- There's a few breaking moments in life
where whatever your stuff
is and whatever you believe,
it's suddenly, like, you
just, for whatever reason,
there's some existential thing that
you get confronted with it at some point,
and either...
either you cower in that moment,
or you confront it.
And I just think that
everyone that confronts it--
It doesn't mean you'll
win the first time around.
You might learn some really bad lesson,
and by the way, that's not to say--
Look, James Damore did get laid off.
You might be laid off.
You might lose friends.
All of those things, except
the real question is,
"Do you wanna live sort of
bowing down all the time
"to some unknown enemy,
"or do you wanna say what you believe
"and then at least have a
chance to live on your terms?"
And I think that that's
what a lot of people
are realizing right now.
(relaxing music)
- I'm Bridget Phetasy and
I'm here with Dave Rubin
with the "Don't Burn This Book" book club
doing chapter two.
Hi, Dave.
- Hello, Bridget.
Chapter two, we thought this
would be a good one for ya,
in light of the Phetasy evolution.
- The (laughs) yes, it
has been an evolution.
I think right out of the
gates in this chapter
you talk about years of self-deception.
You mention when people maybe have been
deceiving themselves for years.
What were you deceiving yourself about
for all those years?
- Yeah. Well, I think one of the things
that's happening right now
is that a lot of people
are realizing either that
they've deceived themselves
or maybe that they've viewed the world
a little bit incorrectly
and they're trying
to piece together a new
world, and actually,
even though I wrote
this before coronavirus,
especially right now I think
a lot of people are going,
"Oh, there's a new world on the horizon.
"Maybe everything that
I believed in before
"isn't quite exactly right.
"Maybe I have to think about a new way
of thinking about things."
I reference in chapter one
that it's time to come out,
and I talk about coming out of the closet
which usually people apply to sexuality,
and that right now there's a lot of
politically closeted people
that just aren't saying what they think,
and it probably goes both ways.
Mostly I'm talking about it from a lefty
to a more centrist or right thing,
but I'm sure there's a version
of it that's the other way,
that you grew up very conservative
and you start thinking
more liberal thoughts
and you could be closeted
that way or any which way.
So I was, look, I was closeted
about my sexuality first,
so I just know what that thing is.
That sort of insidious...
inability to deal with reality as it is
and just, once you can't
accept a part of yourself,
whether that's your
sexuality or just something
that you innately believe or feel,
or wanna fight for, or
any version of that,
once you don't do that
and you start hiding that,
it cascades into just a
gajillion other problems.
- Yeah.
How do you tell people
who might suffer real-life
consequences to come out?
Because unlike sexuality
now, thank goodness,
you can't lose your job, for instance,
if you come out.
But some people, you talk about it
in this chapter, James Damore,
might lose their jobs, and they have--
(audio cuts out)
How does somebody, how do you...
how do you go about coming out, or do you?
What do you recommend?
- Yeah, you know,
it's super interesting.
It's so interesting 'cause
when I go to college campuses
I get some version of this a lot,
where young people will be like,
"I wanna tell my friends
that I'm a Libertarian,"
or, "I wanna tell them
that I'm a conservative,"
or something.
I once was giving a talk a
couple months ago in Atlanta,
and a young guy came up to me at the bar
after the talk and he sat down,
and he happened to be a young
Black guy, and he sat down,
and first he told me that he was gay,
and then it took him another
20 minutes of chatting,
like the gay thing just, he was just like,
"I'm gay," like, whatever,
and then it took him another
20 minutes of talking
to basically admit that
he was a conservative.
And he actually told me--
This is a young guy.
I'm talkin' like,
probably 19, 20 years old.
He said that coming out to his parents
about his conservative beliefs
was way harder than coming out as gay,
as crazy as that sounds.
As crazy as that sounds.
- I've heard that.
- And I've heard a lot
of that type of story,
but what's also interesting
when I mention people
like James Damore, and Lindsay
Shepherd at Wilfrid Laurier,
who was a TA, who literally all she did
was show her class a
Jordan Peterson video,
and then was taken into the
diversity and inclusion office
and reprimanded, and many
other people that have
survived the mob one way or another.
You know a ton of these people.
It's like, once you...
Once you sorta of get in the pool--
this is a Douglas Murray line
about if you get in the pool,
you might find out the water's not cold.
I think generally what happens is,
a guy like James Damore,
who's by anyone's estimation,
he was a extremely good,
and probably still is,
an extremely good engineer.
He had just got a promotion,
like two months before at Google.
They send him to this
diversity training class,
and then they ask them, "We
would love your feedback."
And I'm guessing most of those people
didn't give any feedback.
He actually did it.
They said, "Here's homework."
The poor guy, poor guy whatever,
he goes ahead and does it,
and then not only loses
his job because of it,
but then we see what
happens with everybody,
the machine just comes after them.
All the hit pieces, suddenly he's racist
even though he didn't talk about race,
of course he hates
women and he hates gays,
and the rest of it,
and I mentioned this in the book, but...
It was the only time ever,
in all the shows that I've ever done,
where James Damore came in here.
He was so nervous and so quiet and shy,
and so somebody that didn't,
he didn't want any of this.
I had to spend about an hour with him
just kind of getting him to open up,
and then fortunately, you know how it is,
sometimes the camera goes on and people
just magically kind of become something,
and he was able to turn it on 10%.
But he's still pretty quiet
and shy and the rest of it,
but the point of it is,
is that if you embrace it,
you will get to the other side.
I have no doubt that
James Damore right now
does not regret what he did.
Sure, maybe he'd have a better,
I don't know what his job is right now.
I know he's still in the field
and he's had some engineering job,
but I have no--
It's not at Google.
I have no doubt that because
he stood up for himself,
he's proud that he did it.
I know for a fact Lindsay
Shepherd is proud that she did it.
I know that Jordan Peterson who stood up
against Bill C16 in
Canada, I know he's proud.
So all the people that I've seen survive,
it's like every single
one of them is better
even though, yeah, some
friends are gonna turn on you,
some people are gonna
say some horrible things,
and most likely, HuffPo ain't
gonna be nice to you either.
- Yeah. (laughs)
To say the least.
You say, too, and in fact,
"If you miss the boat,
"there's a chance you'll end up stranded."
Where will they be stranded?
- Well, I think you only get a couple--
- I understand it's a
metaphor, but (laughs)
- Did you understand the metaphor?
Yes, well it's not a literal place,
although you could be stranded
on an island, I suppose.
But I think part of it is that
you only get a couple chances in life
to really stand up for what you believe.
We all kinda walk through life
and there's this sort
of day-to-day routine,
and we're in a particularly
weird aspect of it
right now with coronavirus
where we sort of,
it's like, "Does the week end anymore?"
And, "Is Wednesday the same as Sunday?"
So it's a little strange right now,
but yeah, nobody knows anymore, right?
But I think there's a few
breaking moments in life,
where whatever your stuff
is and whatever you believe,
it's suddenly, you just,
for whatever reason,
there's some existential thing that,
you get confronted with it at some point,
and either...
either you cower in that moment,
or you confront it.
And I just think that
everyone that confronts it--
It doesn't mean you'll
win the first time around.
You might learn some really bad lesson,
and by the way, that's not to say--
Look, James Damore did get laid off.
You might be laid off.
You might lose friends.
All of those things, except
the real question is,
"Do you wanna live sort of
bowing down all the time
"to some unknown enemy,
"or do you wanna say what you believe
"and then at least have a
chance to live on your terms?"
And I think that that's what
a lot of people are realizing right now.
It's like, that thing that's
been quieting all of us,
that makes all of us secretly be like,
"Oh, I don't wanna be
called a racist or a bigot,"
even though I'm not those things,
it's like, it only gets power
by us never confronting it,
and I think more and more people
finally are starting to confront it.
- How do you know you're
not deceiving yourself now,
or how does one guard
against self-deception?
- It's tough, right?
Because you could end up going,
and I think about this a lot,
because look, I'm not stupid or naive.
I've been embraced now by people
that I used to think
were the bad guys, right?
The set of people on the right
that now I find to be quite
tolerant and open and all that.
I'm not saying they're
all perfect, for sure,
but I am sort of welcomed
into a new home right now
and maybe they see me and they go,
"Oh, well, here's this nice
guy and he's open-minded
"and he treats us well so we can kinda
"use him along the way, too."
I don't think that's
really what's happening
with the people that I've truly
sort of embraced in this space.
Let's say, Glenn Beck or Shapiro
or Prager or some of these other guys,
but I think the key of what
you're asking really is,
how do you make sure
once you think one thing,
that when you find something
else that you start thinking,
how do make sure you don't
fall in the same trap again
and then just end up doing
it three years later,
and then just keep jumping,
hop-scotching through life.
I think the key is that you
gotta start doing some work,
and that's what a lot of the
rest of the book is about,
which is, you really gotta
start knowing your stuff.
So look, you're the one
who coined the famous
"factory settings" line,
and I love it so much
because we're born with
these factory settings
that culture and education and movies
and everything kinda teaches us,
where it's sort of like,
"Democrat good, Republican bad,
"lefties are nice, conservatives are cold,
"Republicans like war,
Democrats like peace."
Some really crazy stuff, and
when you break out of that
there'll suddenly be a whole new world
and you'll go, "Oh,
that stuff isn't true,"
but it doesn't mean that everything
that you're gonna get on the
other side is true either.
So I think it's then on you.
I mean, a lot of this book
is why I want people to
think for themselves.
It's on you not to just then go,
"Oh, there's a whole
new group of people here
"and they've got new thoughts.
"They must have been
right about everything
"and I was wrong about everything."
It's not like that.
I don't think I was wrong
about everything before
and I've somehow come to the truth now.
I think I got some key things wrong,
and a lot of my good liberal
ethos was always there,
and it's still here, and I think actually
the conservatives that I disagree with,
they actually appreciate an honest liberal
debating with them.
- Right.
Somebody made a really great
point that I'll never forget,
and they said, "It's
not what you're saying,
"it's what you're not saying,"
when I was saying,
"Everybody's accusing me
"of being a grifter or whatever."
So what are you not saying?
Is there anything you're not saying?
Are you censoring yourself in any way now?
- Wow.
I don't think so.
I mean, if I am, or
even if you think I am,
I would love to hear it.
I think I've been as honest
with every one of my opinions
as humanly possible.
I lay out--
Look, in this book, if you're just like
a complete ideologue on each side,
you're a pure Democrat or lefty
or you're a pure Republican
or conservative, whatever,
there's stuff to be pissed
off at me for all of it.
I mean the abortion chapter,
I literally end it by saying,
"Now that you all hate me, let's move on."
So it's like, abortion
is the one for the right
that they just view as
this cannot be touched,
it's pro-life, pro-life,
but I make a pro-choice
argument here, you know?
I talk about being married
to a man in this book.
They know I'm against the death penalty.
This is stuff for them
that's really tough,
and yet at the same time obviously
I'm hitting things that
the left's not happy about
when I do a pretty swift blow
against identity politics
and a bunch of other stuff.
So I don't think there's anything else
that people don't know about me, or that--
Well, I'm certainly not
intentionally hiding anything.
I would say it that way.
But also what happens is,
as you start embracing it,
you will go, "Oh, there was
some stuff I didn't know."
So for example, when people say to me,
"Well, have you shifted on anything
"or is just that the left went bananas?"
It's like, well, actually I
do think the left went bananas
and they have a real
issue with free speech
and cancel culture and all
that, but I'm fully upfront.
Economically I've absolutely
shifted to the right.
I want you, Bridget, to keep
as much of your money as possible.
I want to take more
money from the government
so they can't just do stuff,
and it's your money in the first place
and I'm pretty sure that whatever you earn
you know a better thing to do with it
than they know what to do with it.
And by the way, I'm pretty
happy that right now,
with everything going on with
corona, as messed up as it is,
I think a lot of people
are waking up to that.
All these people that are
struggling financially,
it's like, "Yeah, you should have had
"more of your money in the first place."
- I think that a lot of people
in liberal enclaves in particular,
just because of the
nature of the crackdowns
seem a little bit more...
Draconian,
places like L.A., our mayor in particular
is very hardcore.
Do you think--
- How many neighbors did you spy on today?
Because you know you can get paid
if you spy, if you, you
know, you see your neighbor,
and oh my God, he was brushing his hair
four feet away from somebody else.
You can get some
seriously cold, hard cash.
- That's just so crazy.
You mentioned identity politics
and do you see--
I see the right use identity politics.
Do you see any of that on their side,
in the right wing at all?
- I think there's probably
some version of it there,
but I think it's muted in many ways
because basically the
right has a bigger belief
in individual rights.
So where they may use
it for political tactics
or some subtle language thing,
I do think that if, look,
if you're a libertarian
or a conservative, you pretty much believe
in individual rights.
I don't know certainly
any public intellectual
on the right that doesn't believe
that everyone in America should be treated
equally under the law.
I'm not saying that that
person doesn't exist.
I have yet to meet that person.
Is there a Twitter troll on the right
that believes something else?
Of course.
I think the bigger danger,
and why so many people
have trouble embracing the wake-up call,
is that they see something
wrong with the left.
Because they think--
There's a sort of idea.
You're on the left,
you're just nice and open,
and you like gay people,
and you like Muslims,
and you're open and fun and whatever.
And it's really just a
scary thing to go, "Whoa,
"I might be one of those people?
"Or something that's not these people?"
I think that really is what it is.
So is there an identity
politics on the right?
Well look, yeah, I guess on
the fringe part of the right,
is there some sort of
white Identitarian thing?
I mean, well, of course there is.
Like, is there a KKK?
There is.
I don't know how many people
are really part of it,
but I don't think it has any
sort of real juice behind it.
And also oddly, and this
is the political fishhook
that kinda comes around, or the horseshoe,
so that everything ends up the same.
It's like if you're a right-wing,
what we would say is a
right-wing white supremacist,
well, that means you're a collectivist,
and actually if you're a collectivist,
you really more on the left,
meaning you believe in groups.
When people talk about
far-right, technically, actually,
I should talk to Michael
Malice about this at some time,
but someone like Michael Malice
is more what I would say "far-right"
if we're doing this correctly,
meaning that far-right,
meaning he's for far,
ultimate, individual liberty
at the expense of the state.
That would strike me as
more technically correct
for far-right, rather than an Identitarian
who believes in collectivism.
That really goes the other way.
But that's why the right left thing,
we always talk about this.
The right left thing is just
so outta whack right now.
- It is.
And it kinda leads me
into my next question.
You say the left is no longer liberal,
and where do people who identify
with progressive values,
but perhaps not crazy,
leftist Authoritarianism, go?
Because they can't go...
You know, I know a lot of people
who can't just hold their nose
and vote for Trump, for instance.
And I know that the
binary is kind of a myth,
but at the end of the day
you have to vote for someone,
or not vote at all, but.
- Yeah, it's a tough one because yes,
the binary, it's a myth
except it's reality, right?
- Except it's not, yeah.
- Right.
It's a myth in that, it's a
myth like, it shouldn't be.
It's like an imaginary thing
that sort of morphed into reality.
So what I would say for those people,
and by the way, obviously a huge chunk
of this book is written for those people,
because I was one of those people.
Look, I think you have a choice.
Your choice is either somehow stay
within the left, liberal bubble
and see if you can reclaim it from within,
which, by the way, I tried
to do for a long time.
You can watch a lot of videos of mine
from 2015, 2016.
I'm going, "Guys, I'm
a lefty, I'm a liberal.
"What are we doing?"
I'm screaming, I'm talking
to all these lefties
who were experiencing the same thing,
and then at some point I just felt
it was an unwinnable battle, and I think
a lot of people do realize that.
That something has taken over on the left
that is just decimating the whole thing.
And look, even just right now with Biden,
it's like they chose Biden,
or the party chose Biden,
and we can talk about all the mental stuff
with him or whatever else,
but it's like, there's no sense
that these people believe
anything together.
AOC and Biden don't
believe anything together.
So my feeling is there's just, right now,
there's just not much left.
However, what I do see
on the right is there are
plenty of more Libertarian-minded people,
say like a Glenn Beck,
and then there's more
traditionally conservative
people, say like a Ben Shapiro,
and I'm just pickin'
people out of our crew
but I could give you politicians
in this vein as well.
So you'd have more
Libertarians like Rand Paul,
and then more traditional
conservatives like Ted Cruz.
I see that as fertile
ground for something good.
So I always want the
conservatives to know,
by the way guys, I'm not trying
to trick you into being pro-choice.
I'm really not.
I just want something broadly on the right
to make a little space
for the exact people
that you're talking about, and by the way,
I think they're doing a
pretty good job of it.
'Cause I think they are
being kinda open-minded.
Like when was the last
time someone on the right
really tried to mob you
for saying something?
It's weird.
- Yeah.
My experience has been that
they're more willing to at
least have the conversation,
and I think that's where
the two parties are just so,
look so differently right now, is that
if you speak out against the tribe,
you might be kicked out if you're--
you might be kicked out
of MAGA, for instance,
but there's still space for
you in the conservative party,
whereas if you push back against the left,
you kinda just get kicked out.
So I feel like there's a
huge population of people
who might be interested in your book,
but where do they go?
I know a lot of them--
- Well, where do we go?
Where do we go?
The answer is we build it.
The answer is we blaze the trail.
That truly is the answer.
Look, everything's changing right now.
Look, I wrote this, I
finished this book in July,
and it's out now at the end of April,
but the point is that the
ideas in here are timeless,
and it's like the left, right,
Republican, Democrat
thing, that's not timeless.
That's just a construct
politically that can stay
for a certain period of
time and then moves on.
We used to have the Whig
party, you know what I mean?
We used to have other parties.
So nothing stays forever, and
if maybe the progressives,
maybe they really decide
to be the socialists,
and the Democrats can
be more of the sort of
corporatist wing, and maybe ultimately
the Republicans will say,
"Here's our traditional party
"and here's a more Libertarian party,"
or something like that,
but more than anything else
I don't think you have
to belong to a party.
I think you have to go, "Alright,
"here are 10 things that I care about,
"and six of them match up with these guys
"and four match up with these guys,
"and I'll just kind of figure it out
"as I'm going to that voting booth."
- Yep.
And I know we all become kind of
political abstractions and
almost cartoons online,
and we're hard on the lefties.
What good do you still
see remaining in that--
and this is my last question, really.
What good do you see remaining in the left
or what's left of the left?
- If by "the left" we mean sort of
what modern leftism has become,
so like, the Bernie, AOC,
kind of identity politics
"government is everything" left,
then frankly I don't think
there's anything left.
I don't think there's any good ideas left.
It doesn't mean there
aren't good people there.
I think there's people with some bad ideas
that have been confused because of
the factory settings and some other stuff.
So I think it's our job, right?
Someone like you, that also
is on your own political evolution,
and you did, you were exactly--
The reason I wanted you to do this chapter
was because you did
embrace your wake-up call,
and you're very upfront that
it's a work in progress,
and I'm not gonna be on a team right now,
and all that kinda stuff.
So if that's what we
mean by the modern left,
then there really is nothing
left, at least for me.
If you mean the last few
disaffected liberals,
like the Jedi after Order 66
who were scattered across the galaxy,
well then what do they have to do?
I think they have to talk to the guys
that they thought were the
Sith, who may not be the Sith.
How 'bout that for a Star Wars
reference to bring it home?
I had to cut like 80 Star
Wars references in this book,
so I felt I could get one in there.
- Thank you for asking
me to interview you,
and good luck with the book.
I love it.
It speaks to me, obviously.
My awakening is definitely, it's been...
You made so many people feel
sane, and I am one of them.
I am one of the people
that, during the confusion,
because what I think
happens, like you said,
is you start feeling
like you're going crazy,
and if there had been no internet,
and no Dave Rubin, and all of the people
you were speaking with at that time,
I think I probably would have
thought I was losing my mind,
and maybe lost it more than...
more than I already--
(audio cuts out)
- Listen, now you're doing
that for other people,
so I guess the adventure continues.
- Yes.
Well, thank you.
- Thank you, Bridget.
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