Order of Man - BEN SHAPIRO ｜ The Authoritarian Moment

00:00:00.000 Gentlemen, my guest today needs no introduction. His name is Ben Shapiro, and he is likely one of

00:00:05.940 the most polarizing guests that I've had on since we started podcasting six years ago.

00:00:11.040 But regardless of what you may think about him and his stance on the world's most pressing concerns,

00:00:16.740 these are exactly the types of challenging conversations that we should be having.

00:00:21.300 Today, Ben and I cover a lot of ground, including his new book, The Authoritarian Moment,

00:00:25.500 how the left weaponized America's institutions against dissent. We also discussed the shifting

00:00:31.280 Overton window in politics, using logic over feelings to create solutions, why many people

00:00:38.620 are too nice and therefore losing the cultural battle and where one needs to draw the line on

00:00:44.900 government overreach. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears,

00:00:50.180 and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time.

00:00:55.500 Every time. You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life.

00:01:02.780 This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and

00:01:08.260 done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I am

00:01:14.200 the host and the founder of this movement and the Order of Man podcast. Welcome here and welcome back.

00:01:20.280 I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of new people listening today, for better or worse,

00:01:23.720 because this is going to be a polarizing one, no doubt, but it's important. We have discussions

00:01:28.740 like this and that's what this podcast is all about. It's all about having conversations with

00:01:33.160 other incredible men who have interesting, maybe potentially unique and valuable content

00:01:39.460 and information to share. So this one with Ben is no different. Make sure you subscribe and leave

00:01:44.340 a rating and review. So you never miss a podcast episode. Also, I've gotten a lot of questions over

00:01:50.080 the past several weeks about what other podcasts I listen to and what information I consume. And so

00:01:55.400 I'm always trying to add value to you guys. There is one I wanted to mention, and I'll do this

00:02:01.040 periodically, but for today, I want you guys to check out Mind Pump Media. I've been on these guys'

00:02:06.340 podcasts now a couple of times. They've been on mine, but they offer fitness and health advice,

00:02:12.700 but commentary in not the stagnant, stale way that we typically hear from the fitness industry.

00:02:17.680 It's entertaining, it's informative, and it's really going to help you get on the path. So

00:02:22.540 they've got a lot of great episodes. And I asked because I told them I was going to do this today.

00:02:26.360 If they had three or four episodes, they think that you guys would really enjoy. And they do. If you go

00:02:32.140 to mindpumpman.com, mindpumpman.com, they've got a couple of episodes available for you. One of them

00:02:39.520 talks about the most effective and scientifically supported ways to raise your testosterone. That's going to

00:02:46.000 be really important, obviously. Another one talks about some of the most damaging and stupid,

00:02:51.320 wildly held beliefs about fitness and some of the lies that have permeated the fitness industry.

00:02:57.560 And also their exercise versus diet episode is very good for you. And it's important for your health and

00:03:04.600 how your body looks and how you perform. So check it out. You can go to mindpumpman.com. Again,

00:03:10.220 mindpumpman.com and check out what the guys over at Mind Pump Media are doing. Enjoy that.

00:03:15.860 For now, guys, let me get to the introduction of our guest. He is the one and only Ben Shapiro. He's

00:03:21.740 the host of the Ben Shapiro show. That makes sense. He's also the founder of the Daily Wire. And he is a

00:03:27.420 New York Times bestselling author of books like How to Destroy America and Three Easy Steps and The Right

00:03:32.340 Side of History. You've likely seen a number of his viral videos and probably sit on one side of the

00:03:38.540 fence with regards to him. He pulls no punches. And because of that, he tends to be pretty polarizing

00:03:44.840 in this political commentary space. He runs one of the largest and fastest growing podcasts and news

00:03:51.340 outlets in the country and has really, really made a push lately for engaging in the culture war of

00:03:56.960 America outside of what you might typically consider for a news outlet and its role. So I hope you enjoy

00:04:04.660 this conversation. Ben, what's up, brother? Thanks for joining me on the podcast today.

00:04:10.380 Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

00:04:11.960 Yeah, I've been a longtime follower. I think I've read, I don't know, four or five of your books and

00:04:15.640 then just got done listening to the authoritarian moment. So yeah, this is a pivotal moment in America

00:04:20.720 and just society and culture in general. And I think you've encapsulated pretty well what's

00:04:26.240 going on in culture, which is interesting to say the least. We'll say it that way.

00:04:31.480 Yeah, it's definitely a scary time. I think that most Americans feel like they're under the gun and

00:04:36.000 informally, they certainly are. Maybe sometimes formally, but certainly informally.

00:04:41.000 You say most Americans. It's funny. We seem to be pretty divided, I think. I don't know if you feel

00:04:46.360 like it's equally divided or if you feel like the majority of Americans feel the way that you've

00:04:52.320 outlined and illustrated in the book. But what are your thoughts on that?

00:04:55.640 So by poll data, most Americans do feel as though they are not free to say what they want to say.

00:04:59.880 And that includes people of every single political group except for people who consider themselves to

00:05:03.940 be hard left. So if you're sort of a centrist liberal or a centrist Democrat, there's still

00:05:08.500 certain things where you feel like you're looking over your shoulder or biting your tongue if you

00:05:12.300 want to say them, even though they're not racist or sexist or anything like that. It's just that

00:05:15.680 it's uncomfortable to say stuff around sort of the wokest among us because you're going to be

00:05:20.220 shamed or you're going to be cast out into the outer darkness with the terrible conservatives.

00:05:24.640 And that would be just the end of the world. And so you see that there is this kind of high

00:05:28.720 level of discomfort for most people and having honest conversations about things.

00:05:33.220 Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think if I were to travel the US face to face and meet

00:05:37.640 with people shoulder to shoulder, regardless of what side of the political aisle they sit on,

00:05:41.820 I think we probably have more common, more in common than we have differences or disagreements.

00:05:48.200 But it seems to me that if that's the case by pulling data, that the minority is either the

00:05:56.400 most vocal, the most aggressive, and this majority that you're talking about seems to be afraid in a

00:06:04.300 way of this minority. No, that's right. I mean, it's one of the things I talk about in the book is

00:06:08.260 the process of so-called renormalization. All it takes to change a large group of people from one

00:06:13.540 perspective to another perspective is a very loud, aggressive and intransigent minority and a group

00:06:18.640 of people in the middle who really don't have the stones to stand up to it. And you've seen this

00:06:22.460 happen in a wide variety of institutions. Obviously, this happened in the colleges, but you've seen it

00:06:26.040 happen in corporations a lot right now, where you'll have a group of people who work for the

00:06:30.100 corporation or you'll have the head of diversity and inclusion who decides that they're going to go

00:06:34.280 to the head of the company and say, we want X. And X has to be something that's sort of

00:06:37.720 incremental. It can't be this radical, crazy change. It has to be something that's at least

00:06:41.420 cognizable where you're like, oh, well, you know, that's annoying and that's stupid. But

00:06:45.320 you know, at the same time, is it really worth the fight? And if you do that enough times,

00:06:49.040 you can really move an entire company. You can move an entire population that way.

00:06:53.240 But you do have to be annoying and loud and intransigent and not afraid of alienating people.

00:06:58.020 And certainly when it comes to the left, they've been very successful at that.

00:07:01.020 Well, I wish the right would be more like that in a lot of ways, like not afraid to

00:07:05.260 alienate people. And I don't mean proactively go after people. I just mean,

00:07:11.420 share the opinion loud enough, be vocal enough about it that, hey, we don't care what, like,

00:07:18.200 if you don't like this, that's okay. But I'm still going to share it, whether it's pro-life issues,

00:07:23.160 whether it's religious institutions or beliefs. Like, I don't really care at this point,

00:07:27.560 whether or not you agree with it. But here's what I see as being the problem and correct me if I'm

00:07:31.860 wrong. I've been talking about this for three years now. There are too many people who are not

00:07:38.120 in control enough of their life that they can't be this way. So for example, they're not in charge

00:07:44.120 of their finances enough or financially solvent enough to be able to have some balls and stand

00:07:50.120 up for what they believe is right because they're worried about their paycheck.

00:07:53.020 Yeah. And that's perfectly understandable. I mean, you got to put food on the table for your kids.

00:07:56.400 And if the idea is that if I stand up to my corporation, they're going to fire me,

00:07:59.640 that obviously is a serious consideration. So what I suggest in the book is that you can't act alone.

00:08:04.340 You know, this notion that the individual stands up against the machine and then everything is great

00:08:07.840 and it all works out well. Well, you could end up as tank guy at Tiananmen Square and things don't

00:08:12.780 work out so well for you. So the other thing that you should really consider is the possibility of

00:08:17.800 banding together with others who agree with you. And this is where, you know, social connections

00:08:21.780 really come in. You need to build social connections, the companies you work for. And then,

00:08:25.540 you know, when you walk into your boss's office with a letter that's signed by 20% of the

00:08:30.340 company, that's a lot more, that's going to have a lot more heft than you just walking in and saying,

00:08:35.360 I don't really feel like doing X today. I'm a little out of the loop when it comes to

00:08:39.000 corporate living. I'll say that, you know, it seems to me that if you walk into your boss with

00:08:43.640 a letter of 20 people, if somebody came into me or a group of employees came to me and did that,

00:08:48.920 I would be turned off by that. I don't, I don't know that that's the most appropriate response.

00:08:54.280 Well, it depends on if they've received a letter in the first place from somebody. So you

00:08:57.820 wouldn't initiate this, right? What you would see is that the, there's a letter that, this is very

00:09:02.060 often how it happens. There's a letter that goes to HR, there's a group of people, it's a WhatsApp

00:09:05.180 group, and, and they issue a letter to management. And so issuing a counter letter to management,

00:09:10.200 giving management the excuse to basically take a hands-off policy sometimes can be very welcome.

00:09:14.160 The example that I use is that when Donald McNeil, who was this science writer and editor over at

00:09:19.000 the New York Times, was, when he was fired over essentially nothing because a bunch of wokesters

00:09:23.300 decided that it was very bad that a few years ago, he'd done a high school trip and he had said the N-word on

00:09:27.220 his high school trip to explain different uses of the N-word and when they were particularly wrong

00:09:31.260 versus slightly less wrong, right? He was fired for that. 200 staffers sent a letter to the editor

00:09:36.840 saying, we need this guy to be ousted. There are 1,400 members of the New York Times Guild.

00:09:41.640 Well, what if another 300 members had written a counter letter saying, no, you're really not

00:09:45.060 allowed to fire this guy and he has the right to say what he wants to say, even if we disagree with

00:09:48.100 him, right? Well, how would the management have treated that? Well, now they have a choice,

00:09:51.180 right? They can either alienate the 200 or alienate the 300. So I don't think a letter is

00:09:55.100 necessarily the best way to do it in all circumstances, but approaching the boss with

00:09:59.360 a certain level of support and saying, we don't wish to do this is definitely necessary. It doesn't

00:10:03.660 have to be a handwritten letter signed by 200 employees or something. Yeah. I mean, one thing

00:10:07.420 that I've heard you say quite a bit in the past is, for example, with threatening to pull sponsorships,

00:10:13.820 you'll have a handful of people who are malicious in their intent to sway these corporations. And I know

00:10:20.480 your show as well, which is a handful of complaints. It's amazing to me how weak these employers and

00:10:27.420 heads of organizations and institutions actually are in the wake of three people complaining. I don't

00:10:32.540 get it. Well, it's the incentive structure. So Thomas Sowell writes a lot about this is that

00:10:36.480 we very often think, well, if we just had somebody with more courage in place, then this wouldn't

00:10:40.140 happen. Some of it's about courage, but a lot of it is about the incentive structure. So let's say

00:10:44.180 that you're the person who feels the complaint calls. And most days you get no complaints. You get one

00:10:48.040 complaint, right? Very few. And then one day you get 40 complaints, right? Now, 40 is not a big

00:10:53.320 number, especially if you're talking about like a multinational corporation that does a billion

00:10:56.800 dollars in business. 40 complaints is nothing compared to your actual customer base. But you're

00:11:01.640 the person who is normally fielding one or two phone calls a day. Suddenly you get 40 and you're

00:11:05.480 getting a bunch of tweets and it's not tons of tweets, but it's some. Or let's say it gets really

00:11:08.820 bad and you trend on Twitter. Ooh, trend on Twitter, right? It means 2,000 people have tweeted about you.

00:11:13.480 Your job as that person, as the customer service representative,

00:11:16.540 is to mitigate concerns. And so you only get a pat on the back from your boss if you mitigate the

00:11:21.640 concerns and the calls stop coming. And so if you can just make a quick move and say, you know what,

00:11:26.780 we're not going to advertise on this show. We'll just move our advertising dollars over to this

00:11:29.420 other show, or we'll pause our advertising and that'll shut them up for now. And then later we'll

00:11:33.100 come back. That is an easy way to get people off your back, whether it's your boss, because you're

00:11:37.880 the customer service guy, or whether you are the boss and all you're looking for is to not to have a

00:11:41.940 headline that knocks your stock price temporarily. Avoiding controversy is kind of priority number

00:11:47.180 one for a lot of corporations. And so anytime you can create a controversy, you can create pressure

00:11:51.640 for them to do what you want to do. The left has realized this. The right is going to realize this

00:11:56.080 too. I think that that is not far off. I mean, I'm very much against boycotting. I think that

00:12:01.840 generally speaking, it's bad for the country, unless you have a product that is tied up in the use of

00:12:06.980 the product. So you have restaurants and the restaurant is overtly acting in discriminatory

00:12:12.540 ways than saying, I don't want to, I don't want to go there because they're discriminating against

00:12:16.740 X groups. I'm going to this other restaurant that I understand that's acceptable, but a company that

00:12:22.020 is not discriminating that says, we're going to put ads on daily wire. And we're also going to put

00:12:26.380 ads over at daily coast, right? Yeah. There I'm not a big fan of boycotting, but mutually assured

00:12:32.960 destruction is better than unilateral disarmament. So if the left is going to be pushing

00:12:35.860 corporations into doing what they want, we do have to push back. Yeah, I think that's a great

00:12:39.660 point. And I've thought about that too, especially with mask mandates and vaccine requirements and all

00:12:45.040 this. And I really don't care what side of the aisle you sit on. We can all make our decisions

00:12:49.080 and choose for ourselves and then live with the consequences. But I am very much in agreement

00:12:54.860 with what you're saying about boycotting. I used to verbally complain that that was a leftist strategy,

00:13:00.160 kind of a temper tantrum for adults. But quite honestly, I think that's what the

00:13:05.800 right is going to need to realize and say, oh, okay, well, if you're not going to shop here

00:13:09.240 for whatever reason, then we're not going to shop with you for that reason. And there needs to be

00:13:13.240 some sort of financial incentive or disincentive for making these types of decisions,

00:13:21.100 which is unfortunate because I want to go... The other day I was pumping gas. This was several

00:13:25.820 months ago, whenever Pride Month it was. And I was pumping gas and all the advertisements in the

00:13:31.220 store and at the gas pump were about Pride Month and this and that. I'm like, I'm just here to pump

00:13:35.700 gas. Like I don't... I want to watch a cartoon with my kids. I want to pump gas. I want to get

00:13:39.760 my groceries. And I don't really need you to tell me how I should be viewing or perceiving societal

00:13:45.500 issues. I just need some groceries. Yeah. And I think that unless there's some form of pushback

00:13:50.740 to some of this where people say, listen, you know, we're just, you know, you can do what you want

00:13:55.800 to do. You're free to put all this stuff out, but I'm going to walk across the streets of the

00:13:58.820 market that's not trying to propaganda to my child about how a boy can be a girl. Then, you know,

00:14:03.660 I think that is perfectly justifiable and in fact necessary at this point. Because

00:14:07.220 what the left has learned... So there's this Harvard Business Review study that is really

00:14:11.380 interesting where they created a corporation, a fake corporation called Jones Corp. And they

00:14:15.920 created three iterations of it. One was the left-wing version. One was the non-political version. One was

00:14:21.280 the right-wing version. So the kind of non-political version had approval ratings of say 60%. Then

00:14:27.640 the left-wing version had approval ratings of 60%. So it was the same as the non-political version.

00:14:31.560 As soon as you said the company was right-wing, it dropped by 30%. It went down like 30%. And the

00:14:36.360 reason for that is because everybody on the left immediately perceived the company as morally

00:14:40.020 defective and morally bad. Well, if that's the incentive structure, which is I better be left

00:14:45.700 so that I'm not perceived as right, because this is the other thing the left has done is they've said

00:14:49.200 that if you're neutral, this means that you're right-wing, right? That silence is violence. If you fail

00:14:53.540 to say what we want you to say, you're a member of the bad guy team. And so corporations are saying,

00:14:57.920 okay, well, I can't be perceived as neutral or I'm actually being perceived as right. So

00:15:01.040 in order to be perceived as neutral, I actually have to be left. So their default left-wing

00:15:05.020 on all of these issues, and they're not feeling any sort of significant blowback. Well, unless the

00:15:08.880 right provides a counterweight to that and says, listen, if you're perceived as left-wing,

00:15:13.500 then we're going to not go to your store. Then there's no incentive for these corporations to

00:15:17.080 move back to the apolitical place they should be if they are service providers who are simply

00:15:21.320 providing a good or service to people, regardless of age, sexual orientation, or any of the rest.

00:15:27.080 But how does that experiment line up with what you said earlier, where the majority of people

00:15:32.860 do want to be left alone and don't agree with some of these radical leftist ideologies that are being

00:15:38.580 pushed? Are they just defaulting to middle-of-the-road neutral? It seems to me that there's

00:15:44.140 a discrepancy between what you said earlier and the fact that having a conservative grocery store,

00:15:49.300 whatever the store was, would reduce it by 30% of approval.

00:15:54.260 Well, what you figure is that, let's say that any organization is, say, 20% really leftist,

00:16:00.600 20% conservative, and then there's 60% that's in the middle. And so the right has always engaged in

00:16:06.540 the, we're not going to boycott anybody strategy, right? We're just not involving ourselves in that

00:16:09.760 particular tactic. We're not going to use our 20% to try to renormalize or even counter the left.

00:16:13.980 And so if you only feel pressure from one side, people in the middle tend to cave to that one

00:16:16.900 side. Now, the point that I'm making is that, and so you can renormalize 80% of the organization,

00:16:21.860 even though a solid 80% doesn't agree with you, right? 60 of those 80 will come with you

00:16:28.840 because they just don't want the controversy. They don't want the fight. Only the other 20% won't.

00:16:34.100 And if they're not aggressively fighting back, then the people in the middle have no choice.

00:16:37.300 They're just going to go with whoever is more aggressive. And this is true pretty much everywhere.

00:16:40.840 This is true in military tactics. This is true in economics, right? Wherever the pressure is

00:16:47.020 brought to bear, whatever the incentive structure is, the people who are more aggressive and louder

00:16:50.520 and promise either higher rewards or higher detrimental consequences are going to be able

00:16:55.720 to cow the people in the middle, unless there's something on the other side fighting.

00:16:59.120 Yeah. And so here's an example on a micro level. We have friends and family members who have

00:17:04.720 dietary restrictions. And so we'll have these people over and they'll say, well, we have these

00:17:09.220 dietary restrictions. We're a vegetarian or we're gluten-free or whatever. And I'll tell my wife,

00:17:13.080 Hey, I'm having ribs. Like that's what we're having. We're cooking ribs. If they don't want

00:17:17.980 to eat ribs, they don't have to eat ribs. Don't put it on your plate or you can bring your own food,

00:17:21.760 but I'm having ribs tonight. And it's funny because when my wife and I have that conversation,

00:17:26.660 a lot of times she'll say, Oh, it's no big deal. Right. Cause she's trying to be accommodating and

00:17:31.420 respectful. And then I'm viewed as the jerk who says, no, I'm having ribs. I don't care what you have,

00:17:36.360 bring your own food or don't eat ribs and eat the potatoes. But this is what I'm having. I'm

00:17:40.720 viewed as the jerk when I do that. Right. Because it, because they're only asking for

00:17:44.100 quote unquote tolerance. But the reality is that very often what they're asking for in effect is

00:17:48.600 to set the rules, right? This is the exact example used by Nisim Nicholas Taleb. When it comes to

00:17:53.140 renormalization, he says, you got a family, family of four daughter and the family comes home one day.

00:17:57.500 She says, I want vegan. And now mom has a choice. You can either make one meal that's vegan for the

00:18:01.060 entire family or two meals, one that's vegan for the daughter. And then one that's not vegan for

00:18:04.500 everybody else. Well, very often mom is going to be like, listen, it's a real hassle to make two

00:18:07.940 meals, you know, and she's being a pain in the ass. I get it. But at the same time, I'm not really

00:18:11.620 going to fight her because do I, is it worth the fight? I mean, what am I going to do? Force her

00:18:14.900 not eat vegan? And is it bad that she's eating vegan? And like, and so you get the entire family

00:18:19.260 now living by the daughter's rules. And then the family goes to a barbecue and they say, okay, well,

00:18:23.660 you know what? We can't eat anything that's here. So feel free to make what you want, or you can just,

00:18:28.660 you know, cater for everybody, chips and dip. And the person in charge of the barbecue is like,

00:18:32.240 I don't want to make two meals. I'm just going to do chips and dip. And I got 20 people who are

00:18:34.860 acting in a particular way because one person is intransigent. Honestly. So I agree with you.

00:18:39.620 It's one of the reasons I keep kosher, right? I have severe dietary restrictions. I have never

00:18:43.380 insisted that a meal be ordered for a broad group of people that is entirely kosher. The restriction

00:18:47.980 isn't on them. The restriction is on me. And so I'll always say to them, listen, if you want to get

00:18:51.960 your own food, you a hundred percent can. And you know, there's nothing that, in fact, I kind of feel

00:18:57.160 bad if everybody ends up eating kosher because of me, because they don't have that dietary restriction.

00:19:00.660 Right. Well, and, but we live in this culture where, you know, if, if, if I have a hardship or

00:19:06.260 you have a hardship, then we need to share that broadly. And that's actually something that I see

00:19:11.820 on the right a lot is, and I think it comes from Christian undertones, religious undertones that we

00:19:17.240 want to be communal and we want to look after each other. We want to support each other. And then that

00:19:22.100 ends up being used against us. It seems very simple to just say, you know, I want to have been over

00:19:27.560 with the family. And if that means that I can need to cook differently, I should do that.

00:19:31.180 But the question is, where do you draw the line and where should we draw the line societally between

00:19:35.800 making these sorts of honoring these requests and saying, no, I'm, I'm putting my foot in this,

00:19:43.420 in the, in the ground on that one.

00:19:45.840 Right. I mean, and this is where society has been having a tough time is we've just drawn no lines.

00:19:51.280 And we basically said that no matter what you request, we will give it to you if you are the loudest

00:19:54.940 and if you scream the longest. And there's a difference between, you know, somebody eating

00:19:58.540 vegan and then everybody else eating vegan and somebody suggesting that we now have to be taught

00:20:02.620 at our corporation that all white people are beneficiaries of American privilege and that

00:20:07.420 all the systems of the United States are inevitably biased toward, toward white Americans. That's a very

00:20:12.700 different thing. And so what the left has said, and this is why I say that one of the successes the

00:20:16.940 left has had, and I think now they're, they're overshooting the mark, is that they've been very

00:20:20.200 incremental in their approach. If something feels incremental, you're more likely to go for it.

00:20:23.620 Right. If somebody says to you, you know, what, let's, let's just do vegetarian tonight. You

00:20:28.240 might think, okay, that's not a big deal. If they say we need to do vegetarian the rest of the year,

00:20:31.200 all of a sudden you're going to go, hold up now. That's, that's not okay. Right. Like I'm,

00:20:34.480 I'm not doing that. And so the left, because they have basically had a series of victories

00:20:40.080 without any sort of serious pushback in the social sociocultural level, they've now decided

00:20:44.500 they're just going to push all the way. And I think that's why you're starting to see a lot of

00:20:47.120 blowback. I think that they've, they've actually pushed too hard, too fast. They're no longer incremental.

00:20:50.560 They went from what if like, let's say that, that in the aftermath of black lives matter,

00:20:54.900 they'd said, here are the specific changes we want. We want more funding for mental health care

00:20:58.460 on the streets and social workers to deal with people who are mentally ill. And we want new

00:21:02.680 police training procedures. My guess that the vast majority of Americans would have gone along

00:21:05.900 with that when they went directly to the right. When they went immediately to defund the police,

00:21:10.780 everyone, wait, hold up. What now? Because when you push extreme policies on the back of extreme

00:21:15.940 rhetoric, people start to rebel. And I think the left thought that they were never going to lose

00:21:19.140 again. And I think the pushback has really begun. I think it started with Trump, but I really don't

00:21:23.200 think it's going to end there. But are there underlying threads that we should look for?

00:21:27.180 So let's talk about your example you used in the wake of black lives matter and George Floyd and all

00:21:31.940 of that. You know I don't, I don't think it's unreasonable. In fact, I think most people on the

00:21:36.600 right would say, let's offer our police officers, those who are enforcing the law additional training.

00:21:42.160 I think that's good. I think that's healthy. There's nothing wrong with that.

00:21:44.320 Um, maybe some psychological evaluation or mental health issues, uh, and support.

00:21:50.940 Is there, are there, are there features or facts or

00:21:53.740 things that we should, variables that we should be looking for where it says, wait,

00:21:58.080 that's a red flag. Yes. And so lack of data, lack of data is the big one, right? So when people say

00:22:03.240 things like, let's give police officers more training, the first question out of your mouth

00:22:06.100 should be like, what kind of training? And, uh, have you shown any efficacy?

00:22:09.080 Because if not, then it's just, you came up with an idea out of your head that if we just talk at

00:22:14.280 police officers, it's going to solve it. Like there's certain things that are perfectly obvious

00:22:17.540 where you wouldn't need data per se. If somebody has had five to 10 complaints against them as a

00:22:22.440 police officer that are found, if they're, if they're serious complaints beyond a certain point

00:22:25.740 that are found to be justified by the police department, then there's a list that basically

00:22:30.340 goes around to all the police departments of these are the bad cops. I think that's an obvious one

00:22:33.560 because there you're talking about the same thing that you would do with regard to a criminal,

00:22:36.920 right? Or that you would do with regard to a bad employee. The word gets around. You don't hire

00:22:40.300 the person who's a bad employee. When you're talking about things like training, that's a

00:22:44.060 buzzword. So what exactly does training mean? Deliberate vagueness is a real red flag. So when

00:22:48.460 people say things like, we need new police training, our first move should be, okay, what kind of

00:22:52.440 training are we talking about? Are we talking implicit bias training, which is a bunch of crap?

00:22:55.540 Or are we talking about differential use of force training because the use of force training that

00:23:00.380 they've been doing so far leads too fast to an escalation of violence, right? We need to be very

00:23:04.780 specific. Specificity is the best friend of clarity, which in turn can be the best friend

00:23:11.740 of agreement. But I think that very often what happens is that we want agreement right off the

00:23:16.100 bat. So we pick some sort of vague term that sounds good. And then later when we fill in all

00:23:18.980 the details, it turns out to be really bad policy. Well, I think social media also exacerbates that

00:23:24.560 problem because you have 140 characters to make a point and specificity is something that isn't

00:23:30.480 done well within a tweet or an Instagram post. No, for sure. And not only that, there's a reward

00:23:36.040 online for the more kind of radical you are. So if you say something like, you know, what Tim Scott

00:23:41.060 said, here are a few kind of key changes that we can make with regard to policing that I think will

00:23:44.760 improve the quality of policing. It's easy for a Democrat to just say, yeah, well, he didn't defund

00:23:50.620 the police. And then you get all of these kind of Twitterati cheering for you for being a crazy

00:23:55.860 radical person. Now, Twitter is not real life. And this is the part that's so amazing about our

00:23:59.840 current political incentive structure is that so much is being driven by Twitter because human

00:24:04.640 attention spans are drawn to where the action is and to where you can see things. Right. We don't

00:24:09.300 every every person is basically the proverbial drunk looking under the lamppost for his keys

00:24:13.500 that they must be here because this is where the light is. And so if the only things that you can

00:24:18.240 read that politicians are saying are on Twitter and it's quick and it's easy to access, we're going to

00:24:22.800 tend to think that that is reflective of the real world when in fact it is not

00:24:25.720 representative of the real world at all. It's the mistake Biden's made, right? He ran

00:24:29.240 as a non-Twitter candidate and he's governing as a Twitter president. That's a huge mistake by him.

00:24:33.920 So where do you go to get that information? I mean, it'd be easy to say, well, go to the Ben

00:24:37.480 Shapiro show or go to Legacy Media and go to these outlets. But I think you can find just as much of a

00:24:42.340 problem in any of those outlets as you can on Twitter. I mean, all of this information is

00:24:46.140 misconstrued and misrepresented. I mean, unfortunately, it's very time consuming. It's really time

00:24:49.920 consuming. So when you say trusted outlet, you have to find somebody who you think is actually

00:24:53.600 presenting you with enough data and enough data on both sides that you actually can make a decision

00:24:58.980 or a person who's willing to acknowledge the limitations of the data that they are presenting

00:25:02.620 and give you the sources for what they're saying. But yeah, it requires more work than most people

00:25:07.640 are willing to put in, which is again, why you end up with a situation in which a radical minority

00:25:11.300 can command a majority. The majority just does not have the time to put in that kind of time.

00:25:15.860 The radical activists on Twitter are spending all day long on Twitter. They're spending all day long

00:25:20.120 on these issues. If you're, you know, Joe the plumber, you're not doing that, right? You're

00:25:24.580 going out and you're working a day job. And then at night, you might put on like a podcast for a few

00:25:28.100 minutes to entertain yourself, but you're certainly not going to be digging into the stats. This is why

00:25:32.700 opinion leaders matter. And it's why we, I mean, I think that we'd need a better class of opinion

00:25:37.240 leaders. I think very often the people who are opinion leaders don't know what the hell they're

00:25:39.800 talking about, or at least don't even acknowledge that they're speaking out of ignorance on a lot of

00:25:43.760 issues. Well, I mean, opinion leaders is really just opinion entertainers, right? The more

00:25:48.120 entertaining we can be, the more society will, like you were saying earlier, cling to that,

00:25:52.560 listen to that, pay attention. Even the guy who comes home and has an hour on his way from work

00:25:56.900 to his house is going to turn on a podcast, but it's going to be something that already reaffirms

00:26:01.340 what he currently believes. He's not going to be looking for information that challenges his

00:26:06.920 current ideology or thought process. I mean, the siloing of information is really a major problem.

00:26:13.540 Unfortunately, that siloing is getting worse. Some of it is driven, again, by these algorithms

00:26:17.240 that are pushing you toward things that you like clicking on, which is typically stuff you agree

00:26:20.840 with. But a lot of it is also driven by the fact that the media have self-siloed. You get punished

00:26:25.420 in the mainstream media for even having a conversation across the other side of the aisle.

00:26:28.760 So the bigger the outlet is on the left, the less likely they are to actually have, like,

00:26:33.820 there's not a single person who voted for Trump on the editorial masthead of the New York Times.

00:26:38.260 There's not a single op-ed writer for the New York Times who voted for Trump. Half the country voted

00:26:41.200 for Trump. That's an absurdity. I can't name a single Republican commentator on CNN who's a regular

00:26:47.880 guest who voted for Trump. If they are, they're usually used as the object of, you know, point

00:26:53.020 and laugh. But none of that is representative. So it's a real problem. And that is a deliberate

00:26:59.420 choice by these outlets. I mean, these outlets don't have to do that. They've decided they do not

00:27:03.240 want to give a voice to a particular segment of the population, which, of course, is driving more siloing

00:27:06.780 because then those people go, okay, well, if I can't get it from CNN, I will go over to Daily

00:27:10.840 Wire or Daily Caller or Breitbart. Do you think they're doing it because they don't want to give

00:27:14.620 a voice to the other side or are they doing it because they know their audience and what they'll

00:27:19.200 react to and respond to? I mean, I think it's some of both. But I think that mostly it is that

00:27:26.200 the people at the top of the food chain at these companies really do not believe that there is a

00:27:30.260 legitimate other side. You see this openly said by many of the quote-unquote top journalists today.

00:27:34.980 Wesley Lowry famously said this. He said, well, you know, the sort of both sides-ism, the sense

00:27:39.240 that you have to say both sides of the story. Well, what if one side is just right and one side is

00:27:42.820 just wrong? I was like, well, unless the question is what is the answer to 2 plus 2, very often it's

00:27:48.760 going to be a question of perspective. So as soon as you rule out a mainstream perspective, I say

00:27:52.980 mainstream, I mean positions carried by at least half the American population, you should really be

00:27:58.520 thinking to yourself that you're disconnected, but they don't. Instead, it's how dare we even present

00:28:02.400 that position. This famously happened most obviously with regard to Tom Cotton's op-ed in

00:28:06.700 the New York Times last year where he prints an op-ed that by polling data is popular with the

00:28:11.280 American public, which is if there is a giant riot in your town and local police can't handle it,

00:28:15.580 declare use of the Insurrection Act and send in the feds. And this turned into the editor who put

00:28:21.860 that piece up was fired. How dare he? How dare he even think of the possibility of printing a piece

00:28:28.720 like that? It's just bad. You can't give that sort of credence to views. Now, listen, I agree

00:28:32.880 that an Overton window exists of acceptable viewpoint. I'm not going to pretend there's no

00:28:35.800 such thing as an Overton window of views that are sort of mainstream. But my idea of what is a

00:28:41.380 mainstream view is a lot broader than the mainstream media's idea, which is like the range of ideas for

00:28:45.580 the mainstream is basically Bill Kristol on the right to Bernie Sanders on the left. That's sort of

00:28:52.020 the mainstream of opinion. Now, you'll notice that that leaves out half the American population.

00:28:55.760 I think that obviously there are people who granting legitimacy to particular viewpoints

00:29:01.680 in order to, you know, in order to wink at broadness of your tolerance for viewpoints,

00:29:10.920 there are limits to that. For example, I think that it's wrongheaded for the New York Times to

00:29:14.480 be printing articles from the propaganda pieces from the Taliban. I think that's a mistake or from

00:29:19.460 the Iranian government. But they obviously don't think that the problem with the New York Times,

00:29:22.820 they're fine printing propaganda pieces from the Taliban. It's only if you write an editorial

00:29:26.200 talking about gun rights that you got a problem.

00:29:28.820 Yeah, I think I think the priorities are a little backwards, definitely on that one,

00:29:32.340 because there are issues at home that we need to worry about or address that aren't as

00:29:36.060 catastrophic as what the people of Afghanistan are facing currently. And yet we're promoting that,

00:29:42.200 but not talking about gun rights or abortion or any of these other things at home.

00:29:45.600 Yeah, I mean, I also think that there's a generalized, just radical disconnect. There's

00:29:52.020 a good piece by Thomas Edsel in the New York Times, you know, another not right wing columnist,

00:29:55.600 but going through the fact that the modern American political landscape is characterized by a left that

00:30:00.720 is far more intolerant than the right is, and is far less willing to have conversations with people

00:30:04.940 with whom they disagree.

00:30:05.560 Man, I just got to take a break from the conversation very, very quickly, then we'll get

00:30:10.740 back to it. I made a few posts on social media the other day about our barn and the upcoming

00:30:15.680 events that we have. And I've had a lot of messages from you guys about when our next events are and

00:30:21.820 with winter fast approaching here in Maine, we're probably closing down our events for the season,

00:30:26.460 but we will have next year's dates available very, very quickly. So if you want to learn more

00:30:31.640 about these events, we're meeting face-to-face, getting together with other men, we're doing

00:30:35.560 father-son events, we might do a father-daughter event next year. Then I want you to be notified

00:30:40.380 when we make those event dates available. You can do that by signing up for our emails at

00:30:46.140 orderofman.com. Again, sign up for the emails at orderofman.com and you're going to be the first

00:30:52.160 one to be notified, which is important because all of our events do sell out and they have been

00:30:56.040 selling out for years. So if you want your ticket, that's what you got to do. You can go to

00:30:59.360 orderofman.com, sign up for our newsletter, our emails, and you will be notified when we have

00:31:04.240 those dates available. All right, guys, do that after the conversation for now, I'll get back to

00:31:08.680 it with Ben. Well, you talk about the Overton window, but there's also this, this fallacy of

00:31:14.080 the, you know, the slippery slope fallacy, which I think at this point, correct me if you think I'm

00:31:18.700 wrong, that that, that as a fallacy has been debunked. To me, it seems like the slippery slope is a very

00:31:25.300 real thing. And we need to be aware of not only what's happening now, but what comes next off the

00:31:30.200 back of the policies and thought processes and general views about culture and society.

00:31:37.220 So I will say that when people use the quote unquote slippery slope argument, very often,

00:31:40.820 they're not actually making a slippery slope argument. Very often, they are saying that the

00:31:44.000 same principle that you are applying to this applies to other circumstances. A slippery slope

00:31:47.380 argument is that if we allow X, then Y will inevitably follow. Well, maybe it won't, right? That's the

00:31:54.160 slippery slope fallacy. But what if the principle that you are espousing includes Y, right? So,

00:31:59.380 so for example, let's say that to take a perfect example of what is not a slippery slope argument,

00:32:03.380 let's say that you've redefined marriage to mean two people who love each other. Okay. That's not a

00:32:07.620 slippery slope from traditional marriage to gay marriage. That's just a definition that includes

00:32:10.840 the possibility of gay marriage. Sure. Right. The minute that you definitely, you broaden the

00:32:14.080 definition, it includes the possibility of same-sex marriage. This happens all the time in politics.

00:32:18.180 And when you point out that the principle as, as defined includes a bunch of really bad

00:32:24.120 things, then people say it's a slippery slope. That's not a slippery slope argument. So if you,

00:32:27.280 for example, say, you know what? The argument that's currently being made with regard to trans

00:32:30.500 ideology is that children have full autonomy to define their sexual identity at very young ages. And

00:32:37.220 that is a really dangerous thing because now that that's a principle broad enough to include things

00:32:41.040 like sexual activity itself, like pedophilia. Sure. That's not a slippery slope argument.

00:32:45.340 That's saying you need to be a lot more specific in your definitions or you are definitionally

00:32:48.800 including the possibility in sexual identity of sexual activity. And that is not, again,

00:32:54.700 I'm not saying that if you believe that children need to define their own gender, this means you're

00:32:58.740 in favor of pedophilia. I'm saying that if you are arguing that children are capable of defining their

00:33:03.040 own sexual identity up to and including sexual activity, that includes sexual activity, right?

00:33:07.600 By definition. Sure. And so I think that the slippery slope fallacy is a fallacy. I just think that

00:33:12.120 half of what people call a slippery slope fallacy is not actually a slippery slope.

00:33:15.280 Hmm. I guess that's a good point. I guess what most people would say is that they believe what

00:33:22.780 might come next because of the precedent that's being set. But I think what you're saying is that's

00:33:27.140 more of an Overton window shifting left to right based on what policies are being implemented or what

00:33:33.280 culture believes generally. Right. I'm saying that the argument that people are making generally

00:33:38.020 encompasses a lot. It's what we would call in law school an argument that proves too much.

00:33:41.120 So in order to make an argument in favor of this specific policy, I'm going to make an argument that

00:33:46.060 includes a vast panorama of other policies. Right. And so in order to make an argument, for example, for

00:33:51.160 why we need to be better in our policing, I make the argument that America is every institution in America

00:33:56.720 is rife with racism. That is an argument that is well beyond the police departments of the United States.

00:34:03.680 Of course. And now it encompasses a wide variety of things. So it's not a slippery slope to say at

00:34:07.620 that point, okay, well, the principle that you just established also covers this wide variety of

00:34:12.320 other circumstances. And so that argument is just too broad. It's wrong, it's too broad, and it's ugly.

00:34:18.840 But you see that kind of argument used all the time. And then when you point out the other

00:34:21.760 ramifications of the argument, they say, well, we don't mean that. It's like, well, if you don't mean that,

00:34:25.620 then you need a better definition. It's included. Right. It's just included.

00:34:28.440 You're ordering the Big Mac and the Big Mac includes the lettuce and it includes the tomato and it includes

00:34:34.180 the pickles. You can't, if I say, okay, you just ordered a Big Mac, that includes the pickles. You can't say,

00:34:38.780 well, I didn't mean the pickles. You have to explicitly exclude the pickles. Otherwise, you're ordering the

00:34:43.060 whole package. Yeah. And I think that's by design generally is make this as broad as possible so that, yes,

00:34:48.800 we're going to hit on this particular issue, but we also want to in a year or two years or whenever it may be,

00:34:53.600 be able to hit on these other issues. And this will be included in what we're talking about now.

00:34:57.720 Uh, even though it may not be explicitly, uh, represented today.

00:35:02.440 Yeah. And I feel like that's half my job is to make the, the arguments that are implicit

00:35:05.940 in a broad panoramic principle, not latent, but overt, right? I want, I want to say, okay,

00:35:13.460 well, this is the ramification of the argument that you're making, right? I'm not saying that it,

00:35:17.280 that you have to believe that, but that is a ramification of what you're saying.

00:35:20.960 Well, and the, and the problem with making it so broad is that you can't isolate and really get to

00:35:24.700 the root of the problem. This goes back to what you were saying about, uh, defunding the police

00:35:28.620 and police officers need additional training. Okay. Well that actually that they need training

00:35:32.680 that actually might be true, but what kind of training? And then if we get specific with a

00:35:38.080 definition, then we can isolate the exact problem and work exactly on that thing that I think a lot

00:35:45.880 of people would probably agree with. Right. And I think that part of the issue right now is that

00:35:51.020 in politics, it's always easy to define a problem extremely broadly because that allows you a wide

00:35:56.160 variety of solutions that you now get to try. And you see this all the time, right? There's a sort

00:36:00.920 of semantic overload that is commonly used in politics and is really quite dangerous. So to

00:36:06.140 take up, uh, the best example of the last couple of years, the term black lives matter means three

00:36:10.680 distinct and separate things. And yet it is used as a blanket term to mean any of the three or none of

00:36:15.220 the three, right? So black lives matter can mean the perfectly obvious proposition that black lives matter,

00:36:19.360 right? Like black people shouldn't be killed. All of us agree on this. I think everybody agrees on that.

00:36:23.800 Yes. Every single human agrees on this with the exception of some truly evil white supremacists.

00:36:27.940 Okay. Principle number two is black lives matter is an organization with a specific board and with a specific

00:36:33.240 set of principles, right? That you can find at the black lives matter website, slide by people like

00:36:38.100 Patrice colors, people who openly acknowledge their Marxist and, and the people who organize these rallies

00:36:42.960 very often are members or administrators at black lives matter, the organization. And then finally black lives

00:36:48.580 matter. It can mean the very arguable proposition that in America, black life is devalued and, and

00:36:53.420 people generally are more willing to watch black people suffer than to watch other people suffer,

00:36:57.520 which I think is an extremely arguable proposition. Well, you've seen that as soon as somebody attacks

00:37:02.420 one of the propositions, there'll be a retreat to one of the less arguable propositions. So if you say,

00:37:07.520 okay, I disagree with the third iteration of this, right? I disagree with the idea that black people

00:37:11.360 are generally seen as lesser in the United States and that people in the United States don't care about

00:37:15.240 black life. I just don't think that's true. I think most Americans deeply care about black life in the

00:37:19.160 same way they care about Mexican life or, or Jewish life or Asian life or any other form of life in

00:37:24.580 the United States. You say that, and then they go, well, okay, but, but what, what, that, that's,

00:37:29.800 that's not correct. What you, you're, you're just denying that black lives matter. So if you say all

00:37:33.180 lives matter in rebuttal to that third point, they'll go, no, no, no, all lives is not specific

00:37:36.720 enough. Black lives matter. Are you saying that black, and you're saying, wait, no, all includes black.

00:37:40.200 They say, right, but that's not what we mean. What we actually mean is the movement. There's always this kind of

00:37:44.080 game that's being played. It's, it's the shell game where they'll create a definition. It's not

00:37:49.200 specific. And then they'll just start moving the pieces around. This happens with gender all the

00:37:53.400 time, right? They'll say like, oh, you're not a woman. You can't sound off on abortion. And I go,

00:37:57.500 well, yes, but I was informed that some men have babies. Men can be women, right? Sure. Men can be

00:38:02.340 women. And they'll say, yes, but not biologically. You say, right, but that's my argument. And they'll say,

00:38:06.900 yes, but you know, just because that's your argument, that's because you don't understand gender.

00:38:10.180 And you say, no, I do understand gender and gender is connected to sex. And no, gender is completely disconnected

00:38:13.960 from sex. Say, okay. So then they're just an effeminate biological man, as opposed to a

00:38:17.800 masculine biological woman. Say, no, no, no, no. You're a man or a woman, right? And you've gone

00:38:21.640 full circle. It's, um, it's a brilliant tactic, you know, and it, and it, and it fools a lot of

00:38:26.600 people. The best analogy I've ever heard or used is it's like, uh, running the triple option in

00:38:31.560 football. You know, you have the quarterback run off to the right and he's going to read the defense

00:38:35.480 and see what it does. And he can either keep it, he can pitch it, or he can pass it depending on what

00:38:40.180 his read is. And that's what these individuals are doing. You know, they're going to run the

00:38:43.780 option, figure out what the defense is doing. Oh, okay, cool. They're going after a runner.

00:38:47.660 I'm going to keep it and run the ball that way. And they shift as needed to fit their narrative

00:38:51.680 or whatever it is they're trying to pan, uh, ram through.

00:38:54.300 Well, this is why I think that, you know, for conservatives is very frustrating because

00:38:57.380 we're always looking for consistency, right? We're always like, okay, so what's the consistent

00:39:01.060 through line here? And you have to understand at a certain point, it's not about consistency.

00:39:04.320 It's about power, which is honestly, it shouldn't be a revelation to us because they openly

00:39:08.140 say this sort of stuff, right? These are the same people who say that all language is just a power

00:39:12.660 game, right? This is Foucault. These are the same people who will say that economics is just a power

00:39:16.600 game. That's Marx, right? That all of their principles are rooted in the idea that institutions,

00:39:20.620 common language, arguments, all of this is just a cover for power dynamics. Well, they treat all

00:39:25.580 these things the same way that they see them, which is these are institutions for power dynamics.

00:39:29.960 But are they not? I mean, really what we're trying to-

00:39:32.280 I mean, no, they shouldn't be. I mean, there should be such a thing as an objective language that we can

00:39:35.540 actually communicate with. Otherwise it's going to make voting pretty difficult. What the hell are we voting?

00:39:39.420 Yeah, I agree. But also let's just take, let's just assume for a second that we have objective

00:39:44.080 language. We should, that all of us agree that this means this, this means that, but don't we use

00:39:49.020 those features to create power in our own lives to get ahead? And I don't mean that has to come at

00:39:57.200 the expense of other people, but aren't we all trying to get ahead? I mean, I think it is true

00:40:01.220 that all human beings are attempting to maximize self-interest to a certain extent. I don't

00:40:05.840 think it's universally true. I mean, you've got your kids, right? There are people that you care

00:40:08.620 about who are not you, but that may be true. That does not mean that the definitions of the

00:40:13.340 verbiage can change or should be changed on the, like there are rules to the game, right?

00:40:17.520 Everybody in the football game that you're referring to is at least playing under a set

00:40:21.920 of guidelines. If the rules include that at any given point, I can take out a rocket propelled

00:40:27.060 grenade and just fire it at the quarterback, then there are no rules, right? Then you're, or now

00:40:32.300 you're playing Calvin ball, right? That the rules just change routinely and at whim. And that's the

00:40:37.160 problem. If you want to make an argument that you can use language as a weapon in order to

00:40:40.520 cudgel me into a corner, if you can make a better argument, I mean, that's what arguing is. That's

00:40:43.940 what discussion is. If you can, if you can mobilize and, and, uh, and create a better argument than my

00:40:49.260 argument, then you should win. But if your version of the argument is, I'm just going to completely

00:40:54.940 twist the language to mean something different based on my needs at this given time, then you are

00:41:00.640 playing Calvin ball. And that's, that's using language as an institute, as a, as a weapon of power,

00:41:04.800 rather than as a, as a consistent rule of the game, right? There, there have to be some rules of the

00:41:10.320 game that we all abide by. And one of those is using words that have definitions.

00:41:13.420 I agree. I completely agree with that. My, my contention is that I think there's a lot of people

00:41:19.580 out there who mean well, who think that using language or using the current system or, uh, tax

00:41:29.060 codes is a great, you know, I made a post not too long ago about paying my fair share of tax. And,

00:41:33.680 and I think it was judge learning hand who said, you know, there's nothing sinister about paying

00:41:37.200 your fair share of taxes and nothing more. And then you have people who say, well, you know,

00:41:41.020 you're just, you're manipulating the system. No, I'm using the system as it is written to my

00:41:47.000 advantage. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. And some people think that's

00:41:52.220 manipulation or that's abuse of the system, or you're, you're doing that at the expense of other

00:41:56.380 people. And that's the point that I'm trying to make.

00:41:58.660 Yeah, no, I agree with that. And, but, but again, I think that the reason that you are correct

00:42:01.860 and they are wrong is because there are rules to the game. You're just pointing to the rules

00:42:05.100 and saying, I'm implementing the rules, right? If you said to them, no, you know what? My fair

00:42:08.800 share of tax is less than my actual legal burden of taxation. So I am going to just tax evade,

00:42:15.940 right? I'm just going to embezzle right now. You're not playing by the rules of the game anymore.

00:42:19.020 You'll go to jail. So that's not, that's not avoidance. That's tax evasion. There's a difference

00:42:23.280 between the two. Right? Exactly. And, and if people don't like, and my point is that if you don't

00:42:27.240 like the rules, I mean, we have systems for changing those rules that we have also agreed on,

00:42:30.440 right? We've agreed on a system of institutions for changing the institutions. If you decide that

00:42:34.300 you want to destroy those institutions, then you're now operating outside the rules of the game.

00:42:38.720 If you're going to have a polity, there have to be rules of the game.

00:42:42.140 Agreed. And we have to agree on what those rules are. Just like in football, we have a third party

00:42:47.620 referees come in and they're administering. We believe so much in the rules that we have a third

00:42:53.260 party to come in and administer and also give punishment if we fall outside of those rules.

00:42:57.940 And it also, the referee is a good example, actually, because ideally you wouldn't need

00:43:02.880 a referee, right? Ideally, like if you have, if you have a situation where there are high bonds of

00:43:07.640 social trust, you don't need the referee nearly as much, right? Very often you'll play a pickup

00:43:11.080 basketball game or something and there's no ref, right? You call your own fouls. There's a certain

00:43:14.580 level of baseline trust that, you know, you're not going to call a foul just to be a jerk. You're not

00:43:18.540 going to try to get away with the ticky tack move. You're not going to step out of bounds and not call

00:43:21.600 it on yourself, right? But that, that relies on a high level of social cohesion. And as we have lacked social

00:43:26.300 cohesion more and more in the United States, you need outside referees who are coming in and adjudicating

00:43:29.880 this stuff more and more, which is dangerous in and of itself. Because very often the referees turn

00:43:33.340 out to be a member of one team or the other team, which is a problem.

00:43:35.840 Sure. Sure. So you're talking about this social cohesion. So how do you develop that? I mean,

00:43:43.060 obviously I think it starts in the home. I think it starts within the borders of your neighborhood

00:43:46.620 and community, but how do you develop and foster that in a culture that seems so divided

00:43:53.040 with these forces at work against us and, and working to keep us divided, I believe.

00:43:59.900 So it has to be ground up. You're exactly right. It has to be ground up. You're starting to see

00:44:03.400 this really play out in some interesting ways in terms of resorting, you know, people politically

00:44:09.640 sorting. Like I moved from California to Florida. My company moved from California to Nashville.

00:44:14.460 People who are moving to areas where they find people who live like they do, think like they do,

00:44:19.480 share many of the values that they do. And I can tell you, it's a lot less stressful. I lived in

00:44:23.940 California my entire life and moving to Florida is a godsend. It's wonderful. I'm surrounded by

00:44:28.200 people who, if they don't think like I do, they're at least within the ballpark. Even if they're

00:44:32.640 Democrats, they tend to be more moderate Democrats. I live in a religious community with people who

00:44:36.300 agree with me generally about values. You know, all of that makes a huge difference in my life.

00:44:42.460 And the idea of federalism was exactly this, right? Was that you were going to build social

00:44:46.120 cohesion at the very low level? There was not going to be high level of social cohesion at the

00:44:49.440 national level. At the national level, that's why there could only be a couple of rules, right?

00:44:53.620 There are very few rules. They were supposed to be very clear. And those rules were supposed to

00:44:58.260 kind of operate at 30,000 foot level. They weren't supposed to be granular and down in your life.

00:45:02.900 And as the federal government has grown, there's no question that the growth of the federal

00:45:06.360 government has undermined a lot of the social cohesion in local communities because you're

00:45:10.640 actually getting people from outside your community setting rules for your community itself,

00:45:14.640 which is pretty dangerous stuff. Do you see any negative consequences or drawbacks

00:45:19.040 of, I was going to say isolation, that's not the right word, but for example, you moving from

00:45:24.680 California to Florida and gathering together with people that believe like you, that act like you,

00:45:29.740 that have similar beliefs and value systems. Do you see any negative consequences for the country

00:45:36.060 in that at mass? I mean, yes. I mean, the danger obviously is that people stop talking to people on the

00:45:42.620 other side and then you stop seeing each other as members of any polity at all, right? The idea of

00:45:46.980 federalism is that you're most loyal to your family, then you're most loyal to your very local

00:45:51.200 community, then the broader community, then your state, then the feds, right? That was sort of the

00:45:54.620 basic idea of the federalist papers. And it's talked about pretty openly there. And the idea was over

00:45:58.800 time, you might shift your loyalty to the broader federal government as opposed to the state, but you

00:46:02.560 were never going to shift your loyalty from your very local community to the federal government,

00:46:05.880 right? That was probably unlikely and certainly not from your family to the federal government.

00:46:09.320 The idea behind that was that actually, you know, the good neighbors, good fences make good neighbors

00:46:17.020 idea was the idea that as long as there was nobody implementing, you know, some sort of standard that

00:46:21.260 forced my neighbor to do what I wanted them to do, we could live next door to each other because we

00:46:25.500 weren't bothering each other. As government generally gets more intrusive, and this is true

00:46:29.540 locally as well as federally, you have to be a little more intrusive locally because people literally

00:46:33.380 live together and because you have to set some standards for how you want your community to be

00:46:36.560 governed for children particularly. As government gets more and more burdensome, as regulations get

00:46:42.540 higher and higher, people tend to flee. People tend to say, I don't want to live in this particular

00:46:46.260 situation. And then if you're surrounded by people who think like you, you tend to think that anybody

00:46:50.160 who doesn't is outside that Overton window. So yeah, as sorting goes on, there will be more and more

00:46:55.700 divisions in American life. It's not going to bring people together. The only way to bridge that gap

00:46:59.260 eventually is a sort of almost old school European commission, weak, weakly tied federal

00:47:07.560 infrastructure. But the United States is well beyond that at this point, obviously.

00:47:11.820 Yeah. I mean, so, so I guess that begs the question, do you see this being some sort of in

00:47:16.140 the, in the future, some sort of splitter division within the country, or even a civil war scenario where

00:47:22.400 we have one side that believes one way and another side that believes a completely different way?

00:47:26.260 How does this play out over the long haul?

00:47:28.060 You know, very hard to see. It would not surprise me at all if you saw the country really begin to

00:47:33.040 fragment. If you see, you know, the south of the United States, which seems to have a lot of

00:47:37.460 shared values in terms of religion, in terms of how they want to bring up their kids, even in terms

00:47:41.860 of economics, start to say, yeah, we're not, we're not interested in whatever federal cram down you're

00:47:46.440 proposing today. I think that so long as there's divided government, so long as the American people

00:47:51.300 are able to have a Republican administration, then a Democrat administration, then a Republican

00:47:55.440 administration, I think that'll be staved off. But the truth is that the permanent state, meaning

00:47:59.760 the bureaucracy is oriented toward the left, as that continues to grow, and as these sort of cradle

00:48:05.000 to grave mandatory welfare programs take place, you're going to start seeing people looking for

00:48:10.540 a Brexit scenario. You're going to start seeing the Floridas of the world saying, you know, we really

00:48:14.320 don't need the feds the way you think that we need you. We can go our own way. And then the question

00:48:19.240 becomes, what's the inciting incident? Because if it's just taxation, then there are ways to kind of

00:48:25.440 move around that. If it's some sort of economic issue, then probably some settlement gets worked

00:48:31.400 out. But if it, let's say that it gets to something really grave and personal. So let's say

00:48:35.000 that it gets to the point where the federal government has decided that it is an active

00:48:39.360 harm. And you're going to see this in California soon, that the federal government has decided

00:48:43.080 that it is an active harm for you to educate your child in traditional values, because those values

00:48:47.460 are not tolerant of alternative sexual orientations and lifestyles. And so the federal government

00:48:51.600 says, we are going to make sure that no school in the United States can be accredited on the federal

00:48:57.060 level or respected across state lines, unless it follows these procedures, or it loses all 501c3

00:49:02.520 status. And people just keep sending their kids to those schools. And so the federal government says,

00:49:06.480 you're now violating the Constitution of the United States under the Equal Protection Clause,

00:49:09.400 and we're sending troops, right? You could see inciting incidents like that, where things get

00:49:13.580 truly ugly, because they're well outside the purview of the federal government. And when that

00:49:20.440 happens, you know, I don't, I think the possibility of serious armed conflict within the United States

00:49:25.320 is very low and remains very low. I think that there will be awkward things that are worked out. And

00:49:29.880 the federal government very often tends to back off in the face of state pressure. You've seen this

00:49:34.600 repeatedly from both left and right. But yeah, I can't predict anything beyond the fact that the

00:49:39.360 tensions are going to get worse. And they're going to have to be some pretty creative workarounds

00:49:42.360 as the United States begins to fragment, because there's going to be this vacillation on a federal

00:49:47.740 level between a very grasping federal government that wants more control as it sees the star system

00:49:52.880 slipping through its fingers, and a federal government that says, okay, we need to give these

00:49:55.920 people a little bit less of a burdensome top down control regimes that they stick around.

00:50:01.220 And I think this falls on both sides of the political spectrum, too. I don't think this is

00:50:04.820 exclusive to one side of the aisle. I think they all want power, it seems like to me. Yeah. So here's,

00:50:10.960 here's a bit of the thing I've been wrestling with my own mind, because I moved here several years ago

00:50:16.200 with my wife and family to rural Maine, because, you know, partly we want to be left alone, and we

00:50:20.260 want to live our lives, and we want to have some property, and we want to do what we see fit.

00:50:24.540 We are now homeschooling our kids, and we have been for the past just over two years. And I wrestle with

00:50:30.560 me, I wouldn't say retreating, but me coming here and living my life and leading my family the way that

00:50:37.820 I want. But also, what is my obligation to the state? What is my, I'm talking about moral

00:50:44.420 responsibility and obligation to the country? Like, how do I find that balance between being

00:50:50.680 involved and also just leading my life the way that I see fit?

00:50:54.980 Well, I mean, I think that your first obligation, and mine too, every parent's first obligation is to

00:50:59.280 their children. And so protecting your kid and creating a bubble around your kid of values that

00:51:04.400 you think are valuable for them to be inculcated with is obligation number one, and that can't

00:51:08.600 be compromised by any sort of, quote unquote, national obligation. As far as your obligation

00:51:13.160 to, you know, the future betterment of the United States, I mean, I think that's why we all have to

00:51:16.720 speak out. I think it's why we have to mobilize on a political level. I think all those fights are

00:51:20.480 worth fighting. But I don't think that, for example, you know, when I was in California, I don't think

00:51:25.140 I had an obligation to send my kids to public school because, you know, my kids were going to fight the

00:51:29.500 fight against the school teachers and their union. Like, I think, I hear that all the time.

00:51:34.680 And that there are fights that are that are worth fighting, and there are fights that are not worth

00:51:38.520 fighting. And none of those fights do I think the children really ought to be used as tools

00:51:41.780 for social control. I think that that's a huge mistake. So, yeah, that's, you know, these are

00:51:47.920 governing principles. I, by the way, I think that this is also one of the deep problems in the United

00:51:51.620 States right now is there's a vast gap that has emerged between people who have a lot of kids and

00:51:56.260 people who don't. And, you know, we're sort of missing this. But there is a parent, a parenting

00:52:02.860 society and a non-parenting society. And I make the distinction between lots of kids and few kids

00:52:09.140 as opposed to lots of kids and no kids. Because I think, frankly, that there are some kids, there

00:52:14.720 are some parents who almost treat their kids like a purse. This is not everybody who has one kid.

00:52:21.760 Obviously, there are tons of parents who have one kid.

00:52:23.880 I agree with that. More of an adornment or decoration.

00:52:25.400 Yeah. I mean, there are tons of parents who have one kid and they do so for a variety of reasons.

00:52:29.780 And they're wonderful parents and the kids come out great and all of that. But there is a tendency

00:52:33.520 in big blue cities to have two dogs and a kid as opposed to three or four kids. And I think that

00:52:38.780 is indicative of a sort of cultural lifestyle choice that manifests in parenting style as well.

00:52:44.240 Yeah. So, you would say a lot of kids is three or four. Is that what you're saying?

00:52:47.600 What is your definition by having a lot of kids?

00:52:49.680 Yeah. I think above replacement rate would be probably a lot of kids.

00:52:52.060 Which is what? I don't know what that is.

00:52:55.440 Replacement rate is, so you and your wife, right? So, if you have two kids,

00:52:58.560 that's replacement rate. So, more than two.

00:53:00.020 Okay. Got it.

00:53:00.600 Would be quote unquote a lot. Replacement rate is two. So, it used to be in the United States

00:53:05.560 that the average family had two and a half, three kids. Now, the average family is right around two

00:53:11.080 and dropping.

00:53:11.740 Got it. Yeah. I mean, we have four personally. You know, one of the other things I hear a lot

00:53:15.820 about with regards to homeschooling is, you know, we want to send our kids so that they'll learn

00:53:20.720 new ideas and new things and new ways of looking at things and being exposed to these different

00:53:26.440 ideas. And my thought is like, I'm not going to expose my kids to the wolves just to see if they

00:53:30.800 can stand on their own two feet. They're literally incapable of doing that at the age they are right

00:53:35.520 now.

00:53:36.100 Yeah. I mean, if it's, I'm happy to expose my kid to new ideas from people I trust.

00:53:41.420 Sure.

00:53:41.580 Right. Or yourself.

00:53:42.200 That's a pretty key phrase, right? From people I trust is kind of the key phrase there.

00:53:45.180 If the answer is I'm going to throw my kid to the wilds of, you know, cable television and say,

00:53:51.680 have at it. It's time to experience life. Like that's, that's not parenting. That's,

00:53:55.280 that's actually the definition of abandoning your responsibility as a parent.

00:53:59.360 Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's a very good point. So to go back to the book,

00:54:04.120 the authoritarian moment you know, the way that's worded moment seems like there's a moment in time.

00:54:08.640 And I'm really curious about your use of, of that term, the moment. Is it the moment that we need

00:54:13.400 to step up? Is it that this is the most pivotal moment in this shift? Because I see it happening

00:54:18.400 over decades and decades, not just today, this one thing happened and we need to be aware of it.

00:54:24.220 So it feels like we we've reached in at least to this point in apex. I'm hoping that it's a moment.

00:54:29.200 I think it's more of a hope than a, maybe it's a hope fostering the title. But the, the idea is

00:54:35.260 that it's taken a while to get here. Even when I was speaking on college campuses in 2012,

00:54:39.780 there was not this idea that like everybody had to be shouted down. You need 600 police officers to

00:54:43.780 talk, uh, that, that people are going to be fired from their jobs for their political point of view

00:54:47.240 in 2010 seemed kind of unthinkable. I know that was really not a thing that people were super

00:54:51.500 concerned about. Um, and so we have reached this sort of apex moment when the authoritarian mindset

00:54:56.360 has, has set in. Um, I, and it feels like everybody's thinking along these lines. How do I control

00:55:02.180 others? How do I ensure that the institutions remain under my control forever?

00:55:06.060 And, uh, I'm hoping that it recedes. I'm hoping that it's a moment. I also think that it's a

00:55:10.000 unique moment because we really haven't seen anything quite like this. I in, I was in modern

00:55:15.580 American history, certainly not in my lifetime. This, this sort of institutional takeover to the

00:55:19.460 point where speaking your mind inside the Overton window could end with you losing your job and

00:55:24.000 being unable to provide for your kids. That's, that's scary stuff.

00:55:26.940 I know it's, it's going to be hard to answer, but generally what do you feel like needs to happen

00:55:30.960 in order to keep this as a moment and then begin to shift the tides in culture and society?

00:55:36.060 So I think they are shifting. I mean, I, I offer the possibility, uh, two, two separate

00:55:39.720 possibilities. One is the renormalization, right? They push too hard, too fast. A bunch

00:55:43.900 of people get up on their hind legs and they say, we're not doing any of this.

00:55:46.860 What does that look like though? I mean, is that just like mass refusal to participate

00:55:51.780 in this game or mandates or this sort of thing? But what specifically does that look like?

00:55:55.760 I mean, it depends on the institution. So we, the, let's say that your corporation has

00:55:59.780 been woke of hide. So that manifests now as you and a few hundred of your colleagues say,

00:56:04.560 we're not doing any of that. We're not going to, we're not going to attend the diversity

00:56:07.520 training. And if you want to fire all of us, you're going to have to fire all of us.

00:56:10.280 It manifests in people leaking the, the internal diversity materials to the press,

00:56:15.240 which has been happening more and more often, obviously.

00:56:16.960 Definitely.

00:56:17.200 It manifests in the schools as people showing up at school board meetings and voting

00:56:19.780 people out and actually holding them accountable. It manifests, uh, in, in terms of

00:56:23.520 entertainment, in people unsubscribing or turning off their TVs, which you've seen a lot

00:56:28.620 of actually pretty recently, um, or people shifting over to alternatives. And that's the second

00:56:32.000 alternative, right? Is that we actually build alternative structures that provide for some

00:56:36.420 sort of balance, uh, and provide for, you know, another possibility. And, and that, I think,

00:56:41.440 I think these are all simultaneous necessities. I don't think that you can pick or choose which one

00:56:45.740 is the solution. I think in certain circumstances, renormalization may be a possibility. I think in

00:56:50.980 some circumstances, the institution's just too far gone and you got to focus on ripping it down and

00:56:54.480 building a new one.

00:56:55.380 Well, you guys have done a good job with the daily wire and everything you're doing with

00:56:57.980 Ben Shapiro show as well, of not just talking about these issues, but also, uh, getting into

00:57:04.260 the cultural battle is what I would say by having movies, entertainment, and putting content out

00:57:10.800 there in a meaningful, engaging way, but also it having be the, the counter to what we see

00:57:16.220 societally happening.

00:57:18.400 Well, I appreciate that. I mean, that's, that's definitely one of our goals is that we feel like

00:57:21.540 as many fronts as we can push on simultaneously, we will. So we'll do entertainment. We'll make movies.

00:57:25.800 We'll do news. That's obviously most of what we do. Uh, we'll get an educational content. Like the

00:57:30.100 more, the more we can compete in this sphere, the better off we'll be. The good news for us is that

00:57:34.440 as an LLC and a for-profit company, the left has created an awful large market for us. And a lot of

00:57:38.860 people very dissatisfied with these institutions, and we are happy to do business with them.

00:57:42.860 That's a good point. You, the, the, the, the other side has created this opportunity. And I think

00:57:47.960 that's what we as men need to look for. We need to look for opportunities because all too often,

00:57:52.000 it's easy to complain and gripe and bitch and moan about what's going on and what's not working

00:57:56.000 and what isn't. And very few people or organizations are actually taking that from a gripe session to

00:58:01.860 actually applying it so that we can affect real change. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely our hope.

00:58:06.840 One of the things that we've talked about here is that, you know, the left is going to cancel us

00:58:10.660 into prosperity and they're just going to keep canceling things that people like, and we're just

00:58:14.140 going to keep going out and picking up those things. And, and if the left insists on doing that,

00:58:17.780 eventually you throw enough people out into the cornfield and there are more people in the

00:58:20.500 cornfield than there are inside of your little club and you've got a problem on your hands.

00:58:23.780 I think the left is quickly approaching that. Right. Definitely. Well, Ben, I appreciate you.

00:58:28.320 I appreciate all your work and everything that you're doing. Obviously I would tell the guys to

00:58:31.920 pick up a copy of the authoritarian moment. Anything else that you want to share? This is

00:58:35.800 going to go live next week. So is there anything else you want to share? Whether it's events or

00:58:39.540 anything like that, that you have coming up, the guys need to be aware of.

00:58:42.040 Well, we do have a big event that's coming up in October in Nashville. So I think we're sold out

00:58:46.040 to backstage live over at daily wire and just take a look at our page daily wire. We constantly have

00:58:51.840 new material coming out and new features and new cool stuff that's happening over there and follow

00:58:55.220 my Twitter feed. If you're looking for updates there as well. Right on. We're going to sync

00:58:58.500 everything up and appreciate you. What an honor to be able to have this conversation. I hope we can do

00:59:03.000 it again in the future. Maybe it's when you have another book come out or, or something else going

00:59:06.740 on, but appreciate all your work, keep it up and we'll stay connected. Thanks so much.

00:59:11.520 Appreciate it. Thanks brother. All right, guys, there you go. My conversation with the one and

00:59:17.580 only Ben Shapiro. I'm sure everybody's blood is boiling at this, at this point, which is good.

00:59:22.600 That's what I thought would happen, but you know, it's also good because maybe it'll wake us up and

00:59:25.780 help us to better have these conversations in a civil way that will actually yield and produce

00:59:29.860 results. Isn't that what we're after? So make sure you share this podcast, connect with me,

00:59:35.800 take a screenshot. Let's blow this episode up because these are conversations we need to be having.

00:59:41.100 So connect with me on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, all at Ryan Mickler, connect with Ben

00:59:46.920 at Ben Shapiro on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. Also let him know what you thought

00:59:52.680 about the show, tag him, tag me, let other people know what you thought about the show. And let's,

00:59:56.360 let's get the word out about what we're doing here and the conversations that we're having.

01:00:00.280 That means a lot to me. Also make sure you subscribe to our emails. So you get updates on when our events

01:00:07.340 are. And then the last thing is I mentioned to you, uh, our friends over at mind pump media with

01:00:12.060 their, uh, fitness information and advice in, in that educational, funny, informative way. Uh,

01:00:19.620 and the, uh, four or five episodes they put together for, for you guys, uh, you can do that

01:00:24.060 at mind pump man.com mind pump man.com. All right, guys, that's all I've got. Make sure you share this

01:00:30.340 liberating review and we will be back tomorrow until then go out there, take action and become

01:00:35.880 the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're

01:00:40.760 ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join

01:00:45.480 the order at quarter of man.com.

Order of Man - September 28, 2021

BEN SHAPIRO ｜ The Authoritarian Moment

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