Modern Wisdom - #164 - Dave Rubin - Going From Woke To Awake

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

Dave Rubin is a political commentator, YouTuber & author. Politics is possessive, and as a thinking human you need a roadmap to guide your route out of the dogma and toward your true viewpoint. Expect to learn how it feels to deep throat a red pill on your own show, what Dave sees as the problems with modern liberal thinking, how batman calling someone racist can be life changing, why Douglas Murray could be a viable candidate for a superhero and much more. Check out everything I use from The Protein Works and get 35% OFF ALL PRODUCTS with the code MODERN35 - https://www.theproteinworks.com/modernwisdom/ Extra Stuff: Buy Don't Burn This Book - https://amzn.to/2Y9fXtv  Follow Dave on Twitter - https://twitter.com/RubinReport Follow Dave on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/RubinReport/ Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, hello people of Podcastland, welcome back. My guest today is none other than Dave Rubin, host of the Rubin Report and author of Don't Burn This Book. Today we're talking about everything that he's written down, including how he left the left, what it feels like to deep throw a red pill on your own show, what Dave sees is the problem with modern liberal thinking, how Batman calling someone racist can be a life-changing event, why Douglas Murray could be a viable candidate for a superhero, and much more.

But for now, please welcome Dave Rubin. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I am joined by Dave Rubin, host of the Rubin Report and author of Don't Burn This Book. Dave, welcome in the show. Chris, it's good to be with you. We are doing this across the pond over these digital waves that everybody is now stuck on. We thought we were two online before this thing, then Corona comes and this is the only way we can do anything.

I wanna be more online now, yeah. First things first, Dave, why is your book dedicated to Ben Affleck? Uh, this is either going to go down as a, as a brilliant marketing ploy or Affleck and the Affleck Empire will have me destroyed. We should know the answer in the next couple of days. Uh, but I devoted the book to Ben Affleck because I tell the story in the book about how Affleck actually believe it or not, was

a key piece to my political awakening because you may remember Ben Aflek was on real time with Bill Marr when Sam Harris, the neuroscientist and really mindful thinker, was on to talk about his book Waking Up a Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, and they started talking about how you have to separate ideas from people, meaning we should be able to criticize ideas, and that doesn't mean that you should be bigoted towards people. And they were talking about it in a religious context. So in this case, you should be able to criticize the set of ideas that is Islam, but what you wouldn't want to do is be bigoted towards Muslim people.

And by the way, of course, you should be able to criticize any set of ideas, whether it's the set of ideas that make up a religion, Judaism, Christianity, whatever it is, or a set of rules that make up a political party, or a set of rules that make up, you know, a basketball rules, anything like that. Sam calmly laid this out, and Bill Maher sort of backed him on this. And next thing, you know, Aflek was huffing and puffing and screaming. And in effect, he called Bill Maher in Sam Harris gross and racist. And this is about five years now, five years ago.

And in that very moment, I saw exactly what I had been thinking was wrong with the left, exactly what I had been thinking was wrong with the left, exactly what I had been thinking was wrong with the progressives in stark daylight. I had had these thoughts for a while, you're just calling everybody racist, you're calling everybody a bigot, you're always morally right with this indignation and anger, but suddenly to see it turned on this mild mannered neuroscientist who I didn't even know who he was at the time. And then Bill Mar, who really was the standard bearer of the left, at least in an American context, he's been our basically our biggest, most outspoken lefty, the guy gave Obama a million bucks for his reelection.

I mean, he has fought every progressive issue, you know what I mean? And constantly railing against Republicans. And then Affleck says you're gross and racist. And then the next level of it was watching the media just parrot that. Because Affleck said something, just because a Hollywood star said something, next thing, you know, Vox and BuzzFeed and HuffPone, all the usual suspects, are suddenly saying that Bill Marr and this Sam Harris guy, that they're racist. And that was really one of the, I lay out three key points of waking up,

going from say, woke to awake in my book, and that was one of them. So I feel that I owe Ben Affleck, even though we've never met. Thanks Ben. Yeah, and interesting that sometimes, even though we know things, we need quite a symbolic inflection point to happen,

so that it causes something, right? So my favorite quote of the whole book is right in that section, and I'm just gonna read the passage out now. So you're talking about the particular way in which Ben puts his words across, which is compelling to a very particular type of watcher, viewer, listener, fan.

This tactic is typical of people who don't know what they're talking about. Instead of having a solid argument based on fact, they simply moralize their way through life, shooting people down and throwing terms around as a distraction. That over the top emotion is enough to convince unthinking people on a base level. They've won because it appears as if they're morally right. Man, I really, really love that. I thought that's a lot of sense-making going on there. Yeah, thanks. Well, you know, it's interesting. So let's say this is Chris, this is the first

time we've met, right? Now, let's say I said something in just a moment that was, you kind of thought was like a little bigoted or odd or racist or something. In a normal situation, the way functioning people behave, you wouldn't immediately call me a racist. You might follow up and ask me something to go, oh, maybe I misunderstood you or are you sure that's what you meant to say or something like that. But what Atholic did, and you know this is also partly the way TV condenses everything and makes everything stupider, that these segments are so short that you end up sort of becoming like the worst version of yourself, which is why so much in cable news is just, you know, hacking at each other and pounding each other.

But in effect, in a normal argument, if you met somebody at a bar and they said something, it would take like a couple beats before you called them racist. But Affleck, the fact that that was the initial thing that he went to, it shows you what that thing is. It doesn't mean you know what you're talking about, but it seems like you know what you're talking about. And unfortunately, for a huge swath of the American population, but I know you guys are dealing with this in the UK, and it's a worldwide phenomenon, actually, acting as if you're morally outraged has replaced thinking. So that's really what I was trying to get to there.

And the fact that it was coming from an A-list actor in the rest of it, and what you said earlier is right, we all walk around, we're sort of thinking things. And if you're a thinking person, you're walking through the world, you try and appease together a cohesive worldview. Sometimes though, you need the moments like that, you need to see Batman call somebody racist

for the whole thing to crystallize, right? A little bit, man. You have read Douglas Murray's The Madness of Crowds, right? And the intro to- Douglas is one of the greatest writers on Earth, as a matter of fact, when I was writing this book I was reading the madness of crowds at the same time and I have I have all of his books and I was like man This guy knows how to turn a phrase. I mean you guys in general. That's what Americans are always

jealous of We've got yeah, we've got crap weather, but we've got some some lovely vernacular But yeah, man, so, but you were worried about, I've opened the book with dedicated to Ben Affleck. You know, he could have chosen a lot of other people that weren't Ben, but Douglas had Nicki Minajlerics at the start of his book. So if he's managed to get away with that,

I reckon you can get away with. Next thing, next second most important thing before we fully get into it, what's your favorite thing about Michael Males? Males, I mean, Males, I call him the Willy Wonka of politics, because he's such an over-the-top brilliant thinker that it is so hard to pigeonhole what he really is thinking versus how he's using trolling.

He's a brilliant wordsmith. He's one of the few people that I don't hate on Twitter because I'll read something of his and I'll go, whoa, that was clever. And then I'll have to read it three hours later because I go, man, that was even better. He's just a great thinker. He's fearless. He's staking out positions that are extremely politically incorrect in many ways. Yet are sensible and that he thinks them through. And what I really love about him is he's playing a long game here where he

He always says that Concert what it's what's the line conservatism is just Leftism at the at the speed limit, something like that. I'm slightly butchering it, but really that he's thinking about the world in a sort of holistic way, and also it's kind of being fun about it and trolley. Very grateful, isn't it? Have you seen the hair purgatory that your show has left him in? I did see a picture after.

I know for the people that don't know. Well, everyone's having hair problems. Well, not you these days. This went off yesterday. This came off yesterday. Yeah, exactly. So for the listeners, people are just listening. You're going to have to imagine it.

But this was the day after my flatmate shaved my hair. So I've usually got sort of curly hair on top. Yeah. So Michael did a little bit of a streak in his hair to do this Tulsi gabbard look to come on your show. And his plan was to grow it out and cut it out, but now he's in New York, locked down with no barbers or hairdressers available, and he's just stuck in hair purgatory. And he's just got this streak in his hair and he says he's tried every 1920s Gents hairstyle available.

And he's going through like the side part or like the slick back. And I'm trying to get him to do a man bun, but you won't go for it. He's looking kind of bananas, but it fits the overall political loke thing. Yeah, the political loke. So onto Don't Burn This Book.

Why did you write it? Well, I wrote it. But it's interesting. I mean, the absolute truth is, you know, although I had been thinking about a book for quite some time when I was on tour with Jordan Peterson, we were in, when Ireland, Ireland, we were doing the Dublin show that night and I got a call from my agent and he said, you know, we're getting all these offers for you to do a book, do you want to do a book? And while I had been thinking about it, it's like once it was presented to me, then I was like, all right, now I guess I gotta do it.

It's time to make the move. And I'm a firm believer that when things get presented, if you're roughly interested in them, you should take that opportunity, like take opportunities as life presents them. So when I signed the deal, it was originally why I left the left. And I talked about this right at the beginning because sort of everybody had sort of associated that phrase with me. I did that

pre-agree video. It's got like 20 million views. And I think that was the idea. Let's get Rubin to talk about why I left the left. And I started writing that. And then I was just kind of like, you know, I've said all of this before, you know, I think part of the reason that people care about what I do and what i talk about is that everyone can sort of see how crazy the left is gone you guys have a particularly insane strain of it in the u.k. by the way although your last election you know hopefully tampered it a little bit

uh... i was ahead of the curve on that like what i was saying four years ago about the left is now sort of mainstream and when i was writing that i was like you know i don't want to write a book that's Like what I was saying four years ago about the left is now sort of mainstream thought. And when I was writing it, I was like, you know, I don't want to write a book that's just about the stuff that I'm against, meaning I'm against leftism, I'm against collectivism and progressivism. I want to write a book about what I'm for.

So I actually scrapped it and I had to talk to the agents and everybody to make sure that they were okay with me doing this because it wasn't the book that I signed up for and we changed the title and everything else. And then what I really realized was, I want to show people a little bit of an autobiographical how I survived the monster. Once you start actually speaking up, how do you get through the mob? How do you identify fake news? How do you chart a course that is sensible? And also talk about the ideas that I think are the correct ideas,

which are the ideas of classical liberalism, which in a modern sense have much more to do with libertarianism and even conservatism, then certainly than progressivism and everything that the liberals from an American perspective have. I know you guys actually have a much stronger tradition when people say classical liberal, you guys have a much better understanding of that, where in America, the word liberal has just been completely mangled, and that's one of the things I'm trying to clean up a little bit here. Yeah. What is the difference between leftism and liberalism, classic liberalism? Give us the road map. Yeah. So liberalism, classical liberalism is very simple to understand. I mean, the most important thing is individual rights. If you are a member of any free society, meaning

you're a citizen of any society, whether it's the UK, whether it's the United States, whatever it is, we have equal rights for everybody. That's it. There is no special treatment based on skin color or gender or any of those things that we have somehow become obsessed with. Equal rights for everybody. And then basically laissez-faire economics, that the light touch of government when needed is all that you need. And that is basically the formula to allow people to live with the greatest amount of liberty and freedom so that they can, in

American context, pursue happiness, right? Pretty, pretty sweet. And by the way, this is the founding principle that the Constitution was written on and that Declaration of Independence was written on. Now, in an American perspective, that sounds very much like a libertarian. And what I always say is, the only real difference between a classical liberal and a libertarian. And what I always say is the only real difference between a classical liberal and a libertarian is if you were to take libertarianism to its end degree, and this is sort of like a malice type place, you would be disassembling the government everywhere. I love that intellectually. And by the way, because of coronavirus, I think we're seeing so many inefficiencies in government that I think a lot of people, I'm seeing lefties right now, wake up to all sorts of things like Why do we have federal income tax because people need their own money right now?

These are really super interesting things, which is pretty great, actually. But I would say the difference between a libertarian and a classical liberal is that the classical liberal sees a little more need for government, a little bit more. So I do believe government can, we can have public education. I don't want it exclusively. I also want school choice and charter schools and all sorts of stuff. I do believe government can, we can have public education. I don't want it exclusively. I also want school choice and charter schools and all sorts of stuff. But I do think the government has some role in keeping a social cohesion.

But at the same time, I want most things done by the states. So I live in California and unfortunately, we have super high taxes and the whole thing is pretty inefficient and totalitarian. But I could move and that's a beautiful thing. I could move to Texas and maybe I will will, where it taxes are lower, and maybe the people are a little more in line with the types of things I think. That's a beautiful thing, because if you don't have states rights, well, if you don't like it in one state, well, then you got to leave the country.

So America was really set up on this beautiful federal system, where there's an ongoing experiment all the time. So libertarianism and classical liberalism, it's very close except for those marginal things of where the government should get involved. I would say then the difference between classical liberalism and conservatism at this point is that generally conservatives have a little more of a religious view of the world. So then on the some of the social issues, I think they get a little hung up, but actually not as much as they used to because many conservatives now see gay marriage as whether they're thrilled

with it or not, for example, they've just let it be. Like there's really nobody railing against it, and I think most of their fears turned out to be unwarranted. And then the difference, really, which is question, between liberalism, classical liberalism, and progressivism, is that progressivism basically means the state should pretty much do everything. So whenever Bernie or AOC or any of these people talk about anything or Corbin from your perspective, it's like they want the state to pretty much do everything. We want free college for everybody, we want the state to tell businesses what they can pay people. There is nothing, free healthcare for everyone.

Of course, nothing's free. And then the problem with that is that once you start, if you're starting point is the state should do everything, this top down thing. I like bottom up. I like individuals, then can build a system. I don't like, oh, the system then has to basically quash the individual. The problem is with leftism. You could take something like the minimum wage which here in America, there's this big

debate. Should we have a $15 minimum wage? Now I don't believe in a federal minimum wage anyway because I believe in competition, and I know that I have a ton of people that would love to work for me. People offer to work for me for free all the time. Now, I pay everybody that works for me and we pay them quite well, actually, but I don't think it's up to the government to decide whether I pay that person $13 an hour, $15 or $20.

Now, the problem on the left is Bernie comes out and says, well, I'm for $15 minimum wage and then Rashida Talibe, a congresswoman here in the States, comes out and she says, well, I'm for a $20 minimum wage. And then it's like, well, I'm for a $20 minimum wage. And then it's like, well, I guess so because you just made up a number. Why can't I just make up a number? And that's why the government just grows because all they're operating off of is how they feel about any given thing.

That is extremely different than saying, I'm for individual rights, which is what classical liberals and conservatives and libertarians believe. I want everyone to be equal, equal playing field. It doesn't mean that some people aren't born with more. It doesn't mean that some people aren't luckier. It doesn't mean that some people won't work hard. But those are all things that that's just the human condition and the government has to get out of the way as much as possible.

And I think unfortunately, just to wrap this up really quick, the progressives saw liberals, liberals that are nice and decent and open because that the liberal mind usually is those things. And progressives saw that and said, we can get in here. There's a weak underbelly and let's get in to the system by basically destroying liberalism and taking over the Democratic Party. And I think that's basically what we've seen. There are no good liberals left.

I mean, there's very few. It's like the Jedi after Order 66. They've been scattered across the galaxy and hunted down. Yeah, I get you. One of the points that you brought up was about gay marriage. And I thought this was really interesting. What you mentioned was that being liberal means being sufficiently liberalism means being sufficiently liberal,

liberalism means being sufficiently liberal to support gay marriage and also sufficiently liberal to tolerate people who oppose it. Yeah. That on the surface doesn't seem like a tremendously complex point. It again comes back to individual sovereignty. You are allowed to decide to like and dislike whatever it is that you want. And yet if someone was to say, I disagree with gay marriage and you don't say big racist xenophobic homophobic whatever you pick your thing, that would be like, well, it just doesn't, doesn't mesh, right? You know, it doesn't seem to make sense. Well, that's, that's where the feelings thing should not be the thing that we're governed by.

What we should be governed by is that we're all treated equally under the law. That is my underlying principle behind everything else that I would talk about. For example, I have had several guests in my studio, which, as you know, is in my house. I'm in my house right now. I have welcomed in people such as Ben Shapiro, who's an orthodox Jew, who by his outlook on life, his religious perspective on life is against same-sex marriage. I have had Bishop Barron here from the Archdiocese in LA, who from his Catholic perspective is personally against gay marriage. I have had fruitful, honest conversations with them. Now before gay marriage was passed, we're either one of them fighting for gay marriage. I have had fruitful, honest conversations with them.

Now, before gay marriage was passed, we're either one of them fighting for gay marriage. Of course not. But, at the same time, gay marriage has now been passed and I don't see either of them trying to legislate it away. So what you have to understand in a free society is there are going to be people who disagree with you. There are going to be people who disagree with your lifestyle and the rest of it.

But as long as they don't take that onto your property, as long as they don't try to destroy your job or your life or anything else, then actually you should relish in your differences. And the irony, what right would I have to tell Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew or Bishop Aaron, a Catholic or a devout Muslim, what right would I have to say, you must bend to my will? I don't want them to have that power over me, so I have to accept that I don't have that power over them. Now, I think what you can do, and by the way, I've said this to Ben many times, that what you can do is by, I think, by being a decent human being.

Over time, you can show people that maybe some of their views are a little bit backwards, or I don't even want to say backwards, that maybe there's some of their traditional views, maybe the time has passed on some of them or something like that. Perhaps their views actually don't align with their values anymore. And they've just grandfathered these old views in by way of, well, they were here, therefore, I'll keep them going. And again, what did we say right at the start? That inflection point. Perhaps sometimes you can be that inflection point.

Well, I think you're absolutely right. It's actually a really great point. So let's say somebody's values don't quite match up with their views suddenly, or their political beliefs suddenly. What would be the best way to get them on your side? Would it be to call them a racist or would it be to continue to talk to them, continue to have that conversation? And then over time, and this is what I've said to Ben, is Ben, you know, when I'm 90 and you're 85 and we've done this for 50 some odd years, I suspect you'll have come around to my position a little more than I'll have come around

to your position. He doesn't agree with me now. I bet he didn't agree with that at the time. Yeah, I bet he didn't. But there's only one way to find out. And I'll also tell you this, you know, there was a night when we were on tour with Jordan Peterson and we did our second L.A. show. And it's at the Orphium in here in downtown L.A. thousands of people.

It was one of our best shows. And I brought Ben on as a surprise guest. So I go up and I do about 10 minutes, a lobster jokes, and getting everybody laughing. And then I bring Ben on. Ben comes on, he brings a little cupcake with them. Because there was this meme about that. He wouldn't bake me a gay wedding cake as if I would want Ben to bake me a cake anyway. So he hands me a cupcake.

He does an impression of Jordan Peterson. We do a little funny bander back and forth. Couple videos get out on Twitter. And it was so interesting because I'm in a room of 3,000 people and everyone knows he has a traditional view of marriage. Everyone knows that I'm married to a man. We get up there. We're having a great time.

There's mutual respect. Everyone in the audience is laughing, cheering, screaming. It's great. Couple clips go out on Twitter and suddenly it's the tolerant progressives, calling me a self-hating gay and ban a homo-phob and our audience a bunch of white supremacists. And it's like, you know, I was just in that room. And in that room, what America really is about is what was experienced. And you guys from the outside, while you tell us we're all

bigots and self-haters and all the rest of it, perhaps you might want to look in the mirror. So I think over the course of time, if you're a decent person, you can bring more people to your side. And unfortunately, that's just really been lost on the left. I get it. I think this might be a small area discrimination or perhaps a UK-wide one, although based on some of the stuff we saw in the last general election, maybe not UK-wide. But I have to say, personally, someone from the northeast of the UK, none of this stuff. We don't hear words about, there's no debate about transgender bathrooms,

there's no discussion about whether the gender pay gaps this or the gender pay gaps that like reading your book feels a lot like a window into a world which doesn't exist. And I know it does exist. That's interesting. It's not one that I can really relate to. All that much. I'd be interested interested to hear the people in the UK that are listening. Tell me if I'm alone with this, right? Just because I really, I spoke to Zubi, I've spoken Douglas Murray, I've spoke Andrew Doyle and you know, these, I don't know whether there's certain areas, certain corners, the internet, perhaps after this goes up, I'll be just fully feet first into it. We'll see who catches onto this episode.

But you get my point, right? It's interesting for me to watch, and I'm super glad that I'm the voyeur in this, rather than the person that's getting stuck in. Well, I hate to tell you, you can never last as the voyeur too long. Like, once you've talked to dangerous Douglas Murray and Zubi and Andrew Doyle and me, I mean, eventually you won't be on the lawyer side of that, but I actually, that's inspiring what you just said, actually. The idea that- Thanks Dave, that's exactly what I'm here for, my dear. Well, well, there you go, I mean, that is the truth because, look, a lot of these bad ideas

about gender pronouns and everyone's a big hit and all this stuff. It's not real other than it's pushed on us by the mainstream media all the time and the rest of it. So when Douglas, who I would say is fighting it in the most brave way possible and has been fighting it before everybody, when he's fighting it, it's not that it doesn't exist, but it doesn't mean that it's everyone. It's a really loud yapping dog that we finally have to just sort of put in a cage and just say, well, you can keep barking, but we're not going to listen. It needs to go out the back in the woods, doesn't it?

And just a shotgun. I need to segue here. Have you seen how Jack Douglas Murray's got recently? I haven't. I haven't seen it. Bro, Dave, go on a Twitter. Everyone that's listening right now, go on a Douglas Murray's got recently. I haven't. I haven't seen it. Bro, Dave, go on a Twitter. Everyone that's listening right now, go on a Douglas Murray's Twitter and try and find some of the most recent photos of him. That guy has got jacked out of his mind. He's just, I don't know what he's been doing. He's been using coronavirus preparation for like, I'm not even kidding.

I'm not kidding you at all. When we recorded, he'd add like a couple of glasses of wine and just look like a normal dude. And now, he looks like a pro athlete I'm not honestly going I'm gonna I saw I saw a picture of him with some scruff I thought you know he's going to level man that's a net He's so he started he grew the beard and then he's he's got jacked so that's it right next next thing And why do people need a road map to leave the left like I can just leave my house on my

Football team or my gym or my business, you. Like I can just leave my house on my football team or my gym or my business, you know, like I can do what I want. Why do I need a road map to leave the left? Because unfortunately, it's a lot easier to walk out of your house and walk into the gym than to leave an ideological echo chamber. What these people have done quite effectively

is trick good people who have very decent views, which probably you share many of. They've tricked them into thinking that they shouldn't say what they think. So when I say it's a road map for leaving the left, I want people to understand that if you want low taxes, if you believe in borders, if you believe in an American context, the second amendment, but certainly also the first amendment, if you believe in free speech, if you believe in the right to assemble, all of these things, these are beautiful things that for some reason, if you talk about them and don't follow every other piece of leftist dogma, you are out, you are racist, you are

bigot, you are all those horrible things. And that has couted quite literally millions and millions of good people into silence. There are, I mean, the amount of email I get from people who are moderates. I mean, the most moderate, but might have some, perhaps, a personally traditional view of marriage, or might be for low taxes. So here's like the best example I can give you. So if you, I find this one all the time, I speak in a lot of libertarian events and libertarians will come up to me and say, you know, Dave, I'm afraid of saying in college that I'm a libertarian

because people will say I'm racist and it's like, well, what does that mean? How did racist and libertarian get confused? And the reason is if you say you're for low taxes, what a lefty will say to you is you're for low taxes, that means you hate poor people and if you hate poor people that means you hate black people and if you hate black people your racist now first off you can tell them that well actually there are more poor white people than poor black people I mean that's just the fact they don't they won't care about that and you can also then say to them you know a lot of our programs that are supposed to help poor people actually hurt poor people

which is why the black community has been so hampered by these handouts in an American context instead of help. All of these things, and people don't want to be called all of these horrible things. So what I've tried to do here is lay out a roadmap. You are going to be called horrible things. There is a chance people will come for your job. The media might do a hit piece on you. You have no idea the ensuing chaos, but if you are a free person living in a free society

and you refuse to stand up for what you believe in, you refuse to say what you believe in, well then you get whatever is coming to you, you deserve whatever is coming to you. And I don't think most people want to live like that. And by the way, I'm pretty hopeful right now because with Corona, one of the things that's happening is the online conversation and the mainstream conversation really are converging into one thing. We're watching CNN anchors now, and I'm sure you guys are doing it with sky anchors and everything else that are basically broadcasting out of their kitchens. And once you see them without all the makeup, without all the fancy lighting, without all

the teleprompers and everything else, and then you see the without all the makeup, without all the fancy lighting, without all the teleprompers and everything else, and then you see the average guy on YouTube who is just sharing his thoughts, which I would say is something close to what I've been doing. You go holy cow, these people really are equal, and if anything, maybe this guy even knows more. So there's been a democratization of news right now. So I'm very hopeful that people can start breaking out

of this stuff and that the road map as i say in the book it's like if if i give you the road map here and then you come out and you're not with me on every one of those issues you don't believe exactly what i believe about abortion or you don't believe exactly what i believe about gun rights or whatever else but we basically broadly agree on freedom

then we're good jay did you see the most recent Eric Weinstein on Joe Rogan? I saw like tiny little clips of it. You've been pretty busy around here. It's one of those ones you probably need to dedicate a little bit of time to, but he talks about this specifically to do with how what is mainstream media now?

What we're classing is mainstream media, what you could call NBC and ABC and BBC and Sky News and stuff like that is traditional media. But if we put this video up, and this video gets 20 million views, which would be great, but if this we put this video up and it gets 20 million views, or Joe Rogan puts an episode up

and it gets 20 million views. And Sky News puts recording up and it gets 1 million views, whose mainstream media. Like that's just a term we're talking again about grandfathered in from the old world because previously being on a network was a signal. It was a sign of virtue, of an integrity, of production, quality, of research, of all the rest of this stuff. And as you said before, with Bill Mayer and increasingly now with a lot of news shows, the fact that you've got to squash it into

three minutes and 43 seconds before the next ad break comes in, and all we need to cut to John who's in the parking lot talking about this going on, that all that sort of stuff, the fact that you have these constrictions on it, inherently means that the quality is going to be lower because you chopping it up into like unbelievably tiny little bits. And yet I thought that was that was really,

a really, really interesting discussion from those two guys. And I want to say something else as well about what you just brought up, which was, um, Douglas Murray mentioned this. He said that people who don't take ideologies wholesale and take them piecemeal are going to be the immediate targets for anybody on both sides. And the reason he said this was the case was that anything which seems not to fit the prescribed bill for whatever the particular stances that you're taking.

Let's say that you have conservative views on most things, but a progressive view on abortion, or pick your little way of piecing it together, says the nuance and the individuality gets seen as the other side of weakness. It gets seen as that's the weak point, that's the Achilles heel, that shows that you

actually don't know what you're talking about because you're supposed to, you Dave Rubin, because you, you're for gay marriage, you're not supposed to do this with, with taxes and you're not supposed to do this with whatever. Yeah. So there's a lot there. So I would say broadly, I agree with, with Douglas's prescription there, but I would add one thing which is that it's not exactly equal. So on the right, generally speaking on the right, if you're a conservative, if you're a libertarian, a classical liberal, you're allowed to agree to disagree. I mean, I am pro-choice. I talk about it in the book.

I'm begrudgingly pro-choice. That is one of the ones that for conservatives is like the biggest no-no. That more than anything else is like the one that they view as like the one that they cannot budge on, except I am welcomed to their discussions all the time to have that debate. They're not all thrilled with game marriage, but I am welcomed to have that discussion. I am against the death penalty. Most conservatives are for it. I am welcome to have that debate.

Now try to do the version of that on the other side. There's almost none of that where if you pick one, try to imagine someone that's on the left that's pro-life. They've made a point now, democratic politicians make a point of saying it all the time, there's no room for you if you're pro-life to be a Democrat, to be a lefty. If you don't take their position on minimum wages, I just mentioned, or you don't take their position on minimum wage, as I just mentioned, or you don't absolutely sign up for the green new deal and believe exactly what they believe on any given day that the world's going to end in 12 years as AOC says and all this other stuff.

So Douglas is absolutely right that the piecemeal person who's really trying to do what you're supposed to do as a human, which is figure out how to think and why you think what you think, which is exactly what this book is about. The piecemeal person is always going to take more fire because you have a more complex system there and that complex system is going to have some weaknesses sometimes because it's a work in art, right? We should be inherently suspicious of anybody who once you know maybe two or three things about their views,

you can then extrapolate out the remainder. Well, I find that to be the most boring type of person there is, you know. But again, there is an ability for people on the right. At least right now, I'm not saying it was always like this. But why is it that I can go out for an afternoon drink with nijel forage and agree to disagree on a bunch of stuff and we were pretty drunk and we can agree to disagree that guy likes you know why can i sit with donald trump jr and agree to disagree why can i sit with glenn backer danis prager a million of those other people

and and there's virtually no version of that on the left. I'm not saying that there are no good lefties, right? So you can talk about the Weinstein brothers or Sam Harris or a couple people, but I would say in effect at this point, if, I mean, I say this all the time, but defending my liberal principles is becoming a conservative position. And that simply is true. That is what the new conservatives are about.

So the left is just purging people and the right is basically standing there and saying, join us. And what I want to do is I don't want to convince, I don't have to convince any conservatives that I'm more right. I'm not trying to make any conservative, more pro-choice. I'm just saying to the conservatives, hey guys, carve out a little space over here for us because there's a, because these guys are bananas. So give us a little room to operate over here and a lot of cool stuff can happen. And by the way, that's happening already.

I get it. So this links in. Why do Republicans or conservatives get labeled as bad? And why do Democrats or labor voters get labeled as good is it just signal you know it's complete signal i mean i i have a section on this i mean this this is just factory setting thinking this is just stuff that you get from the media you get from culture it's like democrat good republican bad democrats care about poor people republicans care about money democrats are for peace republicans are for war you know democrats love gay people, Republicans hate gay people. There's a million of these nonsensical things.

And all that is is factory settings. That through culture, through state education, through all these things, that is where we all sort of baseline start. Government good. It's all the baseline stuff. And what your job is, I love the phrase factory settings because it's like when you get a television or a computer, you get a new MacBook. What do you do?

It comes with factory settings and then what do you do? You might make it a little brighter, you might change your background, you might have a different sound, do this and that. It's your job to modify your system to something that you like and that's what the way you behave with the world should be as well. So the only reason that those things stick is because unfortunately, the media has sort of colluded,

I would say, with the Democrats or with the left, to sell a really dishonest meme. And that meme is that Republicans are all bad. And in a weird way or or conservatives are all bad. And in a weird way, this is Donald Trump's greatest strength. Donald Trump saw it, like the Republicans tried it with nice guys. In retrospect, I think most people think John McCain was a nice guy, a decent human being,

Mitt Romney, a nice guy, a decent human being. And guess what? They both lost. So Trump just said, you know what? I'm not going to play by these rules because it's not just that as a Republican, I have to fight the Democrats. That would be an easy, an even fight, right? But it was just Democrats versus Republicans, battle it out, and to the winner goes the spoils.

But what's really happening is it's the Democrats and the media as this huge monster versus the Republicans. Well, that you can never win. So Trump just went in and said, well I'm just going to blow up the whole freaking thing. And that's why what I find, the people that I'm often most frustrated with are these absolute never trumpers. Because I'm not saying, first of all, I didn't even vote for Trump, okay? But I broadly like his policies and I understand his tactics and the idea that this guy is Hitler or any of this other stuff.

It's just nonsense. What he's going in and doing, he's doing all the dirty work so that the good liberals and the good conservatives can still go to their parties and think that they're nice people. And then they shit on him for it. Yeah. I have a question. Are you a Nazi dressed in the skin encloser of a today's show correspondent? Well, that was a loose quote from a piece in Durr's Beagle where they had me on the front cover of the whole thing saying that I was the grand illusionist of the alt-right and they

had a very scary picture of me. I was sitting in my green room where I have an American flag and I was sitting under the American flag And that's really an alt-right signal and they said that you know They the whole article was written as if I was some sort of like evil elitist. They talked about my Italian coffee maker Which is an espresso machine Give it a little bit. Are you like it's a Nespresso coffee maker it cost about 140 pounds Yeah, 140 bucks. You get it at walmart so uh... but then he you know he wrote and he has new yorker magazines on his walls yes i do have one

postcard from a new yorker it's i got it for five dollars on the street in New York city but the whole piece was a work of fiction and the disappointing part is that this guy who visited my home he watched me do several shows he came to alive event that i did that night at a university of southern California. He was the illusionist. He decided to paint me as this evil racist thing and just lie and fabricate. And you know one of the interesting things is I didn't know this till after, but there's a law in Germany that if a publication is going to write about

you, they have to run all of your quotes by them. So this guy spent literally all day with me from about 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in that peace and dirt speak. Oh, there's not one quote from me because he would have had to have run it by. So he so basically he spends all day with me, then writes a piece of fiction and doesn't quote me once in the entire thing, even though I spent hours talking to the guy. So that's just, I use that example as just one of the many ways we've watched the media collapse. Journalists, when I use air quotes,

are the ones destroying journalism. So does this mean you're Nazi adjacent then? Or a Jason adjacent? Yeah, yeah, cool, which is 180 degrees actually. Yeah, which makes you adjacent adjacent. Oh my God. Yeah, congratulations. Fuck. Um, how can we spot fake news? I want to know. Well, I loved writing this chapter because I think it's it's sort of the most functional in a way because we are so manipulated by the news. And as we're all stuck right now at home with Corona,

We are so manipulated by the news and as we're all stuck right now at home with Corona, Big Tech which loomed large over all of us is now even bigger, right? We can't congregate at a bar. We can't go to a political rally. We can't even go out to dinner with our friends. So Big Tech which had all of this power over us is now way bigger. So I lay out several types of fake news. The one that I'll go with for this is one of the pieces of fake news or one of the aspects of fake news that I think is the most insidious is not just that they lie about stories or

that the headline is often very different from the article or they mislead you by cutting a quote in the middle and the rest of it. One type of fake news is the stories that they won't cover because it doesn't fit their narrative. So months and months go by where mainstream just won't address a story properly. A good example of this would be when Brett Weinstein, who was the professor at Evergreen University, when he was being attacked for being anti-racist. I mean, all he did was the school had put out a new edict that white students should not

come to campus on a given day because to protest racism, they had always had this day where students of color voluntarily decided not to go to class. And Brett was okay with that. But then on two years ago, they decided, no, on this day, we're going to actually tell students not to come based on the color of their skin. He said, no, no, no, that's racist, which we all know it is racist, of course. And psychotic for a university

to tell a certain type of student not to come to class i mean it's actually mental this thing was blowing up this story and then there were roving gangs with bats trying to chase him off campus and a whole bunch of other stuff happening the new york times just refused to cover it cnn refused to cover it that's a type of fake news. It didn't fit their narrative that lefties are good. And the irony is that Brett, I don't know what he describes until now, but he was a progressive. He was a lefty, lefty, lefty, Bernie supporting lefty. So it's like he wasn't even good enough for them, but that really goes against the narrative. So the New York Times just ignores it. That in and of itself is the type of fake news.

It's fake news by omission rather than by commission, right? Yeah. I love that. You know who we needed in that situation when everyone was roaming around with baseball bats, Jack Douglas Murray. If he didn't Jack Douglas Murray with him, no one was fucking with Brett. I like this idea of Douglas Murray as a superhero. I think you're right.

He's not lying. I'm not kidding at all. He was something that I was surprised by. Again, politics isn't sort of the tip of my spear for what I usually get interested in, although I've got exposed to a fair bit, especially over the last few years, it's difficult to avoid.

I didn't know that nationalism was classically liberal. Yeah. Can you explain how that works? Yeah, so I referenced the book that I have right here by your Ram Harzoni, called the Virtue of Nationalism. And I think you guys in the UK have a particular unique experience related to nationalism, because of everything that your last four some ideas were four-some-odd years were about related to Brexit. It is your right.

It is the right, I would say, of a nation to decide what its borders are and to decide to defend itself, however it would like to and to decide who can come when they can come, how many people can come in the rest of it. See, the simple truth is we're all nationalists, we just don't know it. I believe that America has a right to defend itself, to define its borders and all of those things. Britain's have decided that it is your right to do the exact same thing that you don't want to outsource your decision-making to bureaucrats in Brussels.

That's a beautiful thing, in my opinion. That is a beautiful thing. You want to be governed by the people you voted for, not some amorphous bureaucratic commission that isn't even within your borders, right? So this is how a society can work in the most functional way. There's this idea that somehow the global community must come together and decide what is best, but that's actually deeply, deeply dangerous because that often removes the autonomy of each individual nation. What's the point of nation states, if you just do that?

Well, exactly. What's the point of nation states? Now, some people would say, well, then we should have no borders. I'm completely against that. I want a border. United States has Canada to the North. We got Mexico to the South. I like that we have borders. Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't let anyone in. That doesn't mean we should have no immigration. That certainly doesn't mean we should be xenophobic or racist or the rest of it.

What it means is we have certain laws. There are privileges. It is a freaking honor and the most spectacular privilege in the history of the world to be an American citizen. You are the freest, freakin thing that our ancestors could never even imagine how ridiculously free we are. We can sit around on TikTok on our iPhones, talking about how oppressed we are in the United States. That is a beautiful thing, right?

That's all the freedom you need right there, yeah. Yeah, that is all the freedom you need right there. So what you want is you want every nation to decide what's best for its citizens and then those nations can come together and decide how they want to work together on things. So it is a virtue to be nationalistic. What unfortunately has happened here is they've tricked a lot of good people into thinking that somehow if you're for your nation, that you're a racist. So this would be why a lot of Braxiteers were called racist.

This would be a lot of, why a lot of Trump supporters are called racist. And it simply is in true. There is a reason you have a lock on the front door of your house. That doesn't mean you hate everyone on the outside, but you're allowed to protect your house. I have a fence and I have a lock on my house. And why would you treat your nation any differently than that? Man, I loved that.

That point in the book really did sort of drive it home for me. I have to say is someone who's British significantly easier to talk about borders when you're surrounded by water. You know, we just have a moat, a 23 mile motor around our country, which makes it a lot easier. It makes it a lot easier for those Australians too, but yet they still have more ones to go to Australia. No one's invading us, there's nothing there in the middle. There's just a little bit around the edge and it's miles away from everything.

No one's going to us. I know, but those beaches are pretty sweet. Those beaches are pretty sweet. Yeah, you are correct. I wanna hear, I've got long, what can we talk about? Those beaches are pretty sweet. Yeah, you are correct. I want to hear... Wait, I've got long. What can we talk about? All right.

I want you to tell us the Cliff Notes version of when you got Red Pilled on your own show by Larry Elder, because this was just hilarious. I mean, Larry Elder beat me senseless with facts. And you know, it shouldn't be an X rated. I like R rated and uploaded on a pawn hub, shouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. You definitely should have to click your age. I am 21 years older, yeah. Yeah, Larry Elder, well, what's interesting and I write about this is that I really believe

this, that the best and worst moment of my career were at the exact same time. That's a pretty rare thing for someone to be able to say. What happened was I had Larry Elder on the show. At this point, it was very early on in my interviewing where I was mostly having disaffected lefties. So I had Sam Harris on, I had Majin Noise on, I had Douglas Murray, and I had Douglas more of a conservative, but I think he has the right sort of classically liberal lens. I had had people that were thought of as pretty much moderate, so not really on the right, really. Larry Elder was really the first guy that I had in that position.

Now, Larry Elder happens to be black. That's all I would say about his race, actually. This is a guy who knows what he thinks. He's been fighting for what he believes in forever, and we sat down, and I did what left these do. I just said a couple things because they sort of sounded right about systemic racism and policing and all these things and Larry beat me senseless with that. You picked a red pill, bludgeoned you over the head with it and then forced you to deep

throw it. I think that's what it said in the book. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, I always say to Candace Owens that I swallowed the red pill and she snorted it and in fact i can't he just he just beat me with the red pill it you know just beat me into oblivion took took whatever was left in re-constituted um... but the reason that that clip matters and that clip has been clipped many times and seen by millions and millions of people is that when that interview ended

we were at a uh... or a tb at the time it was a bigger network right you know now i'm in my garage it's totally independent and all that i had a whole bunch of producers and directors there and i walked into the green room i started to the control room when it ended and everybody was like gave we're going to cut that don't worry about it we're not going to air that blah blah and i said no we have to air that that was real i get i don't come off great but if we don't air that, what is the point of having a show about ideas? What is the point of conversing with people? If we're going to edit out the meat, we're going to edit out the moment that something really happened.

And I think, clearly, my instincts were right. And when the video went up and I suddenly saw all these clips of it and everyone, Larry Elder destroys Dave Rubin and all the versions of that are possible. It hurt at first, but it was pretty quick until I started realizing that most people were like, whoa, Rubin took the hit, but you can see him evolving. And that moment allowed a lot of other people to evolve too. So I'm actually very proud of it.

And that's why I would say it's my best and worst moment at the exact same time. I think you should be the the people who hold on to their views and hold on to being right, like their very being is on the line. And this is a Eckhart tolleism where he says that during discussions with someone we have a fear of being proved wrong because it's tantamount to destruction of our ego. And especially from doing this podcast, you will be episode 160s somewhere in the 160s. You know, so having done this many episodes, I've been challenged a lot of times, not as hard or as deep as Larry Alder did to you, which would be almost impossible.

Let me see what I can do for you. It should be almost impossible. But a number of times, I've been, I'm like, I am having to battle during a conversation with either my position being proved wrong or something which inherently learning about polyamorous relationships or nonmenogamy and stuff like that which just has a visceral reaction from me that makes me think, oh, that's challenging. And at the same time being sufficiently cognizant of it to be able to go right, I can allow this to, oh, that's challenging. And at the same time, being sufficiently cognizant of it,

to be able to go, right, I can allow this to, isn't that interesting? Isn't it interesting that I'm just getting completely dicked on camera by Larry Elder here? Isn't this a, like, a wonderful situation kind of to be in? You know, and I think no matter which side you fall on in any discussion, being able to just take the argument on its own merits and trying to remove that ego from the situation, firstly, you're going to feel so much less pain because it's so much more enjoyable to go, wow, and this is why I think that curiosity is one of the most powerful personality traits that you can have. If you're

genuinely curious, I was interested to find out what you had to say today. I wanted to ask what it felt like to get red-pilled by Larry Eldrowney. I wanted to ask what it did, all these different stuff. And if you're genuinely curious about that, it allows you to transcend that ego.

It also breaks down the barrier between you and that other person, right? Cause they think Dave's here to find out out he's here to upgrade his own programming. And I'm going to keep on pushing him and see how far I can get. Oh, actually, I've gone too far. He actually has some facts about that. He can push back. And that's what makes it engaging, you know, as a listener.

And if that's the case, and if professional conversation lists, like you or Larry Elder, whoever it might be, if that's the mode, mode is operandi that you're following, then presumably that's the best way for everybody to discuss as well. So to bring this back to your first question, why did I dedicate this thing to Ben Affleck? Because Affleck did the reverse of everything that you just said there.

Affleck took a thoughtful moment where it could have been a teachable moment moment this idea that we should be able to criticize Ideas and yet we don't want to be bigoted towards people. It's such a fundamentally important Concept and what did Affleck do with it? You're gross and racist and what does that do? It shuts down curiosity It shuts down exchange. It shuts down the ability for people to have that beautiful dance. The only way you know how to map reality, you Chris versus me Dave right now is that we're talking through these wires, right? And it's like you can say something.

And if you said something completely insane in Outlandish, I can now map my reality against that and push back. And hopefully I could say, I could get you to go, whoa, maybe what I said was bananas or vice versa, right? Or you could say something wickedly mind-blowing brilliant. And I would go, yeah, yeah, yeah. So please throw it at me. I've been doing it, obviously, Dave, I've been trying.

That was, no, I've done at least eight of those. Mind-blowing, yeah. Right, drop, that'll take it. So final thing, before we finish up, That was, no, you've done at least eight of those mind-blowing. Right, drop. That'll take it. So, final thing before we finish up, what have you been most pleasantly surprised by so far in 2020? There's can be anything. Well, what I'm really surprised by, well, look, everybody's surprised by Corona and the

fact that our world feels upside down. So, I'm not pleasantly surprised by that. What I am surprised by, in a pleasant sense, I sort of referenced earlier, which is that so many of the things that I talk about in this book are suddenly things that are people are talking about. When I now see lefties on Twitter fighting for states' rights, I go, man, that is a great thing. And by the way, what they're also doing is, have you noticed that identity politics has

been really dialed down during this crisis? Because when there's a real crisis, when shit really hits the fan, suddenly we don't have time for gender pronoun conversations. And we don't have time for how many black people are on this panel and how many white women are on this and how many lesbians are the bad knee and all that nonsense. So I'm pleasantly surprised that identity politics has been sort of cooled off, not destroyed, but cooled off. And I'm pleasantly surprised that good ideas, states, rights, people really realizing right

now in America. Maybe I should be allowed to protect myself because our systems and our institutions are shakier than I thought. I love the idea that right now, people that live in big cities are suddenly going, whoa, is this the best way to live? Is it the best way to live in a, you know, one bedroom flat, as you guys would call it,

for $5,000 to live in Manhattan when I could literally live on 50 acres in Montana. How do I want to work? Do I want to telecommute? Do I want, is this even the job that I want to be at, or right now we're all trapped in our houses and it's like am I married to the right person? Do I like these people that I'm in the house with? Did I raise a good kid?

Any of those things, I'm so inspired right now because all of this tumble, it's scary. It feels like will the world ever fully return? I don't know that it'll return. I think we have a new blaze, a new trail to blaze, but I'm excited by the fertile ground right now. Like everything's kind of messy and out of a mess, that's where beauty arrives, right? Like out of chaos is what, that's what makes great art.

That's what makes great music. And by the way, we haven't had a lot of great music lately. We haven't had a lot of great art lately. I'm not saying lot of great art lately i'm not saying none of it and of course it's smattered across the internet but like there's a huge human opportunity right now and i think people like yourself people that are probably listening to this people that have been a little ahead of the curve and outside of mainstream for a long time like i think our day is coming so let's

grab it i love it man yet in an absence of a real crisis, we create our own. And in the presence of one, we reset our values. That's how I'm looking at this situation. That's one of those brilliant things. Just, uh, I just felt like, I felt like I've got the guy behind Ruben report. And so I just had to mic drop the final bit, you know, I can't let you have the last day. Actually, actually, I can. Where can people check out your show and the book and you online? Where should they go? So you can get the book at Don't Burn This Book.com where we have a

little brown books is our UK distributor. So it's, you can go to Amazon UK or wherever else you get books. And the show is youtube.com slash Rubin Report, RubinReport.com, Instagram.com slash Rubin Report. My branding guys pretty solid. So we're okay. I love itort.com, Instagram.com slash RubenReport.com. My branding guys, pretty solid. So we're okay. I love it, Dave, man. It has been fantastic. Hopefully we're going to get through this next few months, and I'm going to hassle you, and I'm going to get you back on.

But thank you so much for your time, man. You know what to do? Like, share, and subscribe. Links to everything, including Dave's fantastic new book will be in the show notes below. If you've got any questions or comments or you just want to hassle us online, go there as well. Chris, I enjoy talking to you. And what do you think? Should I shave the head too?

I think you killed it. I think top not. I think you can get away with the top night. When you do you and Michael Miley spoke with the man bun, it would absolutely kill it. Let's do it. Listen, the longer we stay in quarantine, I may have no choice. So we'll see. Cheers, man. Thanks, man.