The Ben Shapiro Show: Sunday Special (2018)Podcastseries

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialbenshapiroi want us in this time of division and and fragmentation and fracture to find ways of coming together in peace coming together with peace that's why i'm chatting to candice owens and chat to you i don't want to sit around chatting people i agree with i want to talk to people where there are areas of concern and discontent and and downright disagreement and find ways that we can harmonize stand-up comedian russell brand was established in show business in the early 2000s presenting on mtv posting a spin-off 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 who could be the queen of the groupies queen of the sorrow suckers sorrow suckers sorrow suckers i i don't know why they call them his sharp wit and magnetic persona continued to propel him to world fame with international comedy tours and hollywood movies but then around 2012 russell publicly decided to step back from the limelight he continued with his comedy but also committed his career towards spiritual and political activism he released a revolution a book about nonviolent social change away from contemporary capitalism and toward the common good 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 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 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 it goes without saying that russell's in my own life experiences are pretty different but in this episode we find some things we have in common 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 [Music] hey hey and welcome this is the ben shapiro show sunday special this show is sponsored by expressvpn don't like big tech and the government spying on you visit expressvpn.com ben just a reminder we'll be doing some bonus questions at the end with russell the only way to get access to that part of the conversation is to become a member head on over to dailywire.com become a member you will have access to all of the full conversations with every one of our awesome guests russell thanks so much for joining the show i'm so happy to be with you mate so you know i think for a lot of my audience this is always uh these are sorts of weird um i would say groupings uh the the the fact that you and i are sitting together uh is strange to a lot of people who who kind of may not know your your spiritual and political side who may only be familiar with your work in hollywood and i think your journey really is sort of a fascinating one 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 and so i think a lot of my audience isn't aware of like 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 how did you you know make a name for yourself in the first place i'm a stand-up comedian primarily ben that's my background and while i was becoming stand-up comedian i was also studiously and diligently becoming a drug addict it took quite a lot of commitment it was quite time consuming and ultimately these two drives drive to entertain and the drives to numb pain competed in my little biographical journey and the stand-up comedy led to like hosting stuff on mtv like mtv vmas in your country and uh also eventually doing movies and stuff i trained as an actor but and 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 like a famous famous entertainer and singer over there casey perry and i very much was in the world of celebrity and sort of visible stardom at that point um 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 and i feel like um that it's very easy to form appetite-based attachment to stuff like fame and celebrity and money and power and i would contest that the sort of energy of addiction is a key driver in consumer-led cultures that the energy of consumerism is owes something to addiction and of course i'm speaking primarily from personal experience but then who isn't 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 kids i've got beautiful children and animals i'm married i live a kind of domestic life and the sort of the forefront of my consciousness and my intentions ben was an area which i think we have in common are my spirituality um like trying to become a back 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 so russell i want to talk to you about your spirituality and your religion in a second i think what's fascinating about sort of your personal story is first of all it's just the story of ecclesiastes essentially i mean you basically took the solomonic journey through what if i had a thousand wives and a thousand horses and and then it seems that you sort of came around to the view that there was there's a certain emptiness to that but for for somebody like me so i grew up religious right 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 in these sort of judeo-christian notions of personal virtue and and controlling appetites and all that sort of stuff there there's always a draw in in our culture toward as you say the fulfillment of those appetites and as somebody who i mean you you really went whole hog on a lot of this stuff maybe you can talk about you know when was it that you sort of started to feel like maybe this isn't the bl end all maybe maybe there's something more than this personally for me it took the i it required that the encounters be kind of lived through i understood things theoretically and spiritually long before i was able to embody them and live by them i reckon it was it's quite hard to monitor how you feel if you're being lauded and applauded if you're successful financially and being celebrated 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 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 my the way i identify with myself could potentially be categorized as addiction if my life becomes about how other people see me about what's written about me how uh how financially successful i am then i'm kind of living in an external object and what i was able to well started to awaken to because i wasn't happy that i wasn't fulfilled and i love your uh your classical reference there ben it's difficult though because things that like the flesh is satisfying drugs are fulfilling flowery and praise are enticing and distracting and it still takes discipline in me still now when i look at the world of celebrity and what i might classify as the world of individualism egocentrism i still find it kind of wow appealing and i'm a professional person i have intention and ambition i see the way that you run a media organization and i think well this is really sort of successful you know and i i still am stimulated and attracted to versions of success 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 that if i'm ever to feel um connected valued and valuable awake and aware that i have to live a life of meaning and purpose now you know you're speaking about your own background that you had a set of traditional values that were accessible to you and i'm sure i did in my own way i'm from like a single parent family religion wasn't sort of at the forefront of our sort of cultural life i'm like church of england that just means that's the thing you get given you just issued that on entry on arrival there's no like study exams or outfits required you know spirituality wasn't like something i was particularly thinking about this is in a way mate this this dovetails with a kind of ideological tool that's used often in recovery from addiction 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 and those of us that grow up without them might try to synthesize those values by becoming successful or by becoming a heroin addict by you know becoming a devoted athlete or by hanging around strip clubs we're all looking for meaning purpose now and for me pleasure is a kind of um a palliative you know and what i really need is purpose but the culture does not promote these kind of messages the culture in my opinion promotes individualism materialism rationalism scientism if it can't be measured then it isn't there and for me i was a devotee of a particular culture a culture that tells you become successful all the while i had these kind of spiritual inclinations and yearnings but i didn't know how to process them i didn't i wasn't really mentored until i got clean from drugs and alcohol and because those things are so appealing and attractive you know carnality celebrity it took a it took a while it took being in it i'm very fortunate i feel privileged to have had the experience of the red carpets and the flash bulbs and the adulation because now i recognize oh yeah i've been there still now though ben i can see a picture of myself in a situation of celebrity from 10 years ago or whatever i'm thinking oh my god that looks so appealing and cool this that was must have meant something but i remember i remember that it is empty and for people like most people like you know when you hit 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 you know i 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 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 you know russell i totally agree with so much of that i want to get more into it in just one second first let's talk about your internet privacy and security i'm worried about it ben let me tell you the absolute truth i'm worried about my internet security is there some system some service i can use because i don't know what to do i'm just i'm i'm out here i'm panicking i'm frantic i'm i'm so glad you asked russell it's expressvpn have you ever read that fine print that appears when you start browsing in incognito mode it says your activity might actually still be visible to your employer or your school or your isp how can they even call that incognito to really stop people from seeing the sites you visit you need to do what i do and use expressvpn think about all the times you've used wi-fi at a coffee shop a hotel even at your parents house without expressvpn every site you visit could be logged by the admin of that network that's still true even when you are in incognito mode what's more your home internet provider can also see and record your browsing data and in the us they are legally allowed to sell that data to advertisers expressvpn is the app that encrypts all of your network data reroutes it through a network of secure servers so your private online activity stays just that private expressvpn works on all your devices it's super easy to use the app literally has a button like one you tap it to connect your browsing activity is now secure from prying eyes you don't want anybody else accessing your internet activity you do everything on the internet why would you want anyone else to have access to that stuff stop letting strangers invade your online privacy protect yourself at expressvpn.com again use my link expressvpn.com get three extra months for free that's expr essvpn.com ben to learn more so i totally agree with you i think that when it comes to what the media have have pushed upon us and what what society modern society pushes so much it's this idea that there are all of these sort of air sats solutions for the hole in your heart that is left when there is the natural inclination for spirituality and for spiritual connection and what i've said is that 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 and and for a lot of people that is stimulants for a lot of people that is that is sex for a lot of people that is politics and and the substitution of sort of political polarization or tribal identification for you know any sort of of spiritual connection mission purpose uh it's it's really easy to make that mistake especially in a society that as you say tends to measure things on on a very data-driven level that happiness equals this number of dollars plus this number of lovers plus this amount of this number of houses plus this many twitter followers and and the reality is that none of that is a substitute for the sort of meaning and purpose that i mean pretty much every philosopher since the dawn of time has been searching for yes 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 uh values are culturally endorsed to uh almost entirely uh to the point of saturation i feel like you know i've like 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 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 now your pocket is a portal to limitless pixelated digital sex ghosts available at a moment's notice how are you gonna evolve a sophisticated and loving and empathetic sexuality when bombarded with that amount of stimulation it's sort of an i suppose you could from a dietary perspective from a technological and pornographic perspective um chart these markers but i wonder where they are more insidiously present in culture around ideas such as economics 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 so let's talk for a second about your sort of view of spirituality 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 or not really even directed toward exactly what so how does your spirituality define yourself you've talked about meaning and purpose what would you say your sort of meaning is where do you find meaning well i find the rubric through which my spirituality is lived and understood is unfortunately quite practical in the i mean recovery from addiction and what that gives you is a set of principles and an ongoing sort of almost cyclical system that you can live within the the first step in these 12 12 step systems ben is surrender i i don't know what to do anymore my life has got problems in it and i don't know how to control it the second step is about having hope that change is possible for you as an individual 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 a lot of people think the world cannot change human beings are essentially you know defined by sort of cruelty coldness selfishness or whatever so you know these things are designed for the individual but i think are socially applicable so the second step having admitted there's a problem the second step is believing change is possible the third step is coming to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore the third power the third step excuse me is um made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of god as we understood god 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 i've already admitted there's a problem i believe it's possible to change now i get ready to accept help 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 for uh that we live a finite life you know i think they're really really powerful tools and what it's done to what it did for me i always had a sense of look i i always embraced mystery drug addicts usually do if you've taken psychedelic drugs and had the kind of experiences that they induce if you feel the kind of despair and loss and loneliness that a lot of addicts feel and the kind of conditions that becoming a drug addict introduce you to the criminality and the kind of you know sort of cliche desperation that one might encounter in a sense it opens you up to the possibility of god because nothing for me you know i know you're like a you know you're a religious man and also know that you know theology and that you know scripture but suffering it like i'm not making claims to job levels of suffering but to be introduced to god on that level of knowing i am weak on my own i am weak i need something powerful in my life me fueled just by my ego and my petty trivial desires i will live a petty trivial life i need something powerful and now i don't know if that's applicable to anybody i'm sure many of your viewers are religious i'm sure many of them are atheistic i'm sure many of them are individualistic it's pointless even really to speculate 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 and 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 this for me is demonstration of the the yearning the need for real change 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 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 organize systems of governance and uh even exchange so i mean i i totally agree with so much of that 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 and and i think that also how we sort of orient ourselves toward the world around us is is a really important thing and 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 he talks about telos the idea that that using your reason uh you can discover telos in the universe natural law that governs the universe uh and 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 in consonance with that now that can lead you to some pretty ugly places depending on on how rationalistic you get right 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 to slaves so it's easy to see how this sort of logic can lead to the wrong places on the other hand you know the the attempt to sort of disconnect the world from any sort of purpose to disconnect the world from a teleology uh also leads to so it leads to the nihilism and despair that we see so how do you find the sort of middle ground in as to what you think are the rules for the road what do you think the rules for the road should be for an individual and what do you think the rules for the road should be in terms of a society and then in terms of government because i think those are three separate categories and i think that very often our mushy sort of political thinking conflates all three it's like what i like for individuals is what i also want a government to do or what i want society to do is what i want the government to do and i think it's pretty important to sort of tease out what we should expect from each one of those sort of categories individuals society and government in these three areas mate the sort of rules for an individual the rules for society and the rules of a government yes of course there are like at scale many simplistic ideologies begin to warp and break down and look i'm aware of you and i know that you're aware of me and we've had a conversation before you know 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 like i may be like a communist or something and a communist of course infers a highly empowered centralized state and this is not what i believe in at all i'm i believe that all of us are 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 i don't think it can be impossible if there are if there is the imposition of unconscious hierarchies 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 that we are aware of the variety of and diversity of ways that there are to be human 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 and i'm like talking about times that were quite fraught with war genocide and horror of course but what we did not have then is this kind of uh in a cultural gl and in domed culture where there is a kind of a presumed set of morals ethics and norms that are imposed over everybody that people we're all trying to appeal to a set of values that often seem at odds with our individual freedom let me put it a little more positively i feel that there's so many different ways of being now that we need to decentralize wherever possible we need to accept that there are people that have entirely different sets of beliefs and values from one another and just because they're different it doesn't mean that they're not right 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 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 and my feeling is that when we are so different from one another we're gonna what why are we trying to centralize why are we trying to create these huge dominions when so many varied people are being asked to liver homogenized normalized centralized and ultimately as a result of that oppressed lifestyle as an individual i want to be who i am i've always been sort of a kind of arch individualist just by default 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 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 of all there's a lot in that there's a lot in that and i feel at heart communities need a shared purpose you know i'm a big fan of that sebastian younger book reads the tribe where he talks about the sort of the experience that service people have when they come home the loss of purpose the loss of meaning because in in our crazy world being in the military in the 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 so you know like we are going to have weird diverse varied ways of living and i think that in a sense i've long fought ben and i would love your input on this that we almost don't need i heard the wonderful quote once um the world doesn't need more people to believe in god just for those of us that do to start acting like it and i think that the world doesn't need new ideas democracy constitutional rights just these existing ideas to be lived out correctly so individuals and freedoms and societies have a degree of uh autonomy where possible and an acceptance that people are different people have different values why are we creating all these hot button points to quarrel and argue over well if in my opinion at least the the dominant problem remains the same that there's a small strata of society individuals and institutions that have uh largesse over the way that society is organized and most people are quarreling over crumbs so i again i i feel that we're agreeing a lot here because the the attempt to sort of homogenize society and then demand that everybody lives the same way i think is really destructive and you can see it in the united states 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 and basically whoever controls the gun now controls how everybody else lives and i'd prefer that the gun basically uh be a very very tiny peashooter that is directed in very specific directions at people who are attempting to do active harm to other people otherwise i don't want that gun to really be there because i don't want that gun pointed at me and i don't feel i should be pointing the gun at anybody else you know localism and communitarianism but in local communities as opposed to trying to broaden that out universal in a universalistic fashion uh i think that that is one of the answers is the sort of decentralization that we're that we're talking about and i think that you and i agree very much on that and and honestly i'm happy to keep the conversation at the level that we're that we're going here 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 so if we're if we're talking about gun control there are a bunch of values that are way below gun control that people are actually arguing a