UPDATE:
On Thursday, the day after The New York Times listed Daily Wire Editor-In Chief Ben Shapiro’s new book, “The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great,” the #1 bestseller in non-fiction, the leftist magazine The Economist published an article calling him “alt-right,” titling the piece, “Inside the mind of Ben Shapiro, the alt-right sage without the rage.”
The very idea that Shapiro would be termed alt-right is preposterous; as an Orthodox Jew who stated he would not vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, Shapiro was the target of vicious anti-Semitism from the alt-right; it was noted that he was, by far, the most targeted media figure for anti-Semitism during the presidential campaign.
The Economist starts its piece after its errant title by acknowledging, “Everything about Ben Shapiro is polished. His answers are smooth. His appearance is neat. His academic pedigree is impeccable.”
The adulatory language stops abruptly as The Economist labels Shapiro the “pop idol of the alt-right” and Shapiro’s Daily Wire as “catering to hyperventilating conservatives.”
He blasted into the public sphere at the tender age of 20 with his first book, “Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth”, that made him a modern face of conservative politics and a pop idol of the alt-right. After a stint at Breitbart, the veritable headquarters of right-wing media, he created his own outlet, The Daily Wire, catering to hyperventilating conservatives.
Shapiro responded:
Then Shapiro fired off this tweet thread in response to the Economist article:
The interviewer for The Economist, Anne McElvoy protested, “Hello Ben – in fairness I think we said sth like a figure in Alt-right thinking, but not really a ‘label.’”
Shapiro was having none of it, firing back, “In fairness, your headline literally reads “the alt-right sage without the rage.” So spare me the “in fairness” bulls***.”
He added, “In other words, if you label me alt-right, f*** you and f*** the horse you rode in on.”
McElvoy responded:
Shapiro answered:
Shapiro concluded:
Twitter erupted at the mendacity of The Economist:
The odd thing is that the interview is a good one, even if The Economist is generally hostile to Shapiro’s point of view; Shapiro had even tweeted a link to the interview earlier in the week. Some excerpts from the interview:
The Economist: In your latest book you spend a lot of time talking about what’s going wrong in society. What do you think has been eroded?
Shapiro: What is eroding is the fundamental principles upon which the civilization is based. The idea that each of us are individuals made in the image of God; that we each have individual value; that we can use reason to have discussions with one another, which is the fundamental underlying assumption for free speech and for democracy; the idea that as individuals we have rights that are independent of the government providing those rights.
All of those values are being eroded because, first of all, we got rid of some of the assumptions, or at least we’ve fought some of the religious underpinnings of the West. And then in turn, we’ve fought back against the notion of reason itself. And we’re reverting to a sort of tribalism we see in our politics that’s getting quite ugly.
The Economist: You talk about this new social fabric. What is the solution? What would the new social fabric look like? How would we know if we had begun to recreate it in the way that you think would be beneficial?
Shapiro: We have to have a common definition of what liberty constitutes, what choice constitutes, and we also have to rebuild a lot of the social institutions that have collapsed. Now, historically those have been churches—just realistically speaking, the place where most people found their common cause and common meaning was in churches. But social science research says they don’t only have to be churches. They can be social clubs. They can be bowling leagues; other ways of reaching out to each other.
But the more durable those ways are of reaching out to each other, the more we can, at the same time, maintain our individuality, and also see the common humanity in the other. It is the sort of point that Robert Putnam makes in “Bowling Alone”. The Harvard sociologist, he makes the point that diversity itself is not necessarily a strengthening factor in a society, but when there is a society that has a common purpose, then the diversity definitely helps the society.
One of the things we’ve seen in the West is—as multiculturalism has come to the fore—the attempt to shatter the common purpose, and then maintain that diversity, and expect that all you’ll get is benefit, I think is a bit foolhardy.
The Economist: You lament the fact that it’s become so acrimonious. You’ve said, “Politics has become a blood sport.” So, what can be done about that?
Shapiro: I think that the first thing that can be done is to recognize that we actually do in the West share a lot more in common than separates us. I think that we have to agree on some fundamental principles: the idea of freedom of speech; the idea that speech is not violence; the notion that we can convince each other with argumentation; that reason actually matters. If we agree on all of those things, and then we are willing to grant the other side of the debate the credibility to make its arguments, then we are likely to have a less acrimonious debate.
I think one of the things that has happened is that we have decided that, thanks to narratives of victimization and privilege—some of which are rooted in real history, but I think draw bad conclusions—what we’ve decided instead is that we have to argue from identity, as opposed to arguing from the notion that we are all individual human beings that have the capacity for reason.
The Economist: I can’t resist a last, quick-fire round if you’ll just bear with me. Your dream date with a moral philosopher? And I’m going to allow you an “alive or dead.”
Shapiro: Oh, OK, wow. On the religious side, you know I’m a religious Jew, so that means you’re almost obligated religiously to say “Moses”. But putting aside religious philosophers, the two that come to mind immediately—well, three—that come to mind immediately, are Aquinas, Maimonides, and Locke.
The Economist: That’s quite a date. That’s a heavy night out, isn’t it?
Shapiro: We’ll do some round-robin. Ten-minute dating. It’ll be a party.
The Economist: Shots with Locke! Nightmare date: the one that wouldn’t work out?
Shapiro: Certainly a date with Marx would go very poorly. Number one because he was not fond of the Jews. And number two, he was wrong about pretty much everything.
The Economist: Last one. You talk about God: he, she or it?
Shapiro: Well, I mean, “it” in the technical sense; “he” in the homologic sense.
The Economist: Noted.