The Ben Shapiro Show - Is America’s Future Dying? | Ep. 1391

00:00:00.000 Joe Biden's poll numbers swirl the drain, the U.S.

00:00:02.000 Surgeon General warns of a mental health crisis among young Americans, and we talk about the true causes of our civilizational malaise.

00:00:08.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:08.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:15.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

00:00:18.000 Protect your online privacy today at ExpressVPN.com slash Ben.

00:00:23.000 Well, there's one substance throughout human history that has been known to always hold value.

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00:01:31.000 Okay, so Joe Biden's approval ratings are just absolutely in the toilet.

00:01:37.000 There's a new poll out from INI and TIPP, and it shows that Joe Biden is swirling the drain.

00:01:45.000 The poll asked, who do you want to see run for president on the Democratic ticket in 2024?

00:01:48.000 Joe Biden was named by 22% of those asked.

00:01:54.000 Uh-oh.

00:01:55.000 Meanwhile, 6% of all those who answered preferred someone other than those on the list.

00:01:58.000 rest of the Democrats rose above single digits. The much beloved Pete Buttigieg garnered 4%.

00:02:02.000 AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy for some reason, and Stacey Abrams each attracted 3% support. Meanwhile, 6% of all those who answered preferred someone other than those on the list. 31% said they were unsure.

00:02:17.000 And the numbers suck.

00:02:20.000 Only 37% of Democrats say they are enthused about Joe Biden holding the top spot, and only 16% say they want Kamala Harris, and no one even gets more than low single-digit support after that. 0.97

00:02:31.000 The numbers for Joe Biden continue to decline.

00:02:34.000 There's another poll out today, and it shows voters pessimistic about the economy.

00:02:38.000 Biden's leadership is according to a new Wall Street Journal poll.

00:02:42.000 The survey, according to the Wall Street Journal, reveals a set of danger signs for the Democratic Party as it prepares to defend narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

00:02:49.000 Voters by a large margin see economic and fiscal issues, including inflation, as top priorities for Washington, and they view the GOP as better able to handle them.

00:02:57.000 Joe Biden's overall approval rating right now is at 41%.

00:03:01.000 His disapproval is at 57%.

00:03:04.000 What's much worse for Joe Biden, his strongly approve of Joe Biden number is 19%.

00:03:07.000 His strongly disapprove of Joe Biden number is 46%.

00:03:14.000 You got 22% of the American public saying they somewhat approve of Joe Biden, and 10% saying they somewhat disapprove.

00:03:19.000 But people hate him much more than they love him, for sure.

00:03:22.000 More voters apparently say they would back a Republican than a Democrat for Congress, 44% to 41% if the election were held today.

00:03:29.000 That is within the poll's margin of error.

00:03:31.000 But again, most of these polls tend to underestimate Republican support and Republican turnout.

00:03:38.000 So these numbers are really, really bad for the Democrats right now.

00:03:44.000 And as far as whether the country is on the right track or on the wrong track, according to that Wall Street Journal poll, 63% of Americans say the country is on the wrong track.

00:03:54.000 Only 27% say the country is on the right track.

00:03:58.000 Some 61% of Americans say the economy is headed in the wrong direction.

00:04:02.000 Some 46% of Americans expect the economy to get worse next year, compared with 30% who expect it to get better.

00:04:09.000 29% margin in favor of the proposition that inflation is going to get worse rather than better.

00:04:15.000 People have really bad expectations with regard to crime.

00:04:19.000 By a 33-point margin, people think that crime is going to get worse, not better.

00:04:22.000 26% more Americans think that the border is going to get worse, not better.

00:04:26.000 The nation's political divide.

00:04:28.000 50-point margin between people who say it's going to get worse and people who say it's going to get better.

00:04:34.000 On the issues, the GOP has an advantage on the economy, inflation, and securing the border.

00:04:39.000 Democrats have an advantage on getting the pandemic under control.

00:04:41.000 But again, those numbers are not particularly stellar.

00:04:44.000 On improving education, it's fairly evenly split.

00:04:47.000 On making healthcare affordable, Democrats have an advantage.

00:04:49.000 But the issues Americans care most about, rebuilding the economy and getting inflation under control, Republicans have massive advantages.

00:04:56.000 So Democrats have a real problem on their hands.

00:04:58.000 But the bigger issue here is that Americans just seem consumed with the idea that the future is going to suck.

00:05:05.000 And I think one of the reasons that they feel consumed with the idea the future is going to suck Because we as a country seem to have lost purpose. 0.91

00:05:12.000 The Surgeon General of the United States came out yesterday and he announced that we have a mental health crisis among young Americans.

00:05:19.000 Which, again, if you watch TikTok for any length of time at all, you know is true.

00:05:23.000 You can view my review videos over at YouTube where I go through some of what goes on on TikTok and it is basically just a mental asylum in full public view for the walls.

00:05:31.000 It's a bunch of people who are signifying their real mental disorders and doing so for people to cheer them.

00:05:40.000 The Surgeon General had to put out this 53-page report today, talking about how children are in real trouble.

00:05:47.000 According to the Surgeon General, he says, recent national surveys of young people have shown alarming increases in the prevalence of certain mental health challenges.

00:05:55.000 In 2019, one in three high school students and half of all female students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, an overall increase of 40% from 2009.

00:06:03.000 Since 2009.

00:06:04.000 Okay, we're not talking from 30 years ago.

00:06:07.000 We're talking about just over the course of the last 12 years.

00:06:09.000 An increase of 40%.

00:06:13.000 According to the government, of course, this is shaped by social media.

00:06:17.000 It is shaped by drug use.

00:06:20.000 But that doesn't go to any of the real underlying issues that are innervating the society.

00:06:24.000 According to the government, quote, we know that mental health is shaped by many factors from our genes and brain chemistry to our relationships with family and friends, neighborhood conditions and larger social forces and policies.

00:06:33.000 We also know that too often young people are bombarded with messages through the media and popular culture that erodes their sense of self-worth, telling them they are not good looking enough, popular enough, smart enough or rich enough.

00:06:42.000 That comes as progress on legitimate and distressing issues like climate change, income inequality, racial injustice, the opioid epidemic and gun violence feels too slow.

00:06:51.000 Surgeon General is saying the reason that kids are now suicidal is because we haven't done enough on climate change or income inequality or racial justice.

00:06:51.000 Of course, the U.S.

00:06:59.000 Or alternatively, there's a giant gaping hole in the soul of America's young people.

00:07:05.000 And some of it's older people.

00:07:06.000 That is not going to be filled by your bullcrap excuses for motivation on a daily basis.

00:07:14.000 The government is also blaming technology platforms.

00:07:16.000 They say when not deployed responsibly and safely, these tools can pit us against each other, reinforce negative behaviors like bullying and exclusion, and undermine the safe and supportive environments young people need and deserve.

00:07:26.000 All of that was true before COVID-19 dramatically altered young people's experiences at home, at school, and in the community.

00:07:31.000 The pandemic era's unfathomable number of deaths, pervasive sense of fear, economic instability, and forced physical distancing from loved ones, friends, and communities have exacerbated the unprecedented stresses young people already face.

00:07:43.000 Our obligation to act is not just medical, it's moral, says Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General of the United States.

00:07:49.000 We're going to go through more of this advisory from the Surgeon General on the mental health of young people because I think it goes to a far deeper cultural and civilizational malaise that is now set in and really is cancerous.

00:08:01.000 We're going to get to that in just one second.

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00:09:17.000 OK, so according to the Surgeon General, the reason that we're having a mental health crisis is because we're not doing all the things that the left wants you to do via the government. 0.96

00:09:25.000 And that, of course, is really silly.

00:09:26.000 So first, they try to claim that mental health conditions that have gotten much more grave among America's young people, that that is due to biological factors.

00:09:34.000 Nah.

00:09:35.000 In order to assume that it's due to biological factors, you would have to assume that over the last 12 years there has been a major change in the biology of human minds.

00:09:42.000 Which, not a lot of evidence to suggest that.

00:09:45.000 Environmental factors?

00:09:46.000 Yes.

00:09:47.000 According to Vivek Murthy, some mental health disorders seem to cluster in families.

00:09:51.000 They are often shaped by multiple genes.

00:09:53.000 Whether an individual develops symptoms can be further modified by experiences and surrounding environment.

00:09:57.000 Environmental factors can range from exposure to alcohol or drugs during pregnancy, to birth complications, to discrimination and racism.

00:10:04.000 Okay, some of these are well substantiated.

00:10:13.000 The notion that if you suffer from discrimination, that this leads to massive mental health crises.

00:10:21.000 The suicidal ideation stats don't really back that up.

00:10:23.000 In fact, it tends to be middle-upper class white people who have higher levels of suicidal ideation than, for example, impoverished black people.

00:10:30.000 So if it's really about class issues or race issues, that really doesn't explain it.

00:10:37.000 They say that adverse childhood experiences can undermine a child's sense of safety, stability, bonding, and well-being.

00:10:43.000 Moreover, ACEs, again, those are adverse childhood experiences, may lead to the development of toxic stress, which can cause long-lasting change.

00:10:50.000 And of course, the answer to all of this is the government getting involved in everything.

00:10:53.000 So they put together a graphic, adopted from the WHO, talking about factors that can shape the mental health of young people.

00:10:59.000 And here is what your government says.

00:11:01.000 Social and economic inequalities, discrimination, racism, migration, media and technology, popular culture and government policies, all can exacerbate mental health problems.

00:11:11.000 Neighborhood safety, access to green spaces like parks, healthy food, housing, healthcare pollution, natural disasters, and climate change.

00:11:18.000 This is going to affect your mental health.

00:11:19.000 Climate change is going to affect your mental health.

00:11:22.000 Relationship with peers, teachers, and mentors.

00:11:24.000 Faith communities, school climate, academic pressure, community support.

00:11:28.000 Relationship with parents.

00:11:29.000 Basically, everything in life can affect your mental health, but what has changed, right?

00:11:32.000 This is the big question.

00:11:34.000 What has changed since 2009 to 2019?

00:11:37.000 According to the Surgeon General Report, from 2009 to 2019, the proportion of high school students reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 40%.

00:11:46.000 The share seriously considering attempting suicide increased by 36%.

00:11:50.000 That's a huge number.

00:11:52.000 The share creating a suicide plan increased by 44% between 2011 and 2015.

00:11:58.000 Youth psychiatric visits to emergency departments for depression, anxiety, and behavioral challenges increased by 28%.

00:12:04.000 Between 2007 and 2018, suicide rates among youth aged 10 to 24 in the United States increased by 57%.

00:12:11.000 Early estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics suggest there were more than 6,600 deaths by suicide among the 10 to 24 age group in 2020 alone.

00:12:22.000 Scientists proposed various hypotheses to explain all of this.

00:12:27.000 They say that it might be more people discussing mental health concerns, but they also are blaming digital media, increasing academic pressure.

00:12:33.000 I'm going to have to hear why increasing academic pressure is causing this, considering that our schools are underperforming and there is less academic pressure to perform in modern America than at any time in recent American history.

00:12:45.000 They talk about income inequality exacerbating this sort of stuff, which is weird because we didn't have this sort of spiking depression and suicide rate during the, you know, Great Depression.

00:12:54.000 They talk about racism and gun violence and climate change as factors.

00:12:57.000 Again, it all comes back to there's a problem in society and it must be our favored solutions that are the actual solutions.

00:13:04.000 Now, if you are going to examine what is wrong with the youth, what exactly is happening with the youth, you would have to go a little bit deeper than this.

00:13:14.000 They talk about some of the things that have been exacerbated during the pandemic.

00:13:19.000 They say that if you've lived in an urban area or an area with more severe COVID-19 outbreaks, this has exacerbated mental health problems.

00:13:25.000 If you are worried about COVID-19, if you experience disruptions in routine, which, by the way, would suggest that the lockdowns did much more damage to kids than actual COVID-19, because the number, again, of people under the age of 18 in the United States who are healthy, who've died of COVID-19 across the entirety of the pandemic is somewhere between 10 and 20, according to Marty McCary of Johns Hopkins University.

00:13:44.000 So, when you're talking about why young people are depressed because of COVID, it isn't because they're scared of COVID. 0.99

00:13:49.000 Or if they are scared of COVID, it's because the adults are idiots. 0.99

00:13:51.000 And the reason is because they've been locked in their homes and told that they cannot see other human beings. 0.99

00:13:57.000 But the bigger problem here is that, again, the government's suggestions as to why we are seeing mental health problems across young people in the United States are always geared toward what can the government do to fix it.

00:14:10.000 And the problem is that this is not predominantly a governmental issue.

00:14:14.000 This is predominantly a philosophical issue that has now boiled down to how we raise our children, or if we even have children at all.

00:14:22.000 Some of the most durable statistics in mental well-being show that, for example, religious people tend to be less suicidal.

00:14:29.000 They tend to have less suicidal ideation than people who are less religious.

00:14:34.000 There's good evidence to suggest.

00:14:36.000 That class has very little to do with it.

00:14:39.000 There's good evidence to suggest that race has very little to do with it.

00:14:42.000 And certainly climate change has very little to do with it.

00:14:44.000 So in a second, I want to get to why I think that young people are more depressed, more suicidal, what our culture has taught young people, why we have prepared them for a life of misery, why we have set up expectations that simply cannot be fulfilled, and yes, that are exacerbated by the culture that surrounds them from social media, but why they are not robust enough to withstand that.

00:15:05.000 I mean, you have to remember that young people, their grandparents, when they were 18, they were jumping off boats at Normandy, headed into the face of certain death.

00:15:14.000 And today, young people are suicidal because of Instagram.

00:15:16.000 So we're going to have to decide why we think that is happening to this extent.

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00:16:21.000 Okay, so what exactly is missing for young people?

00:16:24.000 slash Ben that's C U T S clothing dot com slash Ben to get 15% off plus can't miss daily deals go check them out right now Okay, so what exactly is missing for young people? I Think in a nutshell what is missing for young people is a sense of mission. What are they supposed to do? 0.56

00:16:42.000 What are they aiming at?

00:16:43.000 What is their life aimed at?

00:16:45.000 And it can't be that your life is just aimed at quote-unquote achievement because achievement is instrumental.

00:16:51.000 Achievement toward what?

00:16:52.000 What exactly is the achievement meant to fulfill?

00:16:54.000 If it's just about making money, that ain't gonna do it because you can make a lot of money and you can be very successful, but if you actually have not fulfilled your role in life, That doesn't mean you're not going to be miserable.

00:17:06.000 As I've said before, again, people who are middle to upper income tend to have higher suicidal ideation as teenagers than many people who are impoverished.

00:17:14.000 So the question becomes, what exactly are you aiming at?

00:17:18.000 What is the achievement geared toward?

00:17:20.000 Well, when you remove the idea, particularly from successful young men and women, that there is any purpose to their lives, when you tell them that the purpose of your life is authenticity, you are always going to fall short.

00:17:32.000 So we have sold our kids a bill of goods.

00:17:34.000 The bill of goods that we have sold our kids is that they are completely autonomous spirits resting in biologically constraining bodies.

00:17:41.000 We have told them that authenticity is the only thing that matters.

00:17:45.000 And this is a radical shift in how we bring up our children.

00:17:48.000 Because instead of suggesting to them that there are expectations that you must fulfill, that there are roles that if you successfully fill them will make you happy in life, we have told them that the only thing that you should be concerned about is pleasing yourself.

00:18:01.000 The only thing you should be concerned about is finding your true self and then having the rest of the world adapt to you.

00:18:06.000 And guess what?

00:18:07.000 That's not reality.

00:18:08.000 You're setting up your own kids for failure.

00:18:11.000 And when you set up a fake reality in which everybody online is bragging about how they've achieved a level of happiness through a method that really makes it impossible to achieve happiness, and when people inevitably fall short, they aren't happy.

00:18:25.000 So the reason I'm connecting this to government is because I think that one of the reasons that Americans have such a cynical view of the future of the country is because they have been told for more than a century at this point that American government can solve all of their problems.

00:18:37.000 As I have said over and over and over, American government cannot solve 90% of your problems.

00:18:41.000 American government can solve the problem of whether your neighbor is going to try to kill you.

00:18:45.000 American government might be able to solve the problem of how to mobilize in the face of foreign invasion.

00:18:51.000 American government cannot solve your problem of happiness.

00:18:55.000 All the American government can do is protect you from the predations of your neighbors. 0.99

00:18:59.000 That's all government really was designed to do.

00:19:02.000 But if you've been promised that the government can solve all your problems and then the government falls short, you're going to be disappointed with whoever is the head of the government, no matter who it is.

00:19:10.000 And the same thing holds true when it comes to bringing up kids.

00:19:14.000 If you teach your kids that the path to enlightenment and happiness is the search within, you're searching in the wrong place, Indy.

00:19:21.000 They're digging in the wrong place.

00:19:22.000 That is not where happiness lies.

00:19:25.000 Now, traditional religious viewpoints as to how to bring up children suggest that there are certain things that are expected of kids.

00:19:30.000 And what is expected of kids is that we are going to civilize you into a role in a community, in a society, in which you are expected to not only better yourself as a character and cultivate virtue, but to better the community around you and to become a full-fledged part of that community.

00:19:47.000 You know, whenever there is a baby born in the Jewish community, there are blessings that are given to the kid.

00:19:54.000 And some of those blessings are that they should reach bar mitzvah and they should become, when you are bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, then you become an adult and now that comes with obligation.

00:20:03.000 It's not about the party.

00:20:04.000 It comes with actual obligations, right?

00:20:05.000 The idea in most traditional religions is that as you age, more responsibility is put on you.

00:20:10.000 And that responsibility gives you a sense of fulfillment and meaning and purpose.

00:20:15.000 And then the idea is that you're going to get married.

00:20:18.000 Right?

00:20:19.000 It's l'chuppah v'lamasim tovim.

00:20:21.000 You're gonna get married.

00:20:23.000 You're gonna have kids.

00:20:24.000 And you're gonna commit good deeds.

00:20:26.000 Right?

00:20:26.000 This is your role in life.

00:20:27.000 And you are designed to fill these particular roles.

00:20:29.000 I've talked about this a little bit for the past couple of weeks.

00:20:32.000 Because I think that, as a society, we have decided that roles themselves are bad.

00:20:36.000 Right?

00:20:36.000 If authenticity is about throwing off the shackles of a society that demands things of you, and if the only thing that can make you happy is fulfillment of traditional roles, And I'm not talking traditional roles like women subservient to men or something.

00:20:49.000 I'm talking about traditional roles like wife or mother for a woman or father and protector for a man.

00:20:55.000 If you throw away those traditional roles, There is nothing that can supplant that.

00:20:59.000 The search for authenticity is going to be ongoing because there's no point at which you quote unquote reach authenticity.

00:21:05.000 It turns out that when you reach authenticity, people may disapprove of your behavior or your authentic choices may redound not to your benefit, but to your detriment.

00:21:13.000 You might be making choices that are inherently damaging to you.

00:21:17.000 It turns out that sometimes you're not the best judge of your own interest.

00:21:20.000 In fact, a huge percentage of the time.

00:21:22.000 You're not the best judge of what it is that is going to make you happy in the absence of any sort of societal guidance.

00:21:28.000 This is particularly true if children are completely incapable of making good decisions.

00:21:32.000 And yet we have told kids from the time they are very, very young, quote unquote, you can be whatever you want to be.

00:21:37.000 Now, if what you mean by that is if you try really hard in any particular field, then you can have the possibility of success.

00:21:42.000 That's true.

00:21:43.000 But if you mean that you can be a girl, if you're a boy, or you can act in any way that you want and have it all, none of that is true.

00:21:52.000 And then when we reinforce that perception with a social media milieu that has people taking selfies and bragging about their own levels of happiness and having achieved this chimera of a vision, people are going to be unhappy.

00:22:06.000 You've also destroyed the sense of roles that are necessary in order to promulgate community.

00:22:10.000 Communities require roles.

00:22:12.000 If you interact with other people, you are playing a role.

00:22:14.000 They're playing a role.

00:22:15.000 There's nothing wrong with roles.

00:22:17.000 In just a second, we're going to get to the issue of roles and why the left fights so strongly against them and why it's completely emptying out young people.

00:22:23.000 It really, really is.

00:22:25.000 It's leaving them aimless.

00:22:26.000 It's leaving them spirits without flesh.

00:22:29.000 And that is not something that can be rectified quickly or easily.

00:22:32.000 First, let's talk about a great gift you can get for somebody this holiday season.

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00:24:02.000 OK, so.

00:24:03.000 Let's get into a little bit of of the roles that you are meant to play over the course of your life.

00:24:09.000 So we are embodied being.

00:24:10.000 This is the place to start.

00:24:11.000 When we talk about human nature, you have to understand that we're not free floating spirits in the machine.

00:24:15.000 We can't just make up our own reality.

00:24:18.000 And biology is not an obstacle.

00:24:20.000 Biology is part of who you are.

00:24:22.000 You are not just a spirit and you are not just biology.

00:24:25.000 You are both and they are combined.

00:24:27.000 And what that means is that your biology is not your enemy.

00:24:30.000 Sometimes it's something you have to curb, but it is not, in fact, opposed to you.

00:24:34.000 It's not an obstacle.

00:24:35.000 You don't get to be, quote unquote, whatever you want to be.

00:24:37.000 Regardless of your biology.

00:24:39.000 I'm 5'9", I'm an Orthodox Jew, I ain't playing in the NBA.

00:24:43.000 I can't be whatever I want to be.

00:24:44.000 I can be what I'm capable of being.

00:24:48.000 But we have decided that that's not true.

00:24:51.000 We have decided, because we are so fixated on this idea that all autonomy is sort of in your head, that children ought to be granted autonomy they are not capable of having.

00:25:01.000 Children ought to be making decisions about, for example, their own gender when they're five years old, which is totally insane.

00:25:06.000 My son is not even capable of deciding what to eat in the evenings.

00:25:10.000 He's not capable of deciding whether he should go to school.

00:25:12.000 If he had his way, he would never go to school.

00:25:14.000 But we have told kids that they are to be treated like little adults, which they are not.

00:25:19.000 Instead, there are roles that we play over the course of our life.

00:25:21.000 Some of those roles have to do with aging.

00:25:23.000 When you are young, you're a learner.

00:25:24.000 That means you need people who are shaping and guiding you.

00:25:27.000 People who are giving you a sense of mission.

00:25:30.000 As a citizen in your community, you have to believe in the collective purpose of that community.

00:25:34.000 If you're an American, you have a role as an American.

00:25:36.000 And that role is to uphold the founding principles of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States.

00:25:41.000 That is your role.

00:25:42.000 That role exists in every nationality in world history.

00:25:46.000 It is only in the modern era that we have created nationless people who believe that they are citizens of the world.

00:25:51.000 There's no such thing as a citizen of the world.

00:25:53.000 Honestly, try paying taxes to the world.

00:25:55.000 You're a citizen of whatever country you reside in.

00:25:57.000 And so, either you should become a full-fledged citizen and act like a citizen, or you should move.

00:26:03.000 And what that means is a certain level of loyalty to the core philosophy of the nation to which you belong.

00:26:10.000 You have a role as a parent.

00:26:11.000 That role is not to abdicate the responsibility for bringing up your kids.

00:26:15.000 It's the role of cultivating yourself virtuously so you can bring up your kids properly and inculcate in them certain values.

00:26:21.000 You have a role as a husband or as a wife. 0.93

00:26:24.000 And that role as a husband or a wife is to cultivate yourself, become a better, more caring human being.

00:26:31.000 And yes, to be the other half of the person of the opposite sex to whom you're going to commit your life and then produce children within that marriage. 0.96

00:26:39.000 These are historically approved roles.

00:26:42.000 And when people look at the wisdom of the past and they scoff at it, so why can't we just remake the world today? 1.00

00:26:47.000 The answer is you're being an idiot. 1.00

00:26:49.000 Because wisdom of the past is there for a reason. 1.00

00:26:52.000 It has been tried.

00:26:53.000 It is true.

00:26:54.000 Now, that doesn't mean there can't be incremental changes.

00:26:57.000 It doesn't mean that certain conflicts of the past don't crop up and force us to rectify them.

00:27:02.000 This is not a Hegelian notion that everything that was, was meant to be.

00:27:07.000 But it is true that if something has lasted the test of time, thousands and thousands of years, there probably is something to it beyond what your pea brain thinks there is.

00:27:15.000 The way that most people are inculcated in a culture is not even that you are sat down and taught that marriage is an inherent good.

00:27:20.000 It's that you watch your parents being married and you realize that it's an inherent good.

00:27:24.000 It's not that you look around and you think, okay, well, freedom is a good thing and I've rationalized it out of my brain.

00:27:30.000 As Michael Oakeshott, the philosopher, has suggested, most politics is not rationalism.

00:27:34.000 Most politics is inculcated in the water and in the air we breathe.

00:27:37.000 I was once sitting with Sam Harris, who of course is a famous atheist, and we were talking about values, and I was pointing out that he gets his values from the same place that I do, namely a Judeo-Christian culture in which he was raised.

00:27:48.000 Because he was saying, well, I came up with these values myself, and I've thought them through.

00:27:52.000 And I'm sure he has thought them through.

00:27:53.000 But the reality is that Sam Harris and I share 80% of values, 90% of values.

00:27:57.000 That's because we grew up like 10 miles from each other in California, in a society that was built on several thousand years of common history.

00:28:05.000 Being a part of that stream, being a person who fulfills roles, that is a fulfilling thing.

00:28:10.000 It is a good thing.

00:28:11.000 It's a thing you're supposed to be teaching your kids.

00:28:13.000 Because you cultivate virtue within each of these roles, right?

00:28:15.000 Each of these roles requires you to follow certain rules and also to exercise certain liberties.

00:28:20.000 In order to be a good parent, you have to stick and move.

00:28:22.000 In order to be a child who's properly learning, you have to have the freedom to learn.

00:28:26.000 In order to be somebody who acts as a good American citizen, you have to exercise your freedom to produce.

00:28:32.000 You have to exercise your freedom to be creative.

00:28:36.000 All these things are inherent goods, but they don't exist in the absence of roles for which they are designed.

00:28:41.000 They're instrumental goods, in other words.

00:28:43.000 Most of the things we think of in life as inherent goods are not inherent goods, they're instrumental goods.

00:28:48.000 They're directed toward a higher good, toward a larger purpose.

00:28:53.000 And when we sort of make the morally relativistic point that no, these are inherent goods, freedom is inherent good, not freedom directed, sort of higher purpose, freedom just itself.

00:29:02.000 Well, then you've created no limits for people.

00:29:04.000 And that's not fulfilling.

00:29:05.000 The reason that people ask people, you know, if you ever want to see truly what people's lives are about, go read obituaries.

00:29:13.000 Go read obituaries.

00:29:14.000 Because I'll tell you what obituaries never say.

00:29:16.000 This person identified as a person of gender X.

00:29:20.000 This person interacted with their colleagues on Twitter.

00:29:23.000 These are things that don't make the obits.

00:29:25.000 And if you really want the boiled-down version, the really boiled-down version, go check out gravestones at the cemetery.

00:29:31.000 The gravestones at the cemetery usually say things like, beloved father and husband.

00:29:35.000 Beloved mother.

00:29:37.000 These are the things that people want to be remembered as.

00:29:40.000 It's role fulfillment.

00:29:42.000 Now, as a society, we've decided that these roles are not only no longer necessary, they're repressive and bad, and they ought to be fought.

00:29:48.000 And we are teaching our kids this.

00:29:49.000 And then we are shocked that our kids are depressed.

00:29:52.000 We are shocked that our kids are looking for authenticity in all the wrong ways.

00:29:57.000 We are shocked that when they go searching for what is me, and they come up short, they start dosing themselves into oblivion.

00:30:04.000 When we remove them from a communal context in which you are naturally forced to play a role, right?

00:30:07.000 If you've ever been in high school, you know this, right?

00:30:09.000 You play a role in high school.

00:30:10.000 But you play roles throughout your lives.

00:30:11.000 And here's the thing.

00:30:12.000 Even when we pretend that there are not roles to play, you end up playing a role.

00:30:17.000 But the role you play might be a toxic role.

00:30:19.000 The role you play might be as the court jester.

00:30:21.000 The role you play might be as the example to others of how not to live your life.

00:30:25.000 There are a lot of roles out there.

00:30:27.000 Pick ones that matter.

00:30:29.000 And the ones that matter typically are the ones that have to do with historically tried and true rules that have provided fulfillment to people across cultures for all of human history.

00:30:39.000 But here in the United States, in our pursuit of this bizarro world, complete autonomy and complete libertinism is the solution to all your ills.

00:30:49.000 Authenticity is what we ought to be searching for and we will raise our kids to search for authenticity.

00:30:56.000 They've lost what makes people authentically human, which is human roles.

00:31:00.000 Human roles make you human.

00:31:01.000 Otherwise, you're just an animal.

00:31:02.000 Otherwise, you're just a really smart animal.

00:31:06.000 So, the reason that I bring all of this up, of course, is because we see indicators of how we've undermined the raising of our children all over our culture.

00:31:13.000 There's an article in the Washington Post today, for example, entitled, A White Teacher Taught White Students About White Privilege.

00:31:19.000 It Cost Him His Job.

00:31:21.000 And the idea is that we should be very much pro our teachers teaching kids about racial essentialism, teaching kids about the evils of their country, teaching them essentially to be bad Americans. 0.55

00:31:31.000 And that it is good for teachers to teach kids.

00:31:33.000 If you, by the way, if you're teaching your kids about racial essentialism, you're teaching your kid to be a bad American.

00:31:38.000 You're teaching them to fundamentally reject basic notions of Western civilization, about the inherent rights of human beings.

00:31:46.000 And about the fact that human beings ought not be boiled down to immutable skin color characteristics.

00:31:53.000 But the Washington Post says that they want kids to be freed of the role of good American citizen.

00:31:59.000 To even say, by the way, that you should play the role of good American citizen is now considered intolerant.

00:32:03.000 These sorts of words are considered coded dog whistles to say something like good American citizen.

00:32:10.000 According to the Washington Post, Matthew Hahn checked his phone to see if the wait was finally over.

00:32:15.000 It had been five months since he was fired for teaching about white privilege at a high school in rural Tennessee.

00:32:19.000 Two months since he had fought to regain his job at an emotional three-day hearing, becoming a symbol of the acrimonious debate over the way race, racism, and history should be taught in America's schools.

00:32:28.000 Now, nothing.

00:32:29.000 No announcements from the school district about his appeal effort, no messages from his lawyer, no texts from friends and former colleagues, but sustained him through a lonely half-year of jobless limbo.

00:32:37.000 Could he return to teaching in his hometown?

00:32:39.000 Apparently, no one knew.

00:32:41.000 Han, 43, white and balding, sighed.

00:32:44.000 Marlow, his German shepherd, started to whine.

00:32:46.000 Han grabbed the leash because no matter what, he still had to walk the dog.

00:32:49.000 Shrugging on a gray hoodie against the fall chill, he walked out his front door and down the long, sloped driveway of the house he had grown up in, Marlow tugging at every step.

00:32:57.000 A lifelong resident of Kingsport, Tennessee, Han was well aware his liberal views made him an outlier in his overwhelmingly white, mostly conservative community.

00:33:05.000 But that had never mattered before.

00:33:08.000 He had taught in the Sullivan County school system for 16 years without any trouble.

00:33:11.000 He had taught the class that got him fired contemporary issues for nearly a decade without a single parent complaint.

00:33:16.000 Then, at the start of last year, he made a pronouncement during a discussion about police shootings that would derail his career.

00:33:21.000 White privilege, he told his nearly all-white class, is a fact.

00:33:25.000 Then he assigned Ta-Nehisi Coates S.A., the first white president, spurring parent complaints.

00:33:31.000 In April, a student mentioned white privilege during a class discussion about Derek Chauvin, and Han could not help himself.

00:33:36.000 He navigated to YouTube and pulled up White Privilege, a scathing, profane, four-minute poetry performance by Kyla Janae Lacy.

00:33:42.000 Oh, am I making you uncomfortable, the black writer demands at one point? 0.98

00:33:44.000 Try a cramped slave ship. 0.93

00:33:46.000 I will probably get fired for showing this, Han joked before hitting play.

00:33:49.000 Less than a month later, he was.

00:33:51.000 And of course, it's very bad, very bad, that Han lost his job.

00:33:55.000 Because after all, we have to have teachers indoctrinating kids into the idea That America is inherently bad, all of its institutions shot through with racism and bigotry.

00:34:05.000 Now again, teaching kids these sorts of ideas when they are 19, 20, is a different thing as one view among many in college.

00:34:15.000 Even there, I think that there's a serious question as to whether we ought to be sponsoring anti-citizenship sentiments like the idea that racial essentialism is at the root of all of America's institutions.

00:34:25.000 But certainly when you're teaching kids, high school kids, Are you raising kids to have a purpose as Americans when you do this sort of stuff?

00:34:32.000 Serious question.

00:34:34.000 And we're doing this with regard to math, too.

00:34:36.000 Article today, in USA Today, is math education racist?

00:34:40.000 Debate rages over changes to how U.S.

00:34:42.000 teaches the subject.

00:34:43.000 Instead of teaching kids to pursue success, we are now teaching kids that if they fail, it must be the system that has failed because true authenticity is to be found within, not in fulfilling standards, not in attempting to achieve as part of a broader goal of becoming a more productive person who is capable of doing better things for family, friends, community, and country.

00:35:03.000 According to USA Today, There are recommendations to make math more inclusive.

00:35:10.000 Schools are collapsing math tracks to put kids of all abilities in the same classes, adding data science courses that carry the same prestige as calculus, long seen as a gateway to a career in STEM fields in elite colleges.

00:35:21.000 Another heated issue, the extent to which math education should include real-world problems involving racial and social inequities.

00:35:27.000 Fairly or not, that debate has landed in the murky soup of critical race theory digressions.

00:35:31.000 The changes have pitted mathematicians and math educators against each other and sparked criticism. 0.96

00:35:36.000 The attempts to dumb down math education are of course about teaching people that America sucks.

00:35:41.000 Because of inequalities of outcome.

00:35:42.000 over proposed changes to the state's K-12 math framework.

00:35:46.000 The attempts to dumb down math education are of course about teaching people that America sucks because of inequalities of outcome and about teaching people that they don't actually need to fulfill standards in order to feel better But they're not going to feel better about themselves.

00:36:05.000 Because here's the thing.

00:36:05.000 There is justified self-esteem and there is unjustified self-esteem.

00:36:08.000 And we've been teaching kids about unjustified self-esteem for generations at this point.

00:36:12.000 And it turns out unjustified self-esteem runs directly into the shoals of reality.

00:36:16.000 Even if the entire society decides to engage in delusions.

00:36:20.000 The same thing holds true when it comes to basic biology.

00:36:23.000 And you want to depress kids?

00:36:25.000 Here's a great message.

00:36:26.000 Boys can be girls.

00:36:27.000 That's a pretty great message for depressing kids.

00:36:30.000 First of all, people who suffer from gender dysphoria, which is a real diagnosable mental disorder under the DSM-5, have extraordinarily high suicidal ideation rates.

00:36:40.000 So the broader teaching of the lie that men can become women and girls can become boys, obviously is not tied to mental health concerns on a broad societal level.

00:36:50.000 We're not talking about the treatment of people with gender dysphoria. 0.98

00:36:52.000 We're talking about indoctrinating kids into confusing and stupid and anti-biological ideas. 0.98

00:36:58.000 That we are now trying to mainstream in the real world to disastrously comic effect. 0.98

00:37:03.000 Article from the UK Daily Mail today, furious transgender UPenSwimmer22, who used to compete as a man, smashes two US women's records in weekend competition and finishes one race 38 seconds ahead of her nearest rival. 0.98

00:37:18.000 Leah Thomas, 22, smashed two U.S. 1.00

00:37:20.000 swimming records at an Akron, Ohio contest.

00:37:23.000 Thomas won the 16.50 freestyle in a record time of 15 minutes, 59 seconds, beating her closest rival, Anna-Sophia Kalandazzi, by 38 seconds.

00:37:34.000 38 seconds.

00:37:36.000 She left rivals floundering in a 500 freestyle, beating them by 14 seconds.

00:37:41.000 Thomas previously competed for the school men's team for three years before joining the women's team.

00:37:48.000 NCAA rules dictate any trans female athlete can take part in women's events if they've completed a year of testosterone suppression treatment. 0.57

00:37:56.000 So, um, either men are unbelievably good at becoming women, like, amazing.

00:38:02.000 In other words, women can have to be women all their lives, but men, within five minutes of becoming women, are better at women than, like, nearly every athletic endeavor, or they're still men.

00:38:09.000 And we as a society are lying in order to preserve the sense of authenticity of particular people.

00:38:15.000 But question, is that sense of authenticity fulfilling?

00:38:17.000 For most people?

00:38:18.000 Or, is reality more fulfilling?

00:38:20.000 Is living in accordance with reality actually a rather fulfilling thing?

00:38:25.000 Biblically speaking, when God places man in the Garden of Eden, and the reason I'm using the Bible here is not really for the religious commentary, although obviously I believe in the religious aspect of this, but because the Bible is the most popular book in world history and has some pretty wise things to say.

00:38:42.000 It has stood the test of time.

00:38:43.000 The basic metaphor of God placing man in the Garden of Eden and telling him to cultivate the ground Is that the ground exists, reality exists.

00:38:52.000 You don't get to remake reality in your own image because you in fact are not God.

00:38:56.000 You are not a spirit floating above the waters.

00:39:00.000 You are something else entirely.

00:39:01.000 You're an embodied human being and playing your role in life, recognizing reality in life is fulfilling.

00:39:07.000 Take away obligation, take away responsibility to fulfill those roles and people lose purpose.

00:39:12.000 They just end up in a perfect sense of malaise.

00:39:15.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

00:39:18.000 First, Let's talk about gifts for the holiday season.

00:39:22.000 I'm going to give you a great gift this holiday season, like a super useful one.

00:39:25.000 Raycon wireless earbuds.

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00:39:42.000 You got pure mode for blues instrumental.

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00:39:47.000 You got bass mode for hip hop.

00:39:48.000 So like the fullest Shapiro spectrum, right?

00:39:50.000 You can listen to me play violin on pure mode.

00:39:52.000 You can listen to this podcast on balanced mode.

00:39:54.000 And you can listen to me rap like Cardi B on bass mode.

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00:40:25.000 We're going to get to more on the Depression and suicide spike that we have seen in the United States.

00:40:32.000 First, last week, Joe Biden announced his winter COVID plan.

00:40:34.000 It doesn't sound like a lot of winter wonderland.

00:40:37.000 He's extending the federal mask mandate for public transport.

00:40:40.000 They're also considering requiring Americans to be fully vaxxed even in order to fly, like get on a plane.

00:40:44.000 So if you want to visit your family for the holidays, you might need to drive across the country or vax in order to fly.

00:40:49.000 The Biden administration is working overtime to force you to do more.

00:40:51.000 This is why we have filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden's VAX mandate for private employers.

00:40:55.000 The government does not get to make these decisions for you, but we need your help.

00:40:58.000 If you haven't signed our petition against Joe Biden's VAX mandate, I need you to head on over right now to dailywire.com slash do not comply to add your name.

00:41:05.000 We need to send an overwhelming message to this administration that the American people will not comply.

00:41:09.000 We have a goal of reaching one million signatures, which would provide a major boost to our legal challenge.

00:41:13.000 We have over 700,000 signatures so far.

00:41:15.000 We need your help to cross the finish line.

00:41:17.000 So please, sign the petition at dailywire.com slash do not comply, and then share that petition with all your friends and family.

00:41:23.000 Let's send a message so loud that Brandon cannot ignore us.

00:41:27.000 Also, if you have not picked up a copy of Matt Walsh's book, Johnny the Walrus, you should.

00:41:31.000 In fact, you are obligated to.

00:41:32.000 By the Diktats of Wokeness.

00:41:34.000 Well, not only because his book sold out within the first 24 hours, but because it is now the number one LGBTQIAAYZ backslash colon exclamation point question mark star ampersand Best seller on Amazon. 0.73

00:41:34.000 Why? 0.73

00:41:50.000 And yes, the book is sold out, don't worry.

00:41:53.000 You can reserve your copy at Amazon to get your hands on the next batch it's shipping out soon.

00:41:56.000 Johnny the Walrus is an exhilarating tale of a young boy pretending he's a walrus, which is fun and games until Johnny's mom decides, based on internet searches and yoga classes, that Johnny probably is actually a walrus and that she has to uphold his trans walrus identity.

00:42:09.000 If you know Matt's brain, you will laugh your butt off.

00:42:10.000 It's a really funny book.

00:42:12.000 So head on over to Amazon, reserve your copy of Matt's timely masterpiece, Johnny the Walrus, today.

00:42:16.000 You are listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:42:19.000 So the case that I am making, which is that we need to re-institute social rules, not by law, obviously, but culturally, that we need to.

00:42:34.000 Re-inculcate in our kids a feeling that they have obligations and responsibilities and that this is what makes us human.

00:42:39.000 There's some pretty good scientific evidence to this.

00:42:42.000 So in the 1960s, there was a scientist named John Calhoun, and he performed a bunch of mouse experiments.

00:42:49.000 There was one particular experiment that became very, very famous.

00:42:53.000 He set up an experiment that was designed to essentially create utopia.

00:42:59.000 Okay, and this experiment for mice essentially amounted to, we are going to put a bunch of mice in a place where all of their needs are catered to, and they're basically like rich people today.

00:43:11.000 All their needs are catered to, they don't have any obligations.

00:43:15.000 According to iflscience.com, in this study, Which was called Universe 25.

00:43:20.000 They set up all these different experiments with these mice.

00:43:22.000 In this study, Calhoun took four breeding pairs of mice and placed them inside a utopia.

00:43:26.000 The environment was designed to eliminate problems that would lead to mortality in the wild.

00:43:29.000 They could access limitless food via food hoppers, access via tunnels, which would feed up to 25 mice at a time, as well as water bottles just above.

00:43:36.000 Nesting material was provided.

00:43:38.000 The weather was kept at like perfect mouse temperature, which is about 68 degrees Fahrenheit apparently.

00:43:43.000 The mice were chosen for their health.

00:43:44.000 They were obtained from the NIH breeding colony.

00:43:46.000 Extreme precautions were taken to prevent disease.

00:43:49.000 There were no predators available anywhere in there, obviously.

00:43:52.000 So, the mice, normally they spent a lot of time foraging for food, for shelter. 0.66

00:43:57.000 Instead, they basically spent all of their time screwing, which is exactly what you'd expect.

00:44:02.000 About every 55 days, the population doubled, as the mice filled the most desirable space within the pen, where access to the food tunnels was at ease.

00:44:08.000 When the population hit 620, that slowed to doubling around every 145 days because male society began to hit problems, they were overcrowded, they might split off into groups, and those that could not find a role in the groups found themselves with no place to go.

00:44:24.000 The excess could not go anywhere else because there was nowhere else to go.

00:44:29.000 So, they became isolated.

00:44:31.000 According to the paper, quote, males who failed withdrew physically and psychologically.

00:44:35.000 They became very inactive, aggregated in large pools near the center of the floor of the universe.

00:44:39.000 From this point on, they no longer initiated interaction with their established associates, nor did their behavior elicit attack by territorial males.

00:44:45.000 Even so, they became characterized by many wounds and much scar tissue as a result of attacks by other withdrawn males.

00:44:50.000 So basically, the mouse society striated as soon as all obligation was gone.

00:44:55.000 There were these successful alphas, and then there was everybody else.

00:44:58.000 The withdrawn males would not respond during attacks.

00:45:00.000 They would lie there immobile.

00:45:01.000 Later, they would attack others in the same pattern.

00:45:03.000 The female counterparts of the isolated males withdrew as well.

00:45:06.000 Some mice spent their days preening themselves, shunning mating, never engaging in fighting, and basically the Instagram stars of the mouse world.

00:45:12.000 Due to this, they had excellent fur coats and were dubbed, somewhat disconcertingly, the beautiful ones.

00:45:17.000 The breakdown of usual mouse behavior was not limited to the outsiders.

00:45:19.000 The alpha male mice became extremely aggressive, attacking others with no motivation or gain for themselves.

00:45:24.000 They regularly raped both male and female mice.

00:45:27.000 Violence encounters sometimes ended in mouse-on-mouse cannibalism.

00:45:31.000 Because their every need was being catered for, mothers would abandon their young, or merely just forget about them entirely, leaving them to fend for themselves. 0.98

00:45:38.000 The mother mice became aggressive toward trespassers to their nest, with males that would normally fill this role banished to other parts of the Utopia.

00:45:45.000 The aggression spilled over.

00:45:46.000 Mothers would, indeed, regularly kill their young. 0.99

00:45:48.000 Infant mortality in some territories of the Utopia reached 90%.

00:45:51.000 This was all during the first phase of the downfall of the Utopia.

00:45:56.000 Then there's the second phase.

00:45:57.000 This is called second death.

00:45:58.000 Whatever young mice survived the attacks grew up around these unnatural mouse behaviors.

00:46:02.000 They never learned usual mice behaviors.

00:46:04.000 Many showed little or no interest in mating, preferring to eat and preen themselves alone.

00:46:09.000 Does any of this sound disconcertingly familiar for our civilization?

00:46:12.000 Like, at all?

00:46:13.000 The population peaked at 2,200, short of the actual 3,000 mouse capacity of the universe, and then came the decline.

00:46:19.000 Many of the mice weren't interested in breeding.

00:46:21.000 They retired to the upper decks of the enclosure.

00:46:23.000 The others formed into violent gangs below, which regularly attack and cannibalize other groups as well as their own.

00:46:28.000 The low birth rate and high infant mortality combined with the violence, soon the entire colony was extinct.

00:46:33.000 Calhoun called this a behavioral sink, and here's what he concluded, quote, For an animal so simple as a mouse, the most complex behaviors involve the interrelated set of courtship, maternal care, territorial defense, and hierarchical intergroup and intragroup social organization.

00:46:48.000 When behaviors related to these functions fail to mature, there is no development of social organization, no reproduction.

00:46:54.000 As in the case of my study reported above, all members of the population will age and eventually die.

00:46:58.000 The species will die out.

00:47:01.000 And then he tried to apply this lesson to man.

00:47:02.000 He said, For an animal so complex as man, there is no logical reason why a comparable sequence of events should not also lead to species extinction.

00:47:09.000 If opportunities for role fulfillment fall far short of demand by those capable of filling roles and having expectancies to do so, only violence and disruption of social organization can follow.

00:47:19.000 Kill the roles. 0.99

00:47:20.000 Kill the animal. 1.00

00:47:22.000 And we're doing that as a society, civilization-wide. 0.99

00:47:26.000 Restore the rules, or the civilization is in serious trouble.

00:47:29.000 I think we all know this down deep.

00:47:32.000 Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.

00:47:34.000 In the meantime, go check out our newest podcast, Morning Wire.

00:47:36.000 On today's episode, they discuss more on the U.S.' 's diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

00:47:40.000 That episode is available right now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

00:47:44.000 Make sure to tune in.

00:47:45.000 Also, as you know, The Daily Wire has launched a film and entertainment division.

00:47:48.000 We have our very first original film, Shut In.

00:47:50.000 It's going to be released in just a few weeks.

00:47:52.000 We're fighting the left, providing an alternative to the woke crap Hollywood puts out to do this. 0.99

00:47:56.000 We're building up our publicity and marketing team.

00:47:58.000 So if you really want to work at Daily Wire and you are a seasoned publicist with experience working in film or TV, we want to hear from you.

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00:48:25.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

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00:49:04.000 On today's episode, Biden and Putin meet amid escalating tensions, the U.S.

00:49:09.000 imposes a diplomatic boycott at the Beijing Olympics, and the Supreme Court abortion case prompts fierce debate.

The Ben Shapiro Show - December 08, 2021

Is America’s Future Dying? | Ep. 1391

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