Courtesy: Pure Flix Insider
Inside Ben Shapiro’s Take on Free Speech, Culture and the Roots of Social Chaos
Ben Shapiro has made a name for himself in conservative circles, appearing daily on radio, TV and at events around the nation. His off-the-cuff and rapid retorts have solidified him as a favorite commentator among politicos — but what’s Shapiro’s backstory He recently sat down with “The Billy Hallowell Podcast” to talk about free speech, culture and the roots of his career.
Shapiro, whose signature line is, “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” decried the crisis of truth that seems to be plaguing the people’s conscience, explaining his worries that people seem more motivated today by emotion than facts. “I think that folks now treasure the subjective over the objective,” Shapiro said, adding that this dynamic is the biggest cultural problem of the day. “I think that there are a lot of folks who, the facts don’t make them feel good about themselves — they don’t make them feel good about the narrative that they tell about their own lives.”
As a result, he believes people tend to disown the facts and then avoid viable debate, turning what should be factual arguments into character arguments. This naturally results in the demonization of ideological opponents — something that has plagued culture of late. “Right now, people are getting a lot of pleasure, particularly in the social media era, from just smacking people, and it’s easy to do that from behind a screen,” Shapiro said. “It’s hard to do that when you’re actually in person, and this is one of the problems with having an online society — it’s easier to be mean and nasty when you don’t actually have to look in the face of the person you’re being mean and nasty to.” Meanwhile, civility and healthy debate aren’t the only casualties, as Shapiro argues that people continue to exchange truth for their own opinions.
“People [are] deciding that that facts are significantly less important than self interpretation,” he said. “People using phrases like ‘my truth’ as opposed to ‘the truth’ and me saying, ‘Well there’s no such thing as ‘your truth.’ There’s just facts and then there’s your opinion and it’s fine, you’re allowed to have opinions, but let’s not pretend that your opinions are sacrosanct.’”
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