Ben Shapiro to Ana: Why Did You Agree To Method On My Label?

It's just really really important in a functioning democracy to have Americans see one another as fellow Americans as opposed to an identity that needs to be super combative with a different identity and I think that's what we've kind of turned into you and I clearly have a lot of disagreements on policy disagreements on.

Culture but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're an awful person it doesn't mean that I should be afraid of you if anything I should prove that I genuinely believe my political views by engaging in these debates if I can defend what I believe with actual facts statistics empirical evidence well that only proves that there's good reason to to believe.

In the policies that I'm promoting and it's easy to be in an echo chamber where everyone already agrees with you but you're not really being challenged so I like to be challenged I like to put my political ideas to the test and I think this is a good opportunity to do it yeah this is one of the things that I really like about you as a person we actually.

Got to know each other when we did a debate about a year ago I think yeah over over in Pennsylvania and we were talking in the Green Room beforehand and we got along as human beings and one of the one of the things that's nice about conversations like this is again what you say I think is super important which is that the social fabric of the country.

Is going to be built on the idea that people can have conversations right like this and yet it's considered so unusual and so crazy yeah have you gotten any blowback for being willing to do conversations like this one I have I will say you know it is a small portion of a very loud group of self-identified leftists on Twitter for.

Instance they'll get very upset they'll accuse me of platforming you even though I don't know if they notice you've got a bit of a platform on your own I don't need to help you in building a platform or platforming you I think that there's this very real fear that in engaging in these conversations you are legitimizing the other side and my point.

Is as long as the other side's coming at me with good faith arguments they genuinely believe what they're saying having these debates is important in actually deciphering what you as the viewer believe right because if you're only listening to one side if you're listening to leftist Media liberal media and you don't get the other side at all.

Your policy ideas are never going to be challenged you're not going to hear the other side and it I think it's led to this culture right now where Americans overwhelmingly seem to have difficulty with Nuance right everything needs to be black and white and honestly political issues are usually a lot more complex a lot more nuanced and nothing in life is.

Black and white and that's what makes them interesting in the first place right it was all that black and white are that easy you wouldn't have to listen to shows like errors or shows like mine and you wouldn't have to I've always encouraged people to listen to shows that are on the other side of the aisle because otherwise they don't know.

What I'm saying that's fact and what I'm saying that's opinion and so I think it's really important for people to hear conversations between people who really really disagree you you used a phrase there that I think is really important good faith and this is one that I've had to kind of think through myself because obviously there are conversations that.

Are not worth having you'll have people online who'll say you should go talk to this person you know this person happens to be you know like dregs of the earth and and then you say well I don't really wish to talk to and they say well you say you're willing to talk to pretty much anybody so how do you draw that line how do you draw the line between.

Somebody who is worth talking to someone who's acting in good faith and somebody who's not really acting in good faith well I think the interaction that you and I had both before and during that debate was really important to me in that it gave me a better idea and sense of Who You Are you know one of the issues I've had in.

Recent years is the characterizing the or the caricatures that are drawn of the other side and I think the left does it the right does it so just kind of like lumping you in with let's say Tucker Carlson lumping you in with I don't know someone else that I certainly don't think is coming at these debates from a good faith perspective they're they're.

Looking for clicks they're looking to build their public Persona there's a lot of that going on you're a pretty respectful person when we're engaging in these debates I don't really see you trying to draw caricatures of me as we're in the middle of these conversations so to me that's important.

Um there you can just tell there's like toxicity and then there are people that you disagree with politically but you can actually have a respectful conversation with them and because I had that experience with you I was comfortable again having this experience uh today in you know hashing out our differences but also talking about where.

There might be some similarities where we want the country to go because this country's always had a variety of political ideas political differences but there was a Time in America where people could engage in these debates engage in these conversations and leave feeling that mutual respect for one another seeing each other as fellow.

Americans as opposed to my enemy the other side we need to you know crush them we need to do this I want to move away from that and honestly during the coronavirus pandemic I've opened my mind up to some programming that I otherwise wouldn't have listened to so for instance there's this show called The John and Ken show it airs in LA but I.

Think it's actually syndicated all over the country and I like listening to it because there are a lot of perspectives in that show that I disagree with but there have been moments where one of the hosts will say something that in the short term I might be offended by or angry about or whatever but I have to do my due diligence so I'll investigate.

It a little bit and think to myself oh well actually he had a point there so I think the necessity for nuclear energy is a good example of that once I realized right now the technology for Renewables isn't quite where we need it to be where we can just give up fossil fuels and be okay well a good clean energy solution to kind of close that.

Gap at least for now would be nuclear and you say that in a lot of people on the left have a negative reaction to it but I think it's partly because they're not typically exposed to other perspectives everyone's kind of in their own ideological bubble it's a huge problem in my opinion and that's why I want to have conversations that's a.

Great example so I've always used nuclear energy it's actually the litmus test on people who take climate change seriously there are people on both sides who don't right there are people on the right who will say that it doesn't exist that there has been no global warming the course of the last 100 years or who say that there is no anthropogenic.

Global warming it's entirely the fault of the Sun and you know my perspective has always been I don't have the expertise to challenge the ipcc when they suggest that there will be a certain amount of climate change they're sort of outlying more extreme predictions are the ones that have sort of the the least predictability and they.

Admit that and so the question becomes what do we do in order to prevent as much of this as possible while still maintaining a lifestyle that westerners are used to and that we should aspire to for for the rest of the world and nuclear energy has always been a great way of doing that and and so that perspective has tended to draw fire from.

Both sides you have people who say well why are you even acknowledging that this sort of thing is that you sound like we're in a thunder and then you'll have people on the left saying well how he he he doesn't even believe in global warming because he is advocating for nuclear energy that sort of failure of nuance I think.

Has really deleterious effects because it prevents us from accomplishing solutions that if you and I can agree on a thing it's a pretty good notion that that's a fairly common sensical thing because we disagree on so many things like nuclear energy right right then really there's not that much to argue about and I mean nuclear energy does not.

Emit uh the type of climate uh you know emissions climate-causing emissions that other fossil fuel like you know oil natural gas that definitely does have an impact it contributes to The Climate emergency so anyone who is against nuclear energy I think there are some points that are legitimate so for instance people are concerned about.

Another Chernobyl I totally understand that but the technology has improved since then better safeguards might run by the communist Russians yeah yeah so so but look these are conversations that should be had and we should be Fearless in having these conversations I feel confident in my beliefs and my values but I also really want to get into.

Basically a culture that leaves ego aside and helps people feel comfortable acknowledging when hey maybe I didn't get something right because there are certainly areas where it turns out I didn't get something right you know I used to be a hundred percent against nuclear I thought nuclear would be super.

Dangerous you know I totally bought into like the Chernobyl exactly you know but once you start reading into it a little more once you actually start thinking for yourself independently independent of some ideological model that you're supposed to fit into perfectly it really does open your horizons and it allows for you.

To learn and that's what I want to do I want to learn and I want to make sure that the information I'm getting to my audience is well thought out and accurate thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it another way to show support is through YouTube memberships you'll get to interact with us more there's live chat emojis badges.

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