The Ben Shapiro Show - Russell Brand | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 116

00:00:00.000 I want us in this time of division and fragmentation and fracture to find ways of coming together in peace.

00:00:08.000 Coming together with peace.

00:00:09.000 That's why I'm chatting to Candice Owens and chatting to you.

00:00:12.000 I don't want to just sit around chatting to people I agree with.

00:00:14.000 I want to talk to people where there are areas of concern and discontent and downright disagreement and find ways that we can harmonise.

00:00:25.000 Stand-up comedian Russell Brand was established in show business in the early 2000s, presenting on MTV, hosting a spinoff of TV's Big Brother, and then he was blasted into movie stardom in 2008, most notably with his beloved character Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

00:00:39.000 He could be the queen of the groupies, queen of the sorrow suckers.

00:00:43.000 The sorrow suckers. 0.95

00:00:44.000 Sorrow suckers, I don't know what I'd call them.

00:00:47.000 His sharp wit and magnetic persona continued to propel him to world fame with international comedy tours and Hollywood movies.

00:00:54.000 But then, around 2012, Russell publicly decided to step back from the limelight.

00:00:59.000 He continued with his comedy, but also committed his career toward spiritual and political activism.

00:01:04.000 He released Revolution, a book about nonviolent social change, away from contemporary capitalism and toward the common good.

00:01:10.000 He also wrote Recovery, a bestseller about navigating addiction, as someone who's been addicted to sex, heroin fame, and everything that comes with that line of work.

00:01:18.000 He's made documentaries exploring drug addiction too, and he's campaigned for change in the treatment of addiction in his home country, the UK.

00:01:25.000 After capturing an audience with his celebrity, he dramatically refocused and now brings his audience along with him on his journey through his podcast, Under the Skin.

00:01:33.000 It goes without saying that Russell's and my own life experiences are pretty different, but in this episode, we find some things we have in common.

00:01:40.000 We dive into his beliefs and what he wants to achieve through activism, our agreements and disagreements on human nature, how universalism plays out in reality, and our experiences as fathers.

00:02:00.000 Hey, hey, and welcome.

00:02:01.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special.

00:02:03.000 This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

00:02:05.000 Don't like big tech and the government spying on you?

00:02:07.000 Visit expressvpn.com slash Ben.

00:02:10.000 Just a reminder, we'll be doing some bonus questions at the end with Russell.

00:02:13.000 The only way to get access to that part of the conversation is to become a member.

00:02:17.000 Head on over to dailywire.com, become a member.

00:02:19.000 You will have access to all of the full conversations with every one of our awesome guests.

00:02:23.000 Russell, thanks so much for joining the show.

00:02:24.000 I'm so happy to be with you, mate.

00:02:26.000 So, you know, I think for a lot of my audience, this is always these are sorts of weird.

00:02:33.000 I would say grouping.

00:02:35.000 The fact that you and I are sitting together is strange to a lot of people who kind of may not know your spiritual and political side, who may only be familiar with your work in Hollywood.

00:02:45.000 And I think your journey really is sort of a fascinating one.

00:02:47.000 So if you don't mind, I'd like to have you go through that journey a little bit because, you know, as you know, people sort of pop into public consciousness for a moment in time and then they sort of disappear and then they pop again into public consciousness.

00:02:58.000 And so I think a lot of my audience isn't aware of all the things that you've been doing over the years and sort of how you got from point A to point B. So why don't you start me from the beginning.

00:03:06.000 How did you make a name for yourself in the first place?

00:03:09.000 I'm a stand-up comedian, primarily, Ben.

00:03:12.000 That's my background.

00:03:13.000 And while I was becoming a stand-up comedian, I was also studiously and diligently becoming a drug addict.

00:03:20.000 It took quite a lot of commitment.

00:03:21.000 It was quite time-consuming.

00:03:23.000 And ultimately, these two drives, the drives to entertain and the drives to numb pain, competed in my little biographical journey.

00:03:33.000 The stand-up comedy led to hosting stuff on MTV, like MTV VMAs in your country, and also eventually doing movies and stuff.

00:03:45.000 I trained as an actor.

00:03:47.000 Prior to sort of breaking out and having one of those moments where I would have breached public consciousness, particularly in your country, and I was married to a famous entertainer and singer over there, Katy Perry, and I very much was in the world of celebrity and sort of visible stardom.

00:04:04.000 At that point, but the secondary journey or perhaps more accurately an ulterior journey that was sort of more important was that I was dealing with sort of recovery and waking up from kind of addiction and attachment around behavioral things as well as obvious stuff like drugs from which I've been clean for a long time now.

00:04:24.000 And I feel like it's very easy to form appetite-based attachment to stuff like fame and celebrity and money and power.

00:04:33.000 And I would contest that the sort of energy of addiction is a key driver in consumer-led cultures, that the energy of consumerism owes something to addiction.

00:04:44.000 And of course, I'm speaking primarily from personal experience, but then who isn't?

00:04:48.000 And I reckon what happened, mate, is I got like world famous for a minute and some of that was fantastic, other aspects of it were challenging and the sort of spiritual and domestic aspects of my life have been sort of subsequently promoted to the forefront and now I live what you might call a comfortable but somewhat ordinary life with

00:05:10.000 Kids, I've got beautiful children and animals, I'm married, I live a kind of domestic life and the forefront of my consciousness and my intentions, Ben, and it's an area which I think we have in common, are my spirituality, like trying to become a better person, trying to live in accordance with the spiritual principles that have saved my life and trying to think how I can be beneficial while still, hopefully, on occasion, sometimes inadvertently, being entertaining.

00:05:39.000 So Russell, I want to talk to you about your spirituality and your religion in a second.

00:05:42.000 I think what's fascinating about sort of your personal story is, first of all, it's just the story of Ecclesiastes, essentially.

00:05:48.000 I mean, you basically took the Solomonic journey through, what if I had a thousand wives and a thousand horses?

00:05:54.000 And then it seems that you sort of came around to the view that there was a certain emptiness to that.

00:05:58.000 But for somebody like me, so I grew up religious, right?

00:06:01.000 I grew up from the time I was Young teen, like 11, 12, 13 years old, going to an Orthodox synagogue, very steeped in the sort of Judeo-Christian notions of personal virtue and controlling appetites and all that sort of stuff.

00:06:14.000 There's always a draw in our culture toward, as you say, the fulfillment of those appetites.

00:06:19.000 And as somebody who, I mean, you really went whole hog on a lot of this stuff.

00:06:22.000 Maybe you can talk about, you know, when was it that you sort of started to feel like maybe this isn't the be-all end-all?

00:06:27.000 Maybe there's something more than this?

00:06:29.000 Personally, for me, it required that the encounters be kind of lived through.

00:06:38.000 I understood things theoretically and spiritually long before I was able to embody them and live by them.

00:06:47.000 It's quite hard to monitor how you feel if you're being lauded and applauded, if you're successful financially and being celebrated.

00:06:58.000 Sometimes you can lose touch with what's actually happening to you spiritually or, you know, if you're not a religious person, emotionally or psychically.

00:07:07.000 But I suppose in retrospect, and I'm certainly aware, and at the time I had an inkling that I was feeling a little disconnected, and because I'm so privileged to have this background in addiction and more importantly in recovery, I began to recognize that Any external stimulant that begins to govern my state, my perception, govern my moods, the way I identify with myself, could potentially be categorized as addiction.

00:07:34.000 If my life becomes about how other people see me, about what's written about me, how financially successful I am, Then I'm kind of living in an external object.

00:07:45.000 And what I started to awaken to was that I wasn't happy, that I wasn't fulfilled.

00:07:51.000 And I love your classical reference there, Ben.

00:07:55.000 It's difficult, though, because things like the flesh is satisfying, drugs are fulfilling, flattery and praise are enticing and distracting.

00:08:03.000 And it still takes discipline in me.

00:08:05.000 Still now, when I look at the world of celebrity and what I might classify as the world of individualism, egocentrism.

00:08:14.000 I still find it kind of, wow, appealing and I'm a professional person.

00:08:17.000 I have intention and ambition.

00:08:19.000 I see the way that you run a media organization and I think, wow, this is really sort of successful, you know, and I still am stimulated and attracted to versions of success.

00:08:29.000 But the difference is now I understand wholeheartedly and I fully accept That there is nothing external that can ever make me feel resolved, fulfilled or complete.

00:08:38.000 That if I'm ever to feel connected, valued and valuable, awake and aware, that I have to live a life of meaning and purpose.

00:08:47.000 Now, you know, you're speaking about your own background, but you had a set of traditional values that were accessible to you.

00:08:52.000 And I'm sure I did in my own way.

00:08:53.000 I'm from like a single parent family.

00:08:55.000 Religion wasn't sort of at the forefront of our sort of cultural I'm like Church of England.

00:09:01.000 That just means that's the thing you get given.

00:09:03.000 You're just issued that on entry, on arrival.

00:09:05.000 There's no like study exams or outfits required, you know.

00:09:09.000 Spirituality wasn't like something that I was particularly thinking about.

00:09:12.000 This is, in a way mate, this dovetails with a kind of ideological tool that's used often in recovery from addiction.

00:09:21.000 The belief that most people are Craving spiritual fulfillment in some way, purpose, meaning, a sense of community, togetherness, fairness, justice, that perhaps these values are not entirely cultural, but somehow inherent.

00:09:36.000 And those of us that grew up without them might try to synthesize those values by becoming successful or by becoming a heroin addict, by becoming a devoted athlete, or by hanging around strip clubs.

00:09:48.000 We're all looking for meaning, purpose.

00:09:51.000 Now, and for me, Pleasure is a kind of a palliative, you know, and what I really need is purpose.

00:09:58.000 But the culture does not promote these kind of messages.

00:10:01.000 The culture, in my opinion, promotes individualism, materialism, rationalism, scientism.

00:10:08.000 If it can't be measured, then it isn't there.

00:10:11.000 And for me, I was a devotee of a particular culture, a culture that tells you become successful.

00:10:16.000 All the while, I had these kind of spiritual inclinations and yearnings, but I didn't know how to process them.

00:10:21.000 I wasn't really mentored until I got clean from drugs and alcohol.

00:10:26.000 And because those things are so appealing and attractive, you know, carnality, celebrity, it took a while.

00:10:34.000 It took being in it.

00:10:35.000 I'm very fortunate.

00:10:36.000 I feel privileged to have had the experience.

00:10:39.000 Of the red carpets and the flashbulbs and the adulation because now I recognize, oh yeah, I've been there.

00:10:45.000 Still now though, Ben, I can see a picture of myself in a situation of celebrity from 10 years ago or whatever and think, oh my god, that looks so appealing and cool.

00:10:56.000 That must have meant something.

00:10:58.000 But I remember, I remember that it is empty.

00:11:01.000 And for people, like most people, like, you know, when you hear those famous surveys that are banded about young people who want to be celebrities, they want to be famous, they don't even care what they're famous for, they just want to be famous.

00:11:10.000 You know, I wonder how my life might have been different if I'd have understood that purpose and meaning can be connected with internally and all that you acquire externally.

00:11:20.000 Whilst it might provide gratification, pleasure, and it is not good fun being poor, I can personally vouch for that, these things are not the solution to spiritual problems.

00:11:28.000 You know, Russell, I totally agree with so much of that.

00:11:30.000 I want to get more into it in just one second.

00:11:32.000 First, let's talk about your internet privacy and security.

00:11:35.000 I'm worried about it, Ben.

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00:11:37.000 I'm worried about my internet security.

00:11:38.000 Is there some system, some service I can use?

00:11:41.000 Because I don't know what to do.

00:11:42.000 I'm just, I'm out here.

00:11:43.000 I'm panicking.

00:11:44.000 I'm frantic.

00:11:45.000 I'm so glad you asked, Russell.

00:11:46.000 It's ExpressVPN.

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00:11:52.000 It says your activity might actually still be visible to your employer or your school or your ISP.

00:11:56.000 How can they even call that incognito?

00:11:58.000 To really stop people from seeing the sites you visit, you need to do what I do and use ExpressVPN.

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00:12:56.000 So I totally agree with you.

00:12:57.000 I think that when it comes to what the media have pushed upon us and what modern society pushes so much, it's this idea that there are all of these sort of ersatz solutions for the hole in your heart that is left when there is the natural inclination for spirituality and for spiritual connection.

00:13:14.000 And what I've said is that the lack of God has left a hole in our hearts, and we're trying to fill that with a wide variety of things.

00:13:20.000 And for a lot of people, that is stimulants.

00:13:22.000 For a lot of people, that is sex.

00:13:24.000 For a lot of people, That is politics, and the substitution of sort of political polarization or tribal identification for any sort of spiritual connection, mission, purpose, it's really easy to make that mistake, especially in a society that, as you say, tends to measure things on a very data-driven level, that happiness equals this number of dollars plus this number of lovers plus this number of houses plus this many Twitter followers.

00:13:49.000 And the reality is that none of that is a substitute for the sort of meaning and purpose I mean, pretty much every philosopher since the dawn of time has been searching for.

00:13:57.000 Yes.

00:13:57.000 And while we're in some ways only qualified to speak about it empirically from an individual perspective, it's clear that many of these values are culturally endorsed to an almost entirely to the point of saturation.

00:14:13.000 I feel like, you know, I've like, I don't I don't get on TikTok too regular, you know, as a user, but I've looked at it and I felt like, my God, the velocity, the potency now of that message, the power of it.

00:14:25.000 I found it difficult enough not to look at pornography when I was an adolescent, when it was analog rags found in hedges and bushes.

00:14:32.000 Now your pocket is a portal to limitless pixelated digital sex ghosts available at a moment's notice.

00:14:39.000 How are you going to evolve a sophisticated and loving and empathetic sexuality when bombarded with that amount of stimulation.

00:14:50.000 And I suppose you could, from a dietary perspective, from a technological and pornographic perspective, chart these markers, but I wonder where they are more insidiously present in culture around ideas such as economics.

00:15:05.000 I wonder where else we're being hypnotized, seduced and guided by cultural messaging that is not beneficial to individuals and is not in tune with, even if you don't believe in creation or divinity, how we are evolved to live.

00:15:21.000 So let's talk for a second about your sort of view of spirituality.

00:15:24.000 So there are a lot of folks out there who consider themselves sort of spiritual but not religious, connected to something deeper but not sure exactly what or not really even directed toward exactly what.

00:15:33.000 So how does your spirituality define yourself?

00:15:35.000 You've talked about meaning and purpose.

00:15:37.000 What would you say your sort of meaning is?

00:15:39.000 Where do you find meaning?

00:15:40.000 Well, the rubric through which my spirituality is lived and understood is fortunately quite practical in that I'm in recovery from addiction.

00:15:51.000 And what that gives you is a set of principles and an ongoing, almost cyclical system that you can live within.

00:15:59.000 The first step in these 12 step systems, Ben, is surrender.

00:16:04.000 I don't know what to do anymore.

00:16:06.000 My life has got problems in it and I don't know how to control it.

00:16:09.000 The second step is about having hope that change is possible for you as an individual.

00:16:15.000 A lot of people fall down there, you know, whether it's in terms of chemical dependency or changing behavior or more broadly, because I can test these messages are somewhat perennial and could be applied anywhere in life.

00:16:25.000 A lot of people think the world cannot change.

00:16:27.000 Human beings are essentially, you know, defined by sort of cruelty, coldness, selfishness, or whatever.

00:16:32.000 So, you know, these things are designed for the individual, but I think are socially applicable.

00:16:37.000 So the second step, having admitted there's a problem, the second step is believing change is possible.

00:16:42.000 The third step is coming to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore... The third power, the third step, excuse me, is made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood God.

00:16:54.000 Now that's sort of completely open to interpretation. There are people in 12-step groups from a variety of religious backgrounds and no religious background at all. For me what it means is the set of values and systems that I come up with in my head are, if not arbitrary, somewhat as a result of my conditioning and my impulses and instincts which I could do with some guidance on.

00:17:18.000 I've already admitted there's a problem.

00:17:20.000 I believe it's possible to change.

00:17:21.000 Now I get ready to accept help.

00:17:24.000 Each one of these steps can be really unpacked quite deeply and applied, I think, almost universally to matters of discontent, loss, loneliness, excessive attachment, unwillingness to accept that we live a finite life.

00:17:41.000 I think they're really, really powerful tools.

00:17:43.000 And what it did for me, I always had a sense of Look, I always embraced mystery.

00:17:50.000 Drug addicts usually do.

00:17:51.000 If you've taken psychedelic drugs and had the kind of experiences that they induce.

00:17:55.000 If you feel the kind of despair and loss and loneliness that a lot of addicts feel.

00:18:00.000 And the kind of conditions that becoming a drug addict introduce you to.

00:18:04.000 Criminality and the kind of, you know, sort of cliched desperation that one might encounter.

00:18:09.000 In a sense, it opens you up to the possibility of God, because nothing, for me, I know you're a religious man and I also know that you know theology and that you know scripture, but suffering, I'm not making claims to Job levels of suffering, but to be introduced to God on that level of knowing, I am weak.

00:18:30.000 On my own, I am weak.

00:18:32.000 I need something powerful in my life.

00:18:35.000 Me, fuelled just by my ego and my petty trivial desires, I will live a petty trivial life.

00:18:41.000 I need something powerful.

00:18:43.000 And now, I don't know if that's applicable to anybody.

00:18:45.000 I'm sure many of your viewers are religious.

00:18:47.000 I'm sure many of them are atheistic.

00:18:48.000 I'm sure many of them are individualistic.

00:18:51.000 It's pointless even really to speculate.

00:18:53.000 But for me personally, I need to feel that there is beauty, that there is love, that there is a kind of glory And I think whether we're talking about like sort of the success of Marvel movies in the way they introduce archetypes and grand themes or the kind of tensions that we feel politically sometimes or the epidemic of mental health problems and opioid addiction in your country currently.

00:19:15.000 This for me is a demonstration of the yearning, the need for real change.

00:19:20.000 And in my humble opinion, and God knows I know your opinion differs, for me these problems cannot be resolved within the limited framework of current political discourse.

00:19:29.000 We need to invite meaning and purpose, and if not more directly, God, back into the conversation of how we construct society and how we organise systems of governance and even exchange.

00:19:43.000 So I mean, I totally agree with so much of that.

00:19:45.000 And when it comes to the role of government, I think that's where we sort of disagree, because I think that a lot of this is to be done on the social level.

00:19:51.000 And I think that also how we sort of orient ourselves toward the world around us is a really important thing.

00:19:57.000 And so one question that I would ask, when you talk about spirituality, finding meaning, finding purpose, if you go back to sort of the classical philosophers, if you go back to Aristotle, he talks a lot about teleology.

00:20:06.000 He talks about telos, the idea that using your reason, you can discover telos in the universe, natural law that governs the universe.

00:20:14.000 And what he really means by that is that if there are certain things that are designed to achieve certain purposes, then you'll live your happiest life if you recognize what those are, and then you live incontinence.

00:20:23.000 with that.

00:20:23.000 Now that can lead you to some pretty ugly places, depending on how rationalistic you get, right?

00:20:28.000 I mean, Aristotle, at the same time that he's promoting the idea of freedom of rationality, is at the same time promoting the idea that there are actual hierarchies of human beings in which some people should be held slaves.

00:20:37.000 So it's easy to see how this sort of logic can lead to the wrong places.

00:20:41.000 On the other hand, you know, the attempt to sort of disconnect the world from any sort of purpose, to disconnect the world from a teleology also leads to the nihilism and despair that we see.

00:20:53.000 So how do you find the sort of middle ground as to what you think are the rules for the road?

00:20:58.000 What do you think the rules for the road should be for an individual?

00:21:01.000 And what do you think the rules for the road should be in terms of a society and then in terms of government?

00:21:05.000 Because I think those are three separate categories.

00:21:07.000 And I think that very often our mushy sort of political thinking conflates all three.

00:21:11.000 It's like what I like for individuals is what I also want a government to do.

00:21:13.000 Or what I want society to do is what I want the government to do.

00:21:15.000 And I think it's pretty important to sort of tease out what we should expect from each one of those sort of categories.

00:21:21.000 Individuals, society, and government.

00:21:23.000 In these three areas, mate, the rules for an individual, the rules for a society, and the rules of a government, yes, of course, at scale, many simplistic ideologies begin to warp and break down.

00:21:37.000 And look, I'm aware of you, and I know that you're aware of me, and we've had a conversation before, and what I feel Is that I would anticipate, perhaps certainly from the comments I get underneath my own YouTube channel, is that a lot of people seem to think that I may be like a communist or something.

00:21:55.000 And a communist, of course, infers a highly empowered centralized state.

00:22:01.000 And this is not what I believe in at all.

00:22:05.000 I believe that all of us have a right, like you know, constitutional Thomas Paine type territory, all of us have a right to pursue happiness and freedom and I don't think that can be possible under certain conditions.

00:22:18.000 I don't think it can be impossible if there is the imposition of unconscious hierarchies.

00:22:22.000 I don't think it can be possible if there's too much centralized state power intervening in the lives of individuals and I don't think it can be possible anymore When we are aware of the variety and diversity of ways that there are to be human.

00:22:39.000 It seems like even when you watch something from history a hundred years ago, there was more tribalization, there was an acceptance of balkanization, separation, and I'm talking about times that were quite fraught with war, genocide and horror, of course.

00:22:52.000 But what we did not have then is this kind of a culture, an indomed culture, where there is a kind of a presumed set of morals, ethics and norms that are imposed over everybody, that we're all trying to appeal to a set of values that often seem at odds with our individual freedom. 0.90

00:23:15.000 Let me put it a little more positively.

00:23:18.000 I feel that there's so many different ways of being now that we need to decentralize wherever possible.

00:23:24.000 We need to accept that there are people that have entirely different sets of beliefs and values from one another.

00:23:30.000 And just because they're different, it doesn't mean that they're not right.

00:23:33.000 And I would like, you know, I'm sure, look, me and you could probably get into arguments about gun control, about Pro-life, pro-choice, about Israel-Palestine.

00:23:42.000 I'm sure there's so many things that you and I would argue about and frankly I'd rather not have those arguments because I think you're a very very skilled rhetorician and I think that when one is very good at arguing sometimes you can win arguments without necessarily being right.

00:23:57.000 And my feeling is When we are so different from one another, why are we trying to centralise?

00:24:03.000 Why are we trying to create these huge dominions when so many varied people are being asked to live a homogenised, normalised, centralised and ultimately, as a result of that, oppressed lifestyle?

00:24:17.000 As an individual, I want to be who I am.

00:24:18.000 I've always been a kind of arch-individualist just by default.

00:24:22.000 I want to live in communities where people share my values, and are there through choice, freely. I don't think that we as essentially evolved, advanced, enlightened, potentially divine primates can live in communities of millions, hundreds of thousands.

00:24:37.000 I feel that we should live, you know, when we spoke before Ben and you talked about how your Orthodox Jewish community is established around a synagogue, around a central set of values, built around family and community and shared beliefs, I thought there's a lot in that.

00:24:51.000 There's a lot in that and I feel at heart communities need a shared purpose.

00:24:57.000 You know, I'm a big fan of that Sebastien Junger book where he talks about the experience that service people have when they come home, the loss of purpose, the loss of meaning.

00:25:06.000 Because in our crazy world, being in the military, in combat, is a closer approximation of how we evolved to live than living in a bland, nihilistic, urbanized, empty, hollowed out, culturally vacuous, consumerist culture.

00:25:24.000 You know, we are going to have weird, diverse, varied ways of living.

00:25:28.000 And I think that, in a sense, I've long thought, Ben, and I would love your input on this, that we almost don't need... I heard the wonderful quote once, the world doesn't need more people to believe in God, just for those of us that do to start acting like it.

00:25:43.000 And I think that the world doesn't need new ideas.

00:25:45.000 Democracy, constitutional rights, just these existing ideas to be lived out correctly.

00:25:51.000 So individuals and freedoms and societies have a degree of autonomy where possible and an acceptance that people are different.

00:26:00.000 People have different values.

00:26:01.000 Why are we creating all these hot button points to quarrel and argue over?

00:26:06.000 Well, in my opinion, at least, the dominant problem remains the same, that there's a small strata of society Individuals and institutions that have largesse over the way that society is organized and most people quarreling over crumbs.

00:26:21.000 So again, I feel that we're agreeing a lot here because the attempt to sort of homogenize society and then demand that everybody lives the same way, I think is really destructive.

00:26:30.000 And you can see it in the United States.

00:26:32.000 And this is one of the reasons why I fear the idea of a centralized power, particularly in government, because government, in my view, is essentially a gigantic gun.

00:26:38.000 And basically whoever controls the gun now controls how everybody else lives.

00:26:42.000 And I prefer that the gun basically be a very, very tiny pea shooter that is directed in very specific directions at people who are attempting to do active harm to other people.

00:26:51.000 Otherwise, I don't want that gun to really be there because I don't want that gun pointed at me.

00:26:55.000 And I don't feel I should be pointing the gun at anybody else.

00:26:58.000 You know, localism and communitarianism, but in local communities, as opposed to trying to broaden that out in a universalistic fashion.

00:27:06.000 I think that that is one of the answers, is the sort of decentralization that we're talking about.

00:27:11.000 And I think that you and I agree very much on that.

00:27:13.000 And honestly, I'm happy to keep the conversation at the level that we're going here.

00:27:17.000 And the reason for that is because I've always suggested that political conversations usually are taking place on sort of the top of the iceberg, right?

00:27:24.000 So if we're talking about gun control, there are a bunch of values that are way below gun control that people are actually arguing about when they're arguing about gun control.

00:27:32.000 And those arguments are things about, The nature of human beings.

00:27:34.000 Are human beings naturally sort of dangerous to one another that requires us to have guns and self-defense?

00:27:39.000 Or do human beings have an individual right to keep and bear arms?

00:27:43.000 And to what extent do those rights conflict if those rights now extend to more and more dangerous weaponry, right?

00:27:49.000 Those are underlying values conversations.

00:27:51.000 I think that the more interesting conversations are the ones that go directly to the underlying values rather than the ones that take place on the top of the iceberg.

00:27:57.000 And so in a second, I want to ask you about some of those underlying values, particularly with regard to human nature, because I totally agree with you that that that human beings are living in a wide variety of ways.

00:28:06.000 Now, I think that there is a human tendency, which is to see everybody else as a threat to you.

00:28:13.000 And that drives people to want to control everybody else's way of life so as to prevent those people from threatening them.

00:28:19.000 And so, while I'm a big fan of heterogeneous.

00:28:22.000 I'm panicking about my life.

00:28:23.000 What happens if I die?

00:28:24.000 as there have to be certain baseline agreements about things like human rights or individual rights.

00:28:30.000 I want to ask you about that in just one second.

00:28:32.000 First, it is time for you to buy life insurance.

00:28:34.000 I'm panicking.

00:28:35.000 I'm panicking about my life.

00:28:36.000 What happens if I die?

00:28:37.000 What's going to happen to my kids?

00:28:38.000 I mean, you're a responsible person, Russell, and that is why I'm sure you already have life insurance to protect your children.

00:28:43.000 Actually, no.

00:28:44.000 Tell me, what sort of choices should I be making?

00:28:46.000 It is time for you to buy life insurance.

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00:29:57.000 Alrighty, so let's talk about a couple of the things that you mentioned.

00:29:59.000 We talked about sort of the belief in human potential and the ability to live lives of meaning and purpose, and the problems with great institutional power.

00:30:10.000 And I think that there are almost two separate topics, and I'd like to dive into them one at a time.

00:30:15.000 So when it comes to human beings, One of the sort of classical traditions, and this is true in Judeo-Christian tradition, it's also true in sort of ancient Greek philosophy, and it's true for most of Western history, and even in the Islamic world.

00:30:26.000 There's this belief that there is such a thing as an innate human nature, and that you run up against challenges in innate human nature, and that what civilization is really about, whatever your form of civilization is, is tailoring yourself to the demands of human nature and the society around you.

00:30:42.000 And I think that that is a very different view of what identity was than what identity has now become.

00:30:48.000 There's a view that I think is now very prevalent that human beings are entirely self-created, that we're completely malleable, we can be whatever we wanna be, and that what we are searching for is not a way of living in the world, but instead, an inner authenticity, and then we demand that everybody around us sort of mirror our authentic view of ourselves.

00:31:05.000 And to me, that is dangerous and prevents us from living in a society, because in order for us to actually share a society, even in a small community, we have to understand the rules of the road and that there are limits to what I can demand of you.

00:31:17.000 So I want to know from you, how do you see human nature?

00:31:20.000 I sort of, as a religious person, have the both optimistic and pessimistic view of human nature, that human beings as James Madison put it in the Federalist Papers, are capable of being both angels and devils, which is why they require some societies to shape and mold them.

00:31:35.000 And then there's the sort of Rousseauian view that human beings are naturally good, and if you just leave them alone, they'll be fine.

00:31:40.000 What is your view on that?

00:31:42.000 I suppose from my personal experience and from my own reading I would have to, if not conclude, currently reside in a place where I see an amalgamation of these ideas.

00:31:54.000 There is no question, you and I in our own ways are both cultural commentators and the reason we're commentating on culture is because we're recognising that culture has a power to shape and form influence and mould behaviour.

00:32:07.000 If it has that power, then likely, therefore, we are to a degree a product of this cultural sculpting or manipulation, let's call it.

00:32:22.000 But I also believe, and this I suppose comes from a somewhat mystical and perhaps even esoteric perspective, That there is an innate awareness within us.

00:32:37.000 I believe that there is, to use a word you used earlier, a telos, that in the same way we might appreciate that a seed Planted and correctly nurtured will find its formation and fulfillment as a particular kind of plant or tree.

00:32:55.000 An acorn will, given the correct conditions, become an oak tree.

00:32:59.000 That suggests that in its nature there are some inherent values that are being expressed.

00:33:05.000 Once human beings are highly socialized apes, there are so many ways of expressing who we are.

00:33:11.000 Certain values are promoted, necessarily.

00:33:13.000 Certain traits, instincts are denied, controlled, inhibited, prohibited in some cases, and that would seem to be a prerequisite of order.

00:33:23.000 And Ben, I would refer to an earlier part of our conversation that already we're in a territory where no one can claim objectivity.

00:33:30.000 No one can claim to have a unique insight and what are all of us as religious people doing other than saying, no, I believe I'm interpreting a divine, sublime and absolute will.

00:33:41.000 And people are doing that now, culturally, that, you know, from an academic or a scientific perspective, this is reality.

00:33:47.000 From a religious perspective, no, this is reality. 0.69

00:33:49.000 My feeling is that, well, I feel that these are my values, this is how I would like to live.

00:33:58.000 One thing I believe most strongly is that my spiritual values are for me.

00:34:03.000 They are to make me a better person in the world, so that I am non-judgmental, so I am compassionate, so I am kind, so I am understanding, so that I don't think that my views, my values, my will are the most important thing in the world.

00:34:15.000 Because I recognise in myself that there are states when that is how I feel, that there are states in me where All I care about is what I want and what I believe.

00:34:24.000 And I require a degree of openness, of fluidity, the ability to learn, alter, change, evolve.

00:34:33.000 I recognize that there are people that have a wholly different perspective on the role of genetics and biology and identity.

00:34:41.000 I recognize that.

00:34:42.000 Again, to your point earlier about the underlying values as opposed to the tip of the iceberg, What I try to do when I'm in a position of doubt is I ask again or investigate again, what do I mean by God?

00:34:55.000 What do I mean by love?

00:34:56.000 And if I can somehow rationalize something as potentially nebulous and diffuse as love, what I mean is a sense of union.

00:35:04.000 of oneness, whether I love a football team or a country or a pair of shoes or my partner or my kids, there's a sense that we are somehow whole and one.

00:35:13.000 And part of my spiritual journey is to find a perspective where I feel this oneness, this fraternity, brotherhood, sisterhood with as many people, potentially with all people, that even when I disagree with them, I recognize that there is a oneness, that there is a shared sense of community. And the more we understand about the universe and dark matter and potential other life forms, the more it seems preposterous for me to...

00:35:37.000 Tim.

00:35:38.000 Augment, fortify and hunker down into positions of oppositionism and contrarianism and conflict.

00:35:47.000 So for me, I recognize there are so many things about me that seem peculiar and unique.

00:35:52.000 I recognize that there are things about me that seem universal.

00:35:54.000 When it comes to power and the issuing of edicts, what I most strongly believe in is, as you have tagged earlier, localism and community.

00:36:02.000 I want to live around people that want to live the way that I want to live and I My prayer is that there are a set of universal principles that wherever you fall on these various spectra of identification, whether these are sort of traditional, perhaps conventional ideas, or very modern ideas, if we have recourse to what I call Sesame Street ethics, kindness, compassion, tolerance, then it's not going to bother me.

00:36:25.000 It's not going to bother me because Okay, yeah, you can express yourself and be yourself however you want to be.

00:36:31.000 And when we, you and I, are now tagging terms like universal, surely what we mean by that is don't harm other people, don't take other people's stuff, let people live how they want to live.

00:36:43.000 And it's very difficult because...

00:36:46.000 Because there are certain platform structures and institutions that have been set up in particular ways.

00:36:51.000 As you know, our mutual friend, acquaintance JP would say, you know, what a culture does is creates biases for its dominant or majority population.

00:37:02.000 That's What it's supposed to do, what else can it do?

00:37:06.000 And this is where we get to the question that I was asking about, what do you think the rules of the road are for society?

00:37:10.000 So I agree with you that on a general individualistic level, that, you know, the sort of basic rules for the road, treat other people with decency, be nice to other people, those go a long way.

00:37:21.000 I'm not sure that they go all the way, because you do eventually run into areas where you are demanding from somebody else that your version of niceness is actually a demand on them.

00:37:29.000 And this happens all the time in societies, and that brings you to the question, of what are the rules of the road for society.

00:37:34.000 A sort of bland universalism can sometimes actually degrade into atomistic living.

00:37:41.000 If all you demand of everybody is be nice to one another, and then everybody has a subjective definition of what niceness is, right?

00:37:47.000 This isn't me just being lawyerly.

00:37:49.000 Some people's version of niceness involves, I have to, you know, for example, violate my own religious scruples in order to quote unquote be nice.

00:37:56.000 And maybe my version of niceness is that you have to leave me alone to perform my religious scruples and this bothers you in some way.

00:38:03.000 What are the rules for a road when these sort of values come into conflict with one another is the question for how societies live together.

00:38:11.000 Universalism is really nice on sort of a vague level, but as we see in Western societies, unless there are some even more deeply rooted values in terms of what societies are meant to do, what sort of values do we wish to promote to our kids, then it's pretty easy for all of this to fall apart on contact with reality and other human beings.

00:38:31.000 Well, what I feel, Ben, and this might drive you and I potentially out of an income, is that somewhere between the atomization and the universalism are some intermediary gradients of scale.

00:38:45.000 And my feeling is, is if there are a set of cultural values that are at odds with my own, then if they can be run cohesively and in a contained manner without Influence in the set of values that I hold, then it's none of my business.

00:39:01.000 It's none of my business, even if I disagree with it.

00:39:04.000 As I indicated to you, things are happening in my own life, in my own household that I don't agree with, but I recognize and acknowledge and respect the autonomy of, for example, my wife.

00:39:14.000 Like, take something that's relatively prosaic, although not in the communities that deify these ideas.

00:39:21.000 I'm vegan.

00:39:21.000 I'm vegan because I've always been vegetarian.

00:39:24.000 I got pressured into veganism, I love animals.

00:39:28.000 My dog's right here now.

00:39:29.000 Okay, fair enough.

00:39:30.000 I'll be vegan.

00:39:31.000 I'm vegan now.

00:39:32.000 Leave me alone.

00:39:33.000 I've become vegan.

00:39:35.000 But my wife is not a vegan. 0.98

00:39:37.000 Someone said to me, you should make your wife a vegan. 1.00

00:39:40.000 Is this a feminist counter-argument you might want to bring to making my wife a vegan? 1.00

00:39:47.000 I'm not trying to impose my veganism.

00:39:50.000 Like, my kids are vegetarian.

00:39:52.000 I tell them, like, hey, look, some people, they eat animals.

00:39:54.000 And sometimes my kids, they say stuff, you know, you're a father, you hear the stuff that comes out of these people.

00:39:58.000 They're borderline barbarians, they are sometimes, these little human beings I'm raising.

00:40:03.000 Maybe that's just my kids. 1.00

00:40:05.000 Okay, I'd like to kill them. 1.00

00:40:06.000 Okay, okay, okay. 1.00

00:40:07.000 You know, for me, I'm with them now.

00:40:09.000 We're born.

00:40:10.000 Some people don't believe in God.

00:40:10.000 We die.

00:40:12.000 I do believe in God.

00:40:13.000 Some people eat animals.

00:40:14.000 I don't believe in animals.

00:40:15.000 Some people believe this.

00:40:16.000 I can only give you my set of values.

00:40:16.000 I believe this.

00:40:18.000 I've been charged with the job of parenting you, parenthesis, I'm gonna provide brackets around you, I'm gonna let you be who you are, and I'm gonna offer you the best I've got, knowing I'm wounded, knowing I'm flawed, knowing that I don't actually really know either.

00:40:33.000 I'm open to, you know, I learn from them all the time.

00:40:36.000 They shout stuff at me, they startle and shock me with their rawness and their beauty.

00:40:41.000 Sometimes I think they're closer to the source than I am.

00:40:43.000 Maybe perhaps life is a journey moving away from this divine light rather than towards it.

00:40:49.000 But Ben, to this point of conflict, you know, we know where it leads.

00:40:52.000 It leads to war.

00:40:53.000 It leads to cultural war, it leads to military war when cultures can't agree on a set of values.

00:40:57.000 And this is, again, when I'm talking about state centralization, you know, this is something that may somewhat wrangle with the patriotism that I assume is somewhat embedded in your Weltanschauung, right?

00:41:09.000 Hey, baby.

00:41:10.000 Ha ha ha.

00:41:11.000 Give me that, Ben.

00:41:12.000 Give me that, Ben.

00:41:13.000 Give me that Germanic philosophical term.

00:41:17.000 If the United Kingdom is not of service to a significant number of people in the United Kingdom, what is United Kingdom?

00:41:27.000 Who benefits?

00:41:28.000 Who is benefited?

00:41:29.000 If the United States is no longer beneficial to a significant Why have United States?

00:41:34.000 Why not have true confederacy? 0.90

00:41:35.000 Why not have true autonomy?

00:41:37.000 Why not have true devolution?

00:41:39.000 Devolve power wherever possible.

00:41:41.000 Now what happens?

00:41:42.000 Sovereignty, whenever you bring up these things, sovereignty muscles in its old argument.

00:41:46.000 You need us to protect you.

00:41:48.000 If you don't have us, then the terrorists are coming.

00:41:52.000 Then the darkness is coming.

00:41:53.000 I'm not suggesting that we don't have municipality intercommunication, rail systems and all the many other things that I simply don't have time to reflect on because I don't have enough glitter on them.

00:42:03.000 But what I would say is, where possible, let people run their own lives.

00:42:07.000 You know, it's more and more, Ben, I find myself Agreeing with libertarianism and agreeing with anarcho-syndicalism.

00:42:15.000 Yes, the rights of the individual, but some, we have responsibility for one another.

00:42:20.000 You know, like, you're a religious man.

00:42:22.000 We are God's children.

00:42:24.000 We are here to love one another.

00:42:26.000 And once that gets politicised into welfare, I've heard your discourse around subjects around welfare and victim mentality and stuff like that.

00:42:33.000 And this is probably the area where I would seem, compared at least to you, mate, more kind of, oh God, we've got to help people.

00:42:41.000 But for me, I don't want to be no bleeding heart liberal.

00:42:43.000 For me, there is a sort of a great power in believing in God.

00:42:47.000 Like a might, a glory.

00:42:48.000 We can change the world.

00:42:50.000 We can create a better world.

00:42:52.000 It doesn't have to be like this.

00:42:54.000 Even in your constitution it said, you know, you're going to have to update this because people drift in all sorts of bad habits.

00:43:00.000 You know, I mean, I'm paraphrasing.

00:43:02.000 Yeah.

00:43:04.000 But like, you know, this is the kind of responsibility we have as individuals.

00:43:07.000 And I think we should undertake it, Ben, in good faith, in good faith to one another.

00:43:10.000 Like, okay, you're from a different world to me.

00:43:12.000 You've got loads of different beliefs to me, but I'm not going to look to make you my enemy.

00:43:17.000 I'm going to enjoy and love the things about you that I agree with and see where we can find ways to live harmoniously.

00:43:28.000 Yeah, so Russell, I think that this is where, to me, the great grease in the wheel that allows what you're talking about to happen is a certain set of societal rules that are more informal than formal and imposed from the top.

00:43:39.000 And in just one second, I want to ask you about sort of where the conflict occurs and how we create the societal grease that allows us to live with each other while disagreeing with each other about a wide variety of things.

00:43:48.000 First, let's talk about your sleep quality.

00:43:50.000 I mean, I'm exhausted.

00:43:52.000 I'm not getting any sleep, Ben.

00:43:53.000 I'm wide awake all night.

00:43:55.000 They're shouting.

00:43:56.000 Helix Sleep, my friend.

00:43:57.000 When I am traveling, one of the big problems for me is I can't sleep as well as I do in my own bed.

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00:44:01.000 Why?

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00:44:20.000 I've got soft, medium, firm mattresses, mattresses great for cooling you down if you sleep hot, even a Helix Plus mattress for plus-sized folks.

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00:45:14.000 Both you and I have these sort of libertarian-ish tendencies when it comes to allowing people to live sort of how they want so long as it doesn't bother me.

00:45:20.000 There are sort of two areas where I think this philosophy tends to come into conflict with the real world.

00:45:26.000 One is we've broadened the definition of harm pretty dramatically.

00:45:29.000 So there was these John Stuart Mill harm principle that I get to wave my fist around until it hits you in the face, at which point I've harmed you.

00:45:35.000 And now we've broadened out harm to include things like emotional harm or indirect harm.

00:45:39.000 And this leads to more claims of me against you, right?

00:45:43.000 Now I get to make claims on you because maybe you're threatening my emotional state.

00:45:48.000 Maybe you're refusing to accept my authenticity.

00:45:50.000 Maybe my belief is that economics, for whatever reason, is I think falsely, but you believe it's a zero-sum game, and so if I'm making money, it's because I'm somehow taking money away from you.

00:45:59.000 So there's the broadening of harm as a definitional principle, and then there's also the problem that you were alluding to earlier, which is that you have a couple of kids, I have three kids, and as you say, children are little barbarians, right? 0.93

00:46:11.000 Children are innocent, and they are wonderful, and they are cute, and they are horrible little people.

00:46:17.000 All they do all day long is do extraordinarily selfish things punctuated by some of the cutest stuff that you've ever seen in your life.

00:46:23.000 Like if you met a 40-year-old who acted like a four-year-old, they would be on death row.

00:46:27.000 If four-year-olds had the capacity to actively wield weapons, they'd be like Thanos.

00:46:32.000 Half the world's population would be gone.

00:46:34.000 And I speak as the father of a seven-year-old, a five-year-old, and a one-year-old.

00:46:37.000 Again, they're wonderful.

00:46:38.000 I love them.

00:46:39.000 But the purpose of civilization, the purpose of parenting, is in fact to provide guidance.

00:46:43.000 And so it's easy to be sort of culturally libertarianish and allow for a lot of subjectivity in how people live their lives.

00:46:51.000 When you raise your own child, obviously you want to set boundaries for that.

00:46:53.000 And also we have to, I think, define what harm means pretty narrowly in order to allow for people to live their own lives.

00:47:01.000 And where I see us going societally is in almost precisely the opposite direction.

00:47:06.000 We're defining harm extremely broadly to the point where mere offense is now considered harm, dictating that I'm gonna go get the government or I'm gonna use societal pressure in order to actively destroy you, your career, your family.

00:47:19.000 And at the same time, dictating to people that actively parenting your kids, societal institutions, societal values, civilizational values that I use to guide my children are in fact a form of bad indoctrination, that only we should be able to educate your kids in the way that we see fit.

00:47:35.000 So how do you kind of square the circle in terms of allowing people to live their own lives?

00:47:40.000 For me, it's You know, define harm very narrowly, and allow a pretty broad parental remit when it comes to how you bring up your children, so long as, again, you are not indoctrinating them in true violent harm, or in, you know, situations in which they are likely to be, you know, harming themselves.

00:47:58.000 Because, presumably, adults should know more than kids, and you should already know the rules of the road, right?

00:48:02.000 I mean, I'm sure that you're teaching your daughters not to do a lot of the things that you did when you were young.

00:48:06.000 That's what it means being an adult, right?

00:48:07.000 It's the difference between being an adolescent and being an adult.

00:48:10.000 I completely agree with the obligations of a parent.

00:48:16.000 I feel perhaps some of these, to parrot a point you made earlier, that sometimes these ideas that work within the institution of the family are mapped onto a culture and a society and what better analogy could there be for the notion of patriarchy other than those in power are kind of like a benevolent Disciplining, but ultimately loving father, an idea that is clearly vocally being challenged and rejected.

00:48:46.000 I know that there are certainly loads of things, Ben, that you could say to me that would really hurt me.

00:48:52.000 And I would feel that we have a kind of contract, and perhaps there are things that I could say that would hurt you, although you seem kind of like a robust guy, I've got to say.

00:49:00.000 And you'd have to be to do what you do, and I respect you for that.

00:49:05.000 But if I thought I'd said something that hurt you, I would not like it.

00:49:09.000 I would not like it.

00:49:11.000 And I apply that to anybody.

00:49:14.000 I don't want people to be in pain.

00:49:16.000 I don't want people to suffer.

00:49:19.000 And who am I to impose a definition of harm upon them?

00:49:25.000 Again, I return to this point of a centralised idea of what America or a nation or even a set of ideals are.

00:49:32.000 How can we all be expected to harbour one another's diverse sets of ideals?

00:49:38.000 Why should we live in this frontier of ongoing conflict when we could just accept That, you know, except what seems to us personally unacceptable, except for where it's bloody obvious that you don't kill, harm, impose, take away people's rights to consent, all of these kind of, you know, kind of obvious ethics and values.

00:49:57.000 There is so much emergent conflict and sometimes I think it's a confection.

00:50:01.000 Sometimes I think these culture wars are, what do I want to say, inflated, promoted, escalated, to prevent us from talking about what you and I are blessedly discussing today, underlying values.

00:50:14.000 So, with harm, I recognize there are some things, you know, I'm a comedian, so when I'm in that space in my head, you know, and I'm not there, Particularly today, except for when you do the ad reads.

00:50:25.000 Then I see real opportunity for humour, Ben.

00:50:27.000 Real opportunity and I want to get in there with you.

00:50:29.000 But I'm in a sort of an open space where I feel that what I want to do is understand you and be giving to you and generous to you.

00:50:37.000 Even though, as we have both listed and are both surely aware, there are loads of stuff that we would disagree on and that we would be able to fill an hour on every single one of those subjects if we so chose to.

00:50:49.000 But when I hear you talk about your children or your religion or your wife, I feel like, Yeah, you're basically the same as me in Limitless Space.

00:50:57.000 You're going to die like I'm going to die.

00:50:59.000 Why are we going to quarrel about the stuff we don't agree on?

00:51:02.000 So, for me, this idea of harmony, I can see how some people come from communities, either historically as a result of their cultural, ethnic or racial identity, are traumatized.

00:51:13.000 For me, that seems like a very, very real thing.

00:51:16.000 Sometimes studying it, perhaps not as much as you, but the idea of inherited pain and trauma emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically and obviously economically seems like a very real thing.

00:51:28.000 In forms of individual, identitarian matters, I feel that the subjective experience for all of us is by its nature a mystery.

00:51:39.000 In areas of complexity and confusion, my personal choice would be to, when the Lord allows it, to err on the side of, OK, I don't want to harm anybody.

00:51:52.000 I feel like if I live the rest of my life without harming another person, without another person walking away from an interaction with me, feeling that they feel cheapened or not heard or not who they are, then I feel like I'm I have a connection to God, so I've got everything I need.

00:52:08.000 I'm not looking for it out there no more, and I don't want to be pulled back out there.

00:52:12.000 I want us, in this time of division and fragmentation and fracture, to find ways of coming together in peace.

00:52:20.000 Coming together with peace.

00:52:21.000 That's why I'm chatting to Candice Owens and chatting to you.

00:52:24.000 I don't want to just sit around chatting to people I agree with.

00:52:26.000 I want to talk to people Where there are areas of concern and discontent and downright disagreement and find ways that we can harmonise and live together.

00:52:37.000 Because I'm not coming to live in your house with you.

00:52:39.000 I'm not going to start going, why don't you do this with your kids? 0.51

00:52:41.000 And presumably you're not going to do the same with me.

00:52:44.000 So it's hypothetical.

00:52:45.000 It's hypothetical.

00:52:46.000 And for the people that these subjects are real, the people that feel challenged about the way they are, the way that they identify, often it's, I must admit, I cannot comprehend it or understand it, but as best I can, that's part of what they are saying.

00:52:59.000 They are saying, you don't understand, you don't understand.

00:53:02.000 Okay, that's okay.

00:53:04.000 I want people to be happy.

00:53:06.000 I don't want to hurt anyone.

00:53:07.000 So when I find myself in these areas of complexity, I think, where in me can I find love?

00:53:12.000 Where in me can I find love?

00:53:13.000 And where is the real power here, Ben?

00:53:16.000 This is what I return to, and I know this sort of seems like an evolved sort of postmodern sort of Marxist idea.

00:53:20.000 But I feel that the obligation lies with where the power is.

00:53:24.000 When we're talking about powerful corporations, powerful media businesses, powerful institutions, this is the issue. 0.81

00:53:32.000 If you're fiddling around With all these little pipsqueaks quarrelling about stuff down there, the real issue is who gets to decide on the geopolitical or national political level the kind of lives that we are going to live, the kind of resources we're going to have access to and not have access to, and are those systems in themselves moribund, broken, corrupt, ridiculous, in my opinion, in your country and mine. 0.58

00:54:00.000 When I hear you criticize power, I agree with you.

00:54:05.000 Sometimes when I hear you criticize what in my view are people that are less powerful, this is where I find myself not in alignment with your perspective.

00:54:14.000 I say this with respect.

00:54:15.000 No, this is a really important idea and I want to get into it in just one second about how we hold people accountable.

00:54:21.000 Is that a power game or is that really a principle game?

00:54:23.000 Because I do think that that is a really deep sort of philosophical divide that's happening right now.

00:54:27.000 First, let's talk about how you can make your employees happier, how you can find better employees for your company.

00:54:33.000 Oh my God, I actually do need to know that.

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00:55:45.000 Alrighty, so let's talk for a second about sort of this idea that I think has crept into the public discourse recently, that the chief goal of politics and political discussion, and maybe even philosophical discussion, is connected with power.

00:56:01.000 This whole conversation, we've been talking mainly on the individual level, and it's a thing where I think we find tremendous agreement, because a lot of the principles that you personally hold about personal responsibility, taking responsibility for your own life, and recognizing that you have agency in your own life, and at the same time, acknowledging that you may not have all of the moral answers within yourself, but you may have to look to external sources for all of that.

00:56:21.000 I think there we share a broad base of agreement.

00:56:24.000 I tend to treat the question of morality as an individual one.

00:56:29.000 And so for me, it's much less a question of power dynamics than it is a question of whether somebody is acting immorally or not.

00:56:36.000 So to take an example, there's a broad discussion obviously happening in the United States that's now extended over to the UK about the definition, the very definition of racism.

00:56:43.000 Now it used to be that the definition of racism was fairly well understood by everybody.

00:56:47.000 It was the, at least back in the 1950s and 60s, because we were seeing it practiced on a daily level.

00:56:52.000 And legally encoded in law in many places in the United States, it was a belief in the inferiority or superiority of a particular group of people based on race.

00:57:02.000 That was the definition of racism.

00:57:03.000 Now, the definition of racism has been shifted, and there's this different conversation taking place in which the notion is that it's not just that sentiment, it is systems of power in general that end with unequal outcome, must therefore be racist, or alternatively, That only people with power can be racist.

00:57:21.000 So if you're powerless and you are bigoted against somebody else, you might be bigoted, but you're really not racist.

00:57:26.000 Because real racism and the real challenge of racism isn't a challenge inside the human heart that we all have to fight.

00:57:32.000 It's not the sort of individual fight that you have in order to live a more virtuous and fulfilled life or the same fight that I have.

00:57:37.000 Really, it's a question of power dynamics.

00:57:39.000 And this is where I start to get very skeptical of some of the definitional issues here.

00:57:44.000 Because to me, if morality is now disconnected from individual action or even solving individual problems.

00:57:51.000 And it now moves up to the level of only people with power are a problem in terms of how they act morally or all inequalities of outcome are results of an imbalance of power at the top.

00:58:03.000 I don't think that the logic holds nor do I actually think that the logic is particularly moral.

00:58:08.000 I think that power can appear in many forms.

00:58:15.000 I was born without much access to financial resources.

00:58:21.000 I grew up in an ordinary single parent family, me and my mother, there's no real resources, there's a degree of welfare.

00:58:32.000 I, however though, was born with, I fortunately can string a sentence together, I can tell a joke under pressure, I can, you know, I have a skill set that the society I was born into values, and through, you know, opportunity, hard work, whatever, but even the hard work...

00:58:50.000 I was born with this, because I believe in God, I didn't give myself the ability to work hard.

00:58:55.000 I didn't give myself the ability to keep doing stand-up comedy for nothing above pubs year after year, with people literally throwing objects at me and keep going and keep going.

00:59:05.000 Even though that was a tough old task, I kept going at it, but I can't take personal credit for that.

00:59:11.000 I'm seemingly born with the ability, or even if it was culturally acquired, I didn't give myself the culture either.

00:59:17.000 So power, I think, personal power, cultural power, there are various ways of approaching and categorizing something as ubiquitous and as difficult to pin down as the ability to get stuff done if you want it, or prevent things happening if you don't want it.

00:59:38.000 Now, when that starts to be laying out upon a culture, Ben, I feel that we would have to acknowledge history.

00:59:46.000 We would have to acknowledge the history of your country, of my country.

00:59:49.000 Let's take mine because it's not so incendiary.

00:59:50.000 I know people hear my accent and think, this guy is going to tax me without representation.

00:59:55.000 We're going to smash him up.

00:59:56.000 What's he going to do next? 1.00

00:59:57.000 We'll tip his tea into the Boston sea, damn it. 0.97

01:00:01.000 I think that, say in the UK, our wealth was largely accumulated by legitimised piracy under the livery and paraphernalia of royalty and monarchy. 0.98

01:00:11.000 In fact, the more you dress something up in gold and ermine robes, the more likely that what's taking place is a crime.

01:00:16.000 I feel like, you know, to somewhat countenance one of the things that you mentioned earlier, that often where you find a huge amount of resources, there is a deficit elsewhere, just due to the finite nature of resources.

01:00:30.000 In order to produce the magnificent technology through which we are communicating now, it is necessary that elsewhere on the planet, people are working in conditions and for wages that are sub-optimal.

01:00:42.000 And I know that many people make an argument of general progression and the average person this and a dollar a day and the average lifespan.

01:00:48.000 For me, these are very sort of complex arguments that don't take into account industrialization and the effect that that had on mortality and many, many, many things.

01:00:59.000 I don't think that we should be looking for ways to differentiate ourselves from one another and condemn one another.

01:01:06.000 I have no choice because of my own spiritual values if people feel that they are persecuted And it's in a manner that I can't claim to understand because of the distinctions in my personal experience, then I would rather choose the route of compassion than condemnation every time.

01:01:25.000 When you're talking about vast subjects like race in America with this very particular history, you know, you and I have discussed this elsewhere.

01:01:32.000 That just because it's seemingly inconceivable that a debt of that nature could ever be repaid due to the complexity, the number of institutions, corporations, nations, individuals potentially involved, that for me, that does not foreclose the idea of reparations.

01:01:50.000 And while we're using a word like foreclosed, what the hell went on in 2008 where regardless of race, ordinary people, poor people in the main because who suffers always, the poor, That were ripped off, skanked by people who will never, it seems, face the consequences of their reckless actions.

01:02:11.000 Exploitation is happening, it seems, on a large scale.

01:02:13.000 To have a hierarchical society, it seems you've got to have a bunch of schmoes near the bottom that you're going to exploit, and the more they're fighting one another on account of the books they read when they try to To try to encounter the unknowable or the way they feel about themselves and their identity or their sexuality. 0.99

01:02:31.000 If we spend all our time squabbling about that, there's going to be no reorganization.

01:02:34.000 And how I would take this to you, Betty, is that I feel like you have power.

01:02:39.000 I don't mean this within the terms of perhaps how the conversation is played out.

01:02:43.000 The power of your personality, your ability, your willingness, your determination, your certainty.

01:02:50.000 For me, and I don't know, you know, obviously you're a religious man and you understand your religion deeply, but for me, the point of my religion is to, one, make me a cope in this world, knowing I'm going to die and everyone I love is going to die and that there is injustice and there is unfairness.

01:03:02.000 And two, I want to be good.

01:03:04.000 I want to make sure that I realise myself and I realise myself as a loving and kind man and I do well by people.

01:03:11.000 This is the function of my spiritual life.

01:03:14.000 One, to give me a real experience of a reality that's not just some cultural concoction, some confection of balderdash and inherited nonsense designed primarily to atomise me off into a consumer, to make me a willing stooge in somebody else's game, happy to settle for the trickle-down.

01:03:32.000 No.

01:03:33.000 For me, God is about I want to embrace reality and I want to be able to actualize my fervid sense that we can create new and better worlds through our imagination.

01:03:43.000 That we don't need to confine ourselves to this is the left, this is the right, it's basically the same.

01:03:49.000 squabble within this tiny window of issues, let's look at the underlying values. For a generation at least, probably more, there's going to be people polarised and apart. Can we come to some solution? And I think sometimes the reason it's so hard to find a solution is that the people in positions of true power and authority don't want there to be one.

01:04:11.000 They're perfectly content, even if it's not in a ha ha ha, Dracula castle, cabal, shadowy evil way, I think they're perfectly happy for people to be squabbling about small change while the big money flies upstream. So, you know, for me on these matters, I can see a real historical argument, for example, for reparations. I recognise that I can't understand the experience of a female non-white person, let alone some kid in the Congo dragging copper 0.61

01:04:41.000 out of the soil so my phone will work. I'm embedded in this, I'm involved in this. So for me, I'm...

01:04:48.000 I think it's, to use the phrase I hear you use a lot, I think it's straw man for me to be hitting on them.

01:04:54.000 Even though there's a lot of that and a lot of badges and a lot of stuff going on, for me the real deal is how can I be beautiful?

01:05:00.000 How can we challenge real power?

01:05:01.000 And I don't want to be distracted.

01:05:05.000 I want to ask you about a couple of things that we've touched on here.

01:05:08.000 One is sort of the definition of compassion that we're using, because I feel like everybody would love to be compassionate and should want to be compassionate, but compassion, it sort of materializes in a couple of different ways.

01:05:19.000 To me, the most compassionate thing that, hearing your personal story, that anybody ever did for you, is providing the framework for you to move away from drug addiction.

01:05:29.000 and give you back your own sense of agency over your own life.

01:05:32.000 That was the most compassionate thing that ever happened to you.

01:05:35.000 Presumably somebody directed you into that or helped you into that.

01:05:37.000 You had a group of people who were supportive of you during that.

01:05:40.000 Helping people regain their own agency in Jewish tradition and in most Judeo-Christian tradition is helping people achieve agency so they can make their own decisions and so that they can and so that they are not deprived of agency or treated as sort of as in a sort of childish fashion, you know, patriarchally, as you suggest.

01:05:59.000 But instead are given agency over their own lives.

01:06:01.000 And I feel like a lot of the discussions about compassion tend to devolve into by compassion, I mean, big people with big checks should sign cash over to other people as opposed to, well, maybe we need to actually look at the incentive structures, look at human nature and determine what incentive structures in society allow for people to realize their own agency and make decisions on their own that lead to them feeling more free and feeling more, more purposeful and feeling a more meaningful life.

01:06:28.000 So that's question number one on compassion.

01:06:30.000 And the second one is gonna, I wanna get to, is gonna be about the problem of subjectivism.

01:06:35.000 So a couple of times you've talked about sort of atomization of society and respect for other individuals and how they live their own lives.

01:06:41.000 And I'm fully on board with that up until the point where again, the fist meets my face.

01:06:46.000 Because if somebody is claiming that I have harmed them, and I have not actually harmed them, they're making a claim upon me. And so I'm now going to have to adjudicate whether I believe that that claim is justified or not. There's a big difference. I mean, I have kids, they fight each other all the time. There is in fact a difference between if my daughter is lying about my son hitting her and whether my daughter is not lying about my son hitting her, or if they If they just have a difference of perspective on how the hitting took place and who is right These questions actually do matter, and I'm not sure we can just throw our hands up in the air and say, well, nobody can understand one another, so everybody's right.

01:07:15.000 I agree that whilst genetically it is clear there is apparently infinite variety, limitless individuality, it seems also to be true that we have hearts, lungs, generally speaking sensory organs, and within a, broadly speaking, a kind of manner which could be regarded, if not as universal, somewhat standardised.

01:07:41.000 So I suppose that at least lays a pathway between us in the abyss within which the senses operate, that there is the possibility for real communion, that we can look at one another and think, oh my God, that person is hurt or that person is angry, that we can recognize that.

01:08:01.000 But, you know, our man Gladwell wrote that book, didn't he, about how we can all misread even something that's regarded as universal and standardized, such as facial expressions.

01:08:10.000 There's variety culturally within those things.

01:08:12.000 And my sort of belief, as a kind of, I don't know, essentialist, is that we have souls.

01:08:18.000 We're coming from a place of union.

01:08:22.000 Even to make such a claim, even in a vague, whimsical way, suggests that there is a means for us to connect to one another.

01:08:31.000 And again, Ben, I understand that you feel sort of...

01:08:36.000 I feel agitated by what you regard as a concoction around identitarian matters.

01:08:45.000 I recognise what you are saying.

01:08:50.000 I recognise it.

01:08:54.000 With the kind of clarity of thought that you offer, the ability to communicate that you have, that I suppose, you know, to echo or to repeat simply something I said earlier, is like that when you talk about, you know, corruption, the relationship between government and corporations, the hypocrisy, the hollowness and emptiness of the phatic nature of much of that communication, I find myself, I mean, I agree with you.

01:09:24.000 I feel that, where possible, we ought to yield and be compassionate wherever possible.

01:09:33.000 I don't like... even though I'm not just talking about sort of identity stuff, I'm talking about like, you know, Man, guns.

01:09:40.000 Where do I stand on guns?

01:09:41.000 I know that when I lived in America, I kind of thought, oh, wow, man, I could have a gun.

01:09:44.000 That sort of seems amazing to me.

01:09:47.000 I know I went to a gun range.

01:09:49.000 I know it's like kind of the idea sort of troubled me.

01:09:52.000 It troubles me to think of the availability of numerous weapons.

01:09:57.000 When I chat to Joe Rogan, I'm a vegan.

01:09:57.000 Cool!

01:10:00.000 I couldn't kill or hurt an animal.

01:10:02.000 It doesn't seem right to me.

01:10:03.000 I'm not, by the way, sort of some listless crystal worshipping mystic.

01:10:08.000 I believe in power and standing up for what you believe in.

01:10:13.000 Situations may present themselves that require a kind of, you know, some serious sacrifice.

01:10:20.000 Sacrifice.

01:10:22.000 But again, I try not to let my attention dwell too heavily on matters that seem almost like they're constructed to become a kind of, sort of a cyclone of impossibility that can't present conclusions, only confusion.

01:10:41.000 If people say that, you know, like, look, I don't know what it's like to be anybody else but me.

01:10:47.000 I remember when our daughter was given to us and the midwife said her senses are not yet evolved, she's in darkness.

01:10:52.000 And I considered that even as the senses come online and come together, the curated and minute aspect of reality that we can appreciate is so limited.

01:11:04.000 And isn't part of your own religious belief the idea that there are dimensions, consciousness, realms that are inaccessible due to the limitations of our ability to hold knowledge.

01:11:13.000 Limitations of our instruments.

01:11:15.000 Even if we amplify those instruments until we can see or at least sense dark matter.

01:11:20.000 Even if in the sub-particular world we can see the rules of Newtonian physics falling apart, chuckling at our innocence.

01:11:27.000 If this is the physical world, then I'm not going to, I don't want to condemn people for a kind of cultural discourse that I don't feel like a solution.

01:11:38.000 I don't think a solution lies in that direction.

01:11:40.000 What I feel like is we must be vigorously and vitally loving.

01:11:47.000 This is what I feel like.

01:11:48.000 And oh, how are you going to apply that?

01:11:49.000 How's that as a policy?

01:11:50.000 How are you going to run that out in a library, darling?

01:11:54.000 But what I feel, mate, is that You know, if people want to live a way, okay, you live that way.

01:11:59.000 You know, if we're not talking about a 300 million population, if we're talking about, you know, like the apes we are, 150 population, 150 people, you know, maybe in broader confederacy, real devolution, the ability, okay, if that's how you feel, you feel that you want to educate children that way, okay, okay, we educate children this way.

01:12:19.000 Okay, like, in like the tribes that are not yet modernized, They're not going to be... There will be an acceptance that there are cultural differences, that there are cultural differences.

01:12:32.000 And I think in America now, with the ubiquity and immediacy of this kind of communication, I think we get ourselves hopelessly entangled in matters that are very, very important to individuals that are expressing them clearly.

01:12:45.000 But for a culture, I think that our focus has got to be on finding things that we can agree on and finding ways of tackling them.

01:12:53.000 Real issues of power, the ability to control cultural outcomes.

01:12:58.000 I just simply don't feel, when they say 20 years ago when the whole debate was much more focused on Islam and extremism and terrorism, like who doesn't abhor and condemn violent acts?

01:13:10.000 Who doesn't?

01:13:11.000 I felt like, where is the real power?

01:13:14.000 Where is the real power?

01:13:15.000 Where is the real power, i.e.

01:13:16.000 the ability to organize who's got resources, who goes where, who gets to do what?

01:13:21.000 I don't want to be distracted too much in the semantic trivia, even though it has great weight and importance for some people.

01:13:27.000 Me, as a person outside of it, I want to be focused in the areas that seem real to me.

01:13:32.000 You mentioned, mate, You know, someone was kind enough to awaken me from drugs and alcohol and show me what it was that I really wanted, and then a group continued to support me, and I continue to struggle in permutations of those same issues even now, just like, you know, wanting to feel powerful or important or whatever it is, you know?

01:13:49.000 And part of my obligation was, You go and help other people.

01:13:54.000 Go and help other people.

01:13:56.000 Basic first century Christian ideas.

01:13:59.000 Feed, serve the poor.

01:14:00.000 Feed, serve the poor.

01:14:01.000 All the time I'm distracted by my cool little cardigan, or this little necklace, or my own narcissism, or how important I might be, or whether I'm getting older, which of course plainly I am.

01:14:11.000 This is a waste of time.

01:14:12.000 This is a waste of time.

01:14:16.000 Yeah, look, you and I, we've got these businesses where we're online, we've got to get views, we've got to like, you know, you have to make an impact.

01:14:22.000 But I feel that part of that journey surely should be sort of presenting with people with some hope and some optimism and some love and being men of God.

01:14:30.000 And being men of God does mean being men of compassion.

01:14:32.000 And that does mean, well, although I'm not like you and you are clearly, clearly different from me, I'm going to come at this from a place of love, you know, and if the fist hits the face, you know, learn the jujitsu.

01:14:46.000 So, Russell, I want to ask you a few final questions, starting with, can a society survive without any sort of impending existential threat for it to fight against and to oppose?

01:14:55.000 But if you would like to hear Russell and me discuss this, you'll have to be a Daily Wire member.

01:14:59.000 Go to dailywire.com, click join.

01:15:01.000 You can hear the rest of our conversation there.

01:15:03.000 Everybody, make sure to check out both of Russell's podcasts, Under the Skin and Above the Noise, his YouTube channel, and also his new Audible original, Revelation.

01:15:11.000 Russell, thanks so much for joining the show.

01:15:12.000 It's great to talk to you.

01:15:14.000 Well, man, you do a good job of this.

01:15:15.000 Thanks, Ben.

01:15:16.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is produced by Mathis Glover, executive producer Jeremy Our technical director is Austin Stevens, and our assistant director is Pavel Wydowski.

01:15:33.000 Our guests are booked by Caitlin Maynard.

01:15:34.000 Editing is by Jim Nickel.

01:15:36.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

01:15:37.000 Hair and makeup is by Fabiola Cristina.

01:15:39.000 Title graphics are by Cynthia Angulo.

01:15:41.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - June 27, 2021

Russell Brand | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 116

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