On this week’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show: Sunday Special,” The Daily Wire editor-in-chief talked with Dave Rubin, the host of The Rubin Report, about his upcoming title “Don’t Burn This Book: Thinking For Yourself In An Age Of Unreason,” which will be released on Tuesday.
During the conversation, Shapiro asks Rubin about his close-knit relationship with Professor Jordan Peterson, who remarks on the front cover of the upcoming book that it is “topical, engaging, personable, and, above all, reassuring.”
“I want to get back to some of the lessons that you have,” Shapiro told Rubin. “One of the ones that really struck me, because it was actually rather moving, is your discussion of your relationship with Jordan Peterson.”
Rubin then talks about an event he did with Peterson and Shapiro in Los Angeles — and the vitriol that was targeted at them in response — before going into some observations about Peterson’s resolve during his own book tour for “12 Rules For Life: An Antidote To Chaos.”
“We found out in the middle of the tour that his wife had what they thought was terminal cancer — thank God it turned out not to be terminal, and she’s actually doing much better,” said Rubin.
“Try and imagine this guy who was a mild-mannered psychologist and professor, who suddenly became the world’s father in a way, really the pre-eminent public thinker of our time,” he said. “The fame, the hit pieces. You know, you remember the ‘enforced monogamy’ hit piece in The New York Times, and you remember the Cathy Newman ‘so what you’re saying is’ moment.”
“All of those things, living through all of that and then thinking his wife is going to die,” said Rubin. “We were at lunch, at a steakhouse of course, when he got the call about his wife. I saw this man live through something unbelievably, extraordinarily horrible — or as he would say ‘brutal’ — and always put his best foot forward.”
“I never saw him break one of those rules,” said Rubin, referring to the rules set forth in the professor’s own book. “I saw him just trying to be true, and if he gave me anything, through osmosis or through accident, it’s that. I am really trying to do that.”
Shapiro also asks whether Rubin has learned any particular lessons from Peterson, noting that a passage of “Don’t Burn This Book” talks about the professor’s decision to improve his public appearance.
Rubin emphasizes the importance of dressing well, and recalled when he was touring in Sweden, he overheard a conversation between a young man and a cashier, and that the young man remarked that he was buying a suit for the first time to go see Peterson’s lecture.
“I thought, this is absolutely incredible,” said Rubin. “[He’s] buying the first suit of his life so that he can present himself in a responsible way, to go to an event to hear how he can further fix his life.”
After the Sunday Special was published, Peterson himself remarked that the interview between Rubin and Shapiro contained “comments from good friends.”
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