really thought I admired, you know, and it does take you into this place that you

00:58:02.320 don't normally explore and you exploring it in a movie theater where it's safe, where

00:58:06.660 you're fine and you come out and now you have more information about yourself, but you haven't

00:58:10.880 killed anybody.

00:58:11.540 And I think that's a good thing, you know? 0.79

00:58:14.520 Yeah.

00:58:14.980 I, you know, it's, um, I think when you leave people to explore their own sense of morality,

00:58:21.720 I think we get pretty close and as a believer, you know, it's universal morality.

00:58:26.120 There's, there's no such thing as, you know, subjective morality.

00:58:29.140 That's right.

00:58:29.440 So we all get pretty close and we can be brainwashed to think something different.

00:58:33.400 A terrorist, for example, believes that he's dying for his God.

00:58:36.140 He's not, he's been brainwashed to believe that, but from a moral perspective, it's not

00:58:40.980 right.

00:58:42.800 Objectively, not subjectively.

00:58:44.860 Um, but even when we find ourselves rooting for the villain, you know, I think of somebody

00:58:50.080 like the Joker or Bane, you know, with Batman, there's even in the villain that we root for,

00:58:56.820 we only root for the villain because there's some redeeming quality, you know, that their

00:59:02.220 ability to overcome hardship or overcome this tragic series of events and make themselves

00:59:08.040 into something more.

00:59:09.200 So there's still, even with the villains we love, you know, like, uh, Darth Vader, the

00:59:13.640 most beloved villain of all time.

00:59:15.400 There's still an element of that that is redeeming and we're finding the redeeming qualities and,

00:59:22.000 and we're attracted to that, not the negative qualities of that, that villain or that character.

00:59:27.120 Yeah.

00:59:27.480 And it also is a reminder that we're all human beings and that lost souls are souls too.

00:59:32.360 And that, you know, there's, there's a certain sorrow to losing somebody to evil, you know,

00:59:36.800 that all these things are, are very real.

00:59:39.040 Well, I, you know, I, when I was, when I was in college, um, the, that first wind of moral

00:59:46.480 relativism was becoming popular in college.

00:59:50.120 You know, there's nothing really is really good or bad, but thinking makes it so, and you

00:59:54.120 have one set of values, but somebody else has another set of values and they're all good

00:59:57.800 and everything is fine.

00:59:59.240 And it was just coming in and I was a kid, I was, you know, uh, malleable and I'm sort

01:00:03.380 of listening to it and saying, yeah, I understand why they're saying this and all this.

01:00:06.660 And I read a novel, I read a novel, a famous novel called crime and punishment about a

01:00:10.820 guy who commits a murder and he commits a murder and he ends up, uh, killing a retarded woman 0.98

01:00:18.080 who hardly knows what's happening. 0.99

01:00:20.140 And he ends up killing her.

01:00:21.360 And I thought, you know what, these people are wrong.

01:00:24.000 And, and I felt it wasn't, it was like I said before, it wasn't like a logical thing.

01:00:27.720 It just shifted in my heart that there is no world on earth or any other planet where to

01:00:34.760 an ax murderer, a retarded woman who is harmless and has done nothing to you is right there. 1.00

01:00:40.540 It's not relative. 0.81

01:00:41.660 Morality is not relative.

01:00:42.920 There may be gray areas, but it's not relative.

01:00:45.240 There are things that are actually wrong.

01:00:46.860 And because I read that novel and because it changed my heart, it didn't change my mind.

01:00:51.040 It changed my heart.

01:00:52.960 That's what led me ultimately many years later to become a Christian because I could not make 1.00

01:00:58.540 sense of the philosophy I was being taught because I'd had that experience reading a book and

01:01:04.820 a story that just turned my heart around, you know?

01:01:07.760 And it's so, so it was like really an important moment.

01:01:10.520 And I think that villains can do that.

01:01:12.380 And I think just the fact that, you know, you can put forward somebody who has done so many

01:01:18.400 bad things and yet frame them in a way where you suddenly see, oh, you know, this is a lost

01:01:23.100 soul.

01:01:23.420 This is a person like me who went astray.

01:01:25.960 It's not, it's not just like some, you know, kind of figure that does these terrible things.

01:01:32.380 I mean, and even, even when you have figures like that who are kind of fun, like who are

01:01:35.980 absolutely evil, like Hannibal Lecter, who just was, you know, so much fun to watch on

01:01:40.840 screen, you realize the reason he's fun to watch on screen is because there's something

01:01:44.340 about him that's human.

01:01:45.640 You know, he's not, he's not a supernatural character.

01:01:48.880 He's something that's in all of us.

01:01:50.200 And it's a good reason to take care of your heart that, that, that you don't become that

01:01:54.360 thing, you know?

01:01:55.500 Yeah.

01:01:56.580 Yeah.

01:01:57.000 I mean, I think as you're saying this, I'm thinking, you know, even the most hardened

01:01:59.920 criminals, people you'd think are complete psychopaths have a code.

01:02:04.420 You know, you, you put a child rapist into a, a, a prison full of hardened murderers and 1.00

01:02:11.180 they're going to destroy and, and kill that. 0.99

01:02:15.840 That, that, that's a moral code and, and, and that goes to what you're saying.

01:02:20.280 That, that's a, that's even worse because it's somebody who's defenseless.

01:02:24.600 And so there's even a code for people who are the most hardened criminals on the planet.

01:02:28.820 They still have some of this moral code built into them.

01:02:31.060 It's amazing.

01:02:31.900 It is, it is, you know, even a child knows when he's been treated unfairly.

01:02:36.200 They once did a test, a really interesting test where they gave two monkeys celery and

01:02:42.460 they were eating the celery and they were perfectly happy with the celery.

01:02:44.940 And then they gave one monkey a grape, which is much sweeter than celery and gave the celery

01:02:50.060 to the other monkey.

01:02:51.060 And the other monkey went insane, just got started screaming because it wasn't fair.

01:02:54.580 You know, he was perfectly happy with his celery until the other guy was getting grape.

01:02:59.060 And then, you know, we all have this inside us that there are things that are right and

01:03:02.840 things that are wrong and being helpful is better than being hurtful and being fair is

01:03:06.600 better than being unfair.

01:03:07.700 Being free is better than being enslaved.

01:03:09.240 We all know these things and when people talk themselves out of it, that's when they

01:03:13.760 start to get into trouble.

01:03:14.820 When some college professor or somebody on TV tells you that, no, no, no, it's a big

01:03:19.580 mistake. 1.00

01:03:20.160 You know, you can, you can kill this baby and it's going to be fine. 1.00

01:03:23.080 You can take this guy a slave and we, you know, God wants you to have slaves, whatever 0.99

01:03:26.740 it is, you know, that's when you get down that, that terrible path where you have to turn

01:03:31.360 and look in the mirror and say, and say those horrible words, I have done the wrong thing and

01:03:37.500 I've got to turn this around and a lot of people can't do it.

01:03:40.660 And so they keep going down that road, you know, and I think that this is, you're absolutely

01:03:45.000 right.

01:03:45.380 This is implanted in us.

01:03:46.560 We are made for this.

01:03:47.800 I think one of the lessons of the gospels is that you are a moral character who can tell

01:03:53.540 when somebody has done something wrong and you can even tell when the law is too harsh.

01:03:57.800 Think about that.

01:03:58.360 Think how subtle that is.

01:03:59.540 You can even tell that when a woman has committed adultery, a terrible thing, and you're about

01:04:04.340 to stoner, maybe that's not the right thing to do, even though that's the law.

01:04:08.240 And, and it's just, uh, you know, an amazing thing, how good we are at doing this.

01:04:14.440 And it's only when theory talks us out of it and people in charge, this clarity sort of

01:04:20.880 tells us, you know, spreads this fog of lies so that we don't see it anymore, that we lose

01:04:25.460 our way.

01:04:25.900 And I always tell people, don't believe what you don't believe.

01:04:29.240 Don't believe what you don't believe.

01:04:30.480 If what, if you hear yourself saying morality is relative, stop for a minute and think,

01:04:35.280 do you really believe that?

01:04:37.000 Cause you don't. 0.99

01:04:38.060 All I have to do is come over and kick your child and you will know right away that morality 1.00

01:04:42.420 is not relative. 0.98

01:04:43.340 So why say it?

01:04:44.120 Why believe it?

01:04:44.880 Why let somebody talk you into it?

01:04:46.500 You know, don't believe what you don't believe.

01:04:48.740 I actually just wrote that as you said it is don't talk yourself into what you don't

01:04:53.580 believe.

01:04:53.820 And you just said that right as I was writing that.

01:04:55.700 So I, I had a wholeheartedly, you know, but it's interesting because even from a secular

01:04:59.720 perspective, these, what we would consider moral principles, whether it's the 10 commandments

01:05:04.920 or the golden rule of treat others the way you'd want to be treated, even from a secular

01:05:09.560 perspective, let's say you're not a believer, it's still the right thing to do because it 1.00

01:05:13.980 still benefits society the most to live in accordance with the 10 commandments or the

01:05:18.880 golden principle, the golden rule, or any of these other moral rules that we have

01:05:24.640 adopted in society.

01:05:26.380 Yeah.

01:05:26.580 I mean, it, it, you know, the golden rules is simply an acknowledgement that we all,

01:05:31.680 that, that other people are as real as we are, you know, and, and, and that's a hard

01:05:35.540 lesson to learn.

01:05:36.700 And it, it also has something else involved, which is that we are all a value to God.

01:05:42.820 And one of the things I think is important about God and morality is even though you're

01:05:46.220 right, that morality makes society work better.

01:05:48.760 There's actually no reason to be moral.

01:05:51.320 If you can get away with, you know, cheating society, if you can get away with it, why

01:05:56.620 wouldn't you do it unless you feel that you're answerable to a higher power and that there

01:06:01.000 is an actual moral web over life, which I think there is, you know, I think that they,

01:06:06.400 you know, you do, you pay a price.

01:06:08.720 We all look, we've all done bad things and we've all known people who have done bad things

01:06:12.300 and you only have to look in their eyes to see that you pay a price for doing what's

01:06:16.040 wrong, you know, nothing is free and you know, you, you, you will be so much more joyful,

01:06:20.960 even though sometimes doing the right thing costs you, you know, sometimes it costs you.

01:06:24.960 But in the long run, you're going to have this much better relationship with yourself

01:06:30.280 that it's going to make you a happier person.

01:06:33.240 Yeah.

01:06:33.700 I mean, I've thought about that with atheists.

01:06:35.480 That's one thing I've wrestled with.

01:06:36.740 If, if an atheist has no moral compass, no standard in which to live by, can they be moral? 1.00

01:06:42.360 And the answer is of course, yes, they can.

01:06:44.720 Because even, even, even if they don't acknowledge the, the source of our morality,

01:06:51.760 they're still operating under the source of our morality.

01:06:56.020 Right.

01:06:56.120 And so I have friends who are atheists who I would trust with my children.

01:07:01.040 I would trust, if I left my, my safe over here with, you know, money in it and I've left

01:07:06.740 it open, I would trust them to watch the house and not steal my money.

01:07:10.300 They're moral people.

01:07:11.980 Yeah.

01:07:12.200 And it doesn't really, it's just because it's ingrained, it's in our DNA.

01:07:16.880 Right.

01:07:17.260 What I always, what I always tell people is of course, obviously atheists can be wonderful,

01:07:21.920 wonderful people.

01:07:22.600 They can't just, but what they can't do is they can't be wonderful people and make sense.

01:07:26.420 They can't explain why they're willing to not, not take the money if they could get away

01:07:31.780 with it.

01:07:32.060 And, and, and the only problem with that, and this won't necessarily happen, but the

01:07:36.120 problem with that is there are these moments in life where it's very easy to talk yourself

01:07:40.040 into doing the wrong thing.

01:07:41.620 And you've really got to then make sense to yourself.

01:07:44.080 You've got to say, no, I have a reason why I act the way I act.

01:07:47.480 I always ask myself, you know, all these guys on the left, there are so many atheists on 1.00

01:07:51.300 the left and they're always complaining about racism.

01:07:52.960 And I think like, I don't even know why you think that's wrong.

01:07:55.860 Like, I think it's wrong because I think everybody's made in the image of God.

01:07:58.620 That's why I think it's wrong.

01:07:59.860 Why do you think it's wrong?

01:08:00.680 Why do you think atheists, you know, racism is wrong?

01:08:02.460 What's, what's the problem with it?

01:08:04.040 I've never gotten a good answer.

01:08:06.500 Well, they'll just say, well, it's just wrong.

01:08:08.060 It just is.

01:08:08.640 It just is.

01:08:09.440 It just is.

01:08:10.140 Yeah.

01:08:11.420 Just happens to be wrong.

01:08:13.220 Yeah.

01:08:14.260 You know, just another question.

01:08:16.220 And I know we're bumping up against time here, but to go back to the series that you've

01:08:20.640 written, how much of yourself do you see in a character like Cameron Winter?

01:08:25.520 You know, I think about Jack Carr's James Reese, or Lee Child's Jack Reacher.

01:08:31.600 And I often wonder how much does the author see themselves in that character?

01:08:36.640 And is that a way for you to journal about the way that you should behave and the way

01:08:43.380 you should act if you were the ideal version of yourself?

01:08:47.040 Well, the way I make characters, because I've made characters who are extremely different

01:08:52.160 than me and a few who are more like me, and I always think of it as like yeast.

01:08:56.960 I take something from myself and all the characters, men, women, all of them, I take some part of

01:09:01.940 myself and put it in there to make the character come to life.

01:09:04.680 And that's, that's where, how the life kind of flows into them.

01:09:08.680 With Cameron Winter, I have to be honest and say, I have used a little bit more of myself

01:09:13.780 than I usually do. Uh, there are things that in his life that, you know, I probably wouldn't

01:09:19.100 say in public, but they, that they do come directly from me. He's not me. He's obviously,

01:09:24.820 you know, a much more heroic figure than I am. And, and I'm absolutely fine with that,

01:09:30.300 but they, he does have things that I, there are moments, especially if funnily enough,

01:09:35.960 especially as a book, a woman underground, there were moments in it when I felt I had revealed

01:09:40.200 something about myself to myself. And I think that kind of, uh, intimacy is necessary. If

01:09:45.820 you're going to use a character, I've never written a series before I've written trilogies,

01:09:49.820 but I've never written a book, a series of books that I feel could go on for maybe 10 books altogether.

01:09:55.420 And I thought in order to do that, I'm going to have to feel really connected with this character

01:09:59.660 over a long period of time. And so I think I've given him just a little bit more of myself than I

01:10:05.200 usually do. And again, like I said, he's much more heroic than I am and better looking, but he's

01:10:11.040 still, he still has got parts of myself that, that actually did make writing a woman underground,

01:10:16.140 a very intimate experience so that at the end of it, I was different than when I started writing

01:10:20.800 and it was actually a really good, uh, positive experience. Yeah, that's what I, I, you know,

01:10:26.000 I've written a couple of books myself, not, not fictional work, but more self help,

01:10:30.260 self-development space. And, um, I, I found myself questioning what I was so accustomed to saying.

01:10:36.940 I think it's really easy just to blurt out words and you don't have to really back those things up.

01:10:41.000 But when you put it on paper, you question yourself, wait a second, do I really believe

01:10:46.060 what I just said right there? And then you have to actually back it up, especially when it comes to

01:10:50.200 nonfiction with, with data and, and, and research and supporting documentation.

01:10:55.840 It really causes you to reflect as to whether or not you really believe the bullcrap that's been 0.59

01:11:01.420 coming out of your mouth for, in my case, 42 years of my life. Yeah. Whenever, whenever anybody says 0.94

01:11:05.960 they want to become a writer, I try to talk, talk them out of it for that very reason. It's like,

01:11:10.280 you're always, you're always confronting yourself after a while. You think like enough, you know,

01:11:13.780 it's like, it is true. When you see yourself on the page, you really see yourself and you do,

01:11:19.580 you change, you change your mind. You think like, Oh, now that I see that written down,

01:11:22.840 I that's ridiculous. You know, it's a, it's good for you, but it's sometimes painful. 0.80

01:11:28.440 Well, if anybody listening wants to get to know you, the real you, or maybe even part of you

01:11:32.760 through camera winter, let the guys know how to connect with you and learn more about what you're

01:11:36.580 up to, including the newest book. Yeah. I would appreciate it if you're interested that you go

01:11:41.540 on and pre-order it on Amazon. It's incredibly helpful to the book. Uh, every one of these books

01:11:46.260 has been a bestseller, which is great. And I would like to make sure this one stays that way so I can

01:11:50.800 keep the series going. Cause if people don't buy it, I can't keep the series going and you can find

01:11:55.140 me. I'm on X. That's where I do most of my social media stuff. It's just Andrew Klavan at Andrew

01:12:00.700 Klavan and it's K L A V A N. There's no E in Klavan. So, um, uh, you know, please come and, uh, 1.00

01:12:07.880 and hear what I have to say. And I, I, as I say, if you like good novels, I think you really,

01:12:12.880 you will really like the book. I'm not just selling it to you cause I need to sell it. I think you will

01:12:16.580 enjoy the book. Awesome. Well, we'll sync it all up. Andrew, I love our conversations. You know,

01:12:21.940 obviously the fictional work is good for me. And then the other, other thousand things that we

01:12:26.800 talk about when we talk is, is relevant for me. It helps me and it gives me some context the way I

01:12:31.940 view life as well. So I appreciate you taking some time with us today. Thanks a lot, Ryan. I actually

01:12:36.540 was thrilled to see you come up on my calendar. I thought, Oh, this is good. I like these conversations.

01:12:41.280 So it's great talking to you. Yeah. Thank you, sir.

01:12:46.580 Gentlemen, Andrew Klavan. Uh, he is a repeat guest on the podcast and you can see why

01:12:51.360 a very well-informed, very well-spoken, has a lot of good insight, interesting and unique

01:12:56.340 perspectives and experiences and ideas to offer. Um, make sure you support Andrew in his work with

01:13:02.820 his, uh, political and cultural commentary. Absolutely. But also his, uh, works, especially

01:13:08.520 with his newest book, a woman underground. He's a great author. He's a great writer, interesting,

01:13:14.780 unique, compelling stories. And like we talked about today, there's a lot of value for us as men

01:13:20.700 that can be found in works of fiction. So check it out. A woman underground. It's out today as the 0.67

01:13:25.760 release of this podcast, and then connect with him on the gram on Twitter, take a screenshot,

01:13:30.740 let people know what you're listening, tag me, follow along with what we're doing. And the biggest

01:13:35.560 call for action today for you guys is to go join the forge, a gathering of men that's going to be

01:13:42.160 held May 1st through the 5th, 2025, just outside of St. Louis. So if you're in the area, you should

01:13:47.440 definitely go. And if you're not in the area, you should also definitely go. Go to themensforge.com,

01:13:53.320 themensforge.com. All right, guys, those are your marching orders for today. We will be back

01:13:59.240 tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything. Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you

01:14:04.700 are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of

01:14:10.480 your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - October 15, 2024

ANDREW KLAVAN ｜ In a Degenerate Culture, Create Your Own

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