*crowd chanting*
- [Jenna] Ben Shapiro cancertainly draw a crowd.
*crowd chanting*
And sometimes protests, like this one
at the University of California Berkeley.
But he doesn't let that stop him
from sharing his conservative views.
- The reason that I am here
is because fascism doesnot own this university.
- [Jenna] And often timesrunning intellectual
circles around just abouteveryone he goes up against.
Ben talk about what it's like when
you go to some of these college campuses,
you spark a pretty big reaction.
- Yeah I think thatthere's a willing attempt
to undermine the verybasis of what I stand for.
People deliberately lie about what it is
that I am saying, people will suggest
that for example I'm a white supremacist
when I am militantlyanti-white supremacist.
- [Jenna] In fact the 35year old Harvard-educated
lawyer is devout in his Jewish faith.
- They attempt to paintme as some sort of racist,
they attempt to paint meas some sort of bigot,
or somebody who wantsto hurt other people.
I'm some sort of Fascist.
Those lies are the way that the left
avoids the debate unfortunately,
the hard left avoids the debate anyway.
- The debate is something he doesn't
shy away from, and in his new book,
"The Right Side ofHistory" he makes his case
for how Judeo-Christian values
and Greek natural law made the west great.
And you say this book is really about
two things, it's about two mysteries.
The first is why are things so good,
and the second, why are we blowing it?
Explain what you mean.
- So we live in the most prosperous
time in human history, a time when
a baby born can expectto live past the year 80.
A time when virtually no one is living
in starvation conditions in the west,
when virtually everybody can expect
to have a long healthy life,
when racial toleranceis at an all-time high,
when freedom is at an all-time high.
So how did things get so good?
How did we end up here,because two centuries ago
everybody was dying in nasty,brutish, and short fashion.
So what exactly changed,is question number one.
And number two is, why are we so angry
at each other amidst themost glorious conditions
ever lived in by anyhuman beings at any time.
And the answer is, we have to investigate
the roots of our civilization.
- He says the reason we're tearing
each other apart isbecause we've forgotten
the foundations that brought us together.
- And those foundations I contend in
"The Right Side of History" lie one,
in Judeo-Christian ethics, and two,
lie in Greek teleologythe idea that we can
apply reason to theuniverse and come up with
good, moral answers,and scientific answers
to the conditions that surround us.
So that combination, you push and pull
between human reason,and divine revelation,
that push and pull created the west.
We have tried forcibly in many cases
to undermine both of those bases
for western civilizationthen we're surprised
when we return to thechaos that proceeded them.
- And it's that chaos he's trying to
fight against on hisradio and podcast show,
cable news, and columns he writes
for the Daily Wire, which he founded.
Ben, how does moral purposeplay into all of this,
you say we've reallyabandoned this as Americans.
- Well, I mean there are two perceptions
of moral purpose thattend to merge in the west.
Perception number oneis that it is your job
to serve God, that Godput you on the planet,
not to serve your own ends,but to serve His ends.
And this is in theJudeo-Christian tradition,
the idea of revelation, that God gave you
a moral purpose, andthat you have to live out
that morality if you want to fulfill
the purpose for which youwere put on planet Earth.
- [Jenna] And perceptionnumber two, Greek tradition.
Which he says suggestswe all have the capacity
for reason, and that paired with virtue,
is what it means to be human.
In the west, he says thesetwo perceptions merged.
- So the idea was that serving God
was serving reason at the same time,
and that you push andpull between those two.
Applying reason toJudeo-Christian morality
and applying Judeo-Christian morality
as the fundamental foundations of reason,
that that is how you get to human rights,
that's how you get to science,
that's how you get to theidea that we ought to have
political discussions, that's how you get
to democracy as opposed to a dictatorship.
That the push and pull,the tension between
these two poles is what creates
the bridge upon whichwestern civilization sits.
- [Jenna] As for why Christians
should be especially interested.
- I mean I think the reasonthey should buy the book
is because it gives a rationale for why
Judeo-Christian values lie at the root
of western civilization because
what we're hearing fromall of our relatives
is that you're an idiot if you believe
in Revelation at Sinai, orthe Sermon on the Mount.
That you're a fool ifyou believe the tenets
of Judeo-Christianity, that if you believe
any of those values thatyou're basically a dunce
and that we could come toall these values on our own.
This book is a ringingrebuke to that notion.
You do need to make certain fundamental
assumptions about thenature of the universe
that are rooted in aGod-based orderly universe,
if you actually want to have a western
civilization worth fightingfor and preserving.
- [Jenna] He does.
- Threatening to lock up journalists--
- I needed 600 officersto protect me at Berkeley.
- [Jenna] And puts himself on the
front line leading that charge.
In Washington, Jenna Browder, CBN news.
