Ben ShapiroCritiques

His points are very clear and concise. However, it would be refreshing if the underrepresented views of others were brought to light and not just his own underrepresented views.

Writing: 4.5; Theme: 5.0; Content: 5.0; Language: 5.0; Overall: 4.5

What a time for a book called, The Authoritarian Moment. Americans in general, and conservatives most specifically, are being targeted with the Leftist agenda of wokeness and Shapiro destroys it at its core. He shares how the Left has silenced many Americans. They are attempting, and have succeeded in many ways, to "renormalize" the way we see the world and judge societal norms and behavior. They have done this by creating a Ruling Class of elite, who have gained great control in every aspect of our lives. They have used true science to create The Science and if you disagree with them, you are deemed as being anti-science. They have encumbered corporations with Leftist idealist who desire complete control over corporate and economic institutions. They have radicalized the entertainment and sports fields. These radicals no longer desire to give the American people a reprieve from politics. These Leftists will also go to any limit to push their woke agenda, even creating fake narratives and news stories, with no shame. They also dutifully try and divide Americans in every way, straight out of their Marxist playbook. We as Americans no longer have the option of silence. We must stand against Leftist wokeness in every spectrum of life. It is up to us to upend this agenda. There are many more of us than those who are pushing this agenda and we must win this war on western culture by defeating those who desire to destroy it. Great book. Highly recommend.

***August 23, 2022***½

Holy shit is this book a buttload of fucking swears and slurs.

Summary: Ben Shapiro took his tiny little hands and wrote a shit ton of racist slurs, writes in full ebonics, spews racism, and this book is already dated severely.

The longer takeaway is below.

I'm not one for political books, though this is probably targeting people like me a bit, it really misses the mark at being educational and much more than Ben Shapiro word salading while using voice to text in the bathroom during a long shit. Also, there are enough song lines and quotes to be a fanfiction from the 2006 area, so that's got my eyes wanting to bleed.
I really don't know why he hates African Americans so much, besides clear racism showing its ugly face, but see the next paragraph for more on that.

This book fixates on African Americans a lot, in an excessive fear-mongering manner. Regularly and habitually Ben refers to people with melanin as terms that are equivalent to "savages". He regularly drops such racial ebonics like the n-word, talks about rappers being at fault for horny kids(???), and seems to miss that we've had pornographic music made by white people even pre-dating obvious ones like Cyndi Lauper and Divinyls, clearly, Shapiro forgot Madonna's Like a Virgin performance where she was told she can't stroke her hands along her body due to how sexual it was. This book's aim is to say the 2000s+ invented horniness and porn.

Included in the ebonics is the n-word started with a w, which is such a 2000s staple and nobody really uses it anymore, that it's surreal to see it in this book. Then Shapiro uses "bitches and hoes" unironically while removing the e from "hoes" for some reason. I don't get Ben one bit.

I just cited multiple artists flooding the system with horny songs in the very dawn of the 80s, clearly Ben is late. Eminem was a mid-2000s singer. Porn magazines began in the 1950s and were massive in the 60s-90s(dying off in the latter). Pornography like the Playboy Bunny/Mansion was made massive in the 60s. Again, Shapiro has everything dated, which doesn't work in the present day, where it's forty years plus ago on a good day!

This is a book that blames porn existing while being extremely racist for no reason, if I had to guess, Shapiro's real message would be in line with Uncle Ruckus', and we don't need that. African Americans did not invent pornography or porn addictions, and I think this book is very racist propaganda.

I do not recommend this book.

It was already outdated on the day it was published.

I’ve read multiple books written by Ben Shapiro and I’ve enjoyed reading the common sense and intelligent renderings of his thoughts so far and I also enjoyed this one. I highly recommend reading his books.

I am interested in the views of Ben Shapiro. And at this time in history this book was a must read. I share the concern that our country is un-focused and losing its way. I understand the central purpose of the book. However, it is not easy to read the book. The book is like a marathon: you have slow moments and moments when you fight through the book, but by the end you understand the story.

The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great by Ben Shapiro

Why I picked this book up: I have read two other Ben Shapiro books, Facts Dont Care About Your Feelings and How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps. I highly enjoyed reading those other two and decided to purchase this on too.

Thoughts: this book had a solid into. This is a complex book, traces historical philosophy and authors. This book has the view that we are created in Gods image. This means we have innate value. He also believes humans can reason. He holds that we can know truth, he values Greek reason and objectively true things. He also values tradition. This book has a lot of historical things too and modern issues he touches on which are often past of his daily publically syndicated Daily Wire which I appreciate when reading Ben’s books.

Why I finished this read: Ben is a great author, he is intelligent and his writing flows easily even though it is also complex. It was easy to finish this book because it was fun to read.

I rates his book 5 stars also because it was top notch.

Another good Shapiro effort, showing how the left has gone crazy since 2000: moving from live and let live liberals with some social progressivism to authoritarian "you either do what we say or you're a bigot."½

The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent by Ben Shapiro is a very highly recommended examination of authoritarianism, where it is most prevalent, and how it is influencing society today. Shapiro clearly sets forth all of his points with examples and explanations, which are backed up by facts and an abundance of chapter notes. He also proposes how the majority must speak up to oppose the authoritarian actions of the few.

There has been a great deal of authoritarian behavior lately and the real question at this point is who is looking at the conduct of various groups or people and, from their point-of-view, determining who is right or wrong and why, as well as how they have been endowed with the job of pronouncing judgments over the rest of the country. The problem is that right now, "More than six in ten Americans say they fear saying what they think, including a majority of liberals, 64 percent of moderates, and fully 77 percent of conservatives." Obviously, the media and academia have placed themselves in the forefront as judges of what behavior and opinions they will espouse. The "mostly peaceful" protests burning down city blocks and causing up to $2 billion dollars in damage is a good example of people being told to overlook and accept. And, according to another recently released book by a researcher in journalism, the media bias is toward the liberal left in cities.

Shapiro makes a compelling case that the authoritarian left has spent decades suppressing the ideas of those who disagree with them by using people's inherent politeness against them. What this small percentage of the population doesn't seem to realize is that just because people are silent doesn't mean they are bending their will to what they are being told to believe nor are they abiding by the arbitrary rules set by them. Turning against a majority of people and demanding that they conform to your beliefs is itself intolerant and rigid. It doesn't accept the wide variety of beliefs and backgrounds, the free exchange of ideas, and most importantly our first amendment rights of freedom of speech for all of us, not just a liberal radical left leaning minority. "[B]uried in authoritarianism is always one deep flaw: its insecurity. If authoritarians had broad and deep support, they wouldn’t require compulsion. The dirty secret of our woke authoritarians is that they are the minority." "The Authoritarian Moment lays bare the intolerance and rigidity creeping into all American ideology – and prescribes the solution to ending the authoritarianism that threatens our future."

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/07/the-authoritarian-moment.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4131515380

This was not at all what I was expecting. Perhaps my expectations were simply wrong. I generally like to hear what Shapiro has to say, but this book was not what I was wanting.

This is a good presentation of Ben Shapiro's broadly Libertarian and conservative views on America (history, present, future). Most of this would have been essentially mainstream until the past ~15 years) -- it's not arguments for low taxes, lack of any social safety net, etc., but just that broadly America has produced good results for Americans and the world and that where it has failed to do so has just been an implementation failure and not a reason to throw the whole thing out. In particular, slavery was not the economic engine which has driven >400 years of economic success in America, but a crutch used by some people in the South, contrary to both moral and economic values, and largely not the cause of income (vs. wealth) disparities in America today.

As an audiobook -- I know I encourage authors, especially those trying to present a political or philosophical argument, to narrate their own audiobooks. Unfortunately I find Ben Shapiro's ideas a lot more acceptable than his voice (especially at 2X); it's just grating, mostly because I associate it with various soundbite arguments on TV (which rarely show anyone at their best).

Another good entry by Shapiro, focusing on how and why liberalism/leftism desires to demolish what this country was so they can remake it in a more socialist/communist image. When a Democrat says they want to change America, they mean destroy and remake. Shapiro labels these people and their philosophy "Disintegrationists." They want to disintegrate American society into labeled "tribes" (e.g. black, white; male, female, etc.; rich, poor; immigrant, native; religious, atheist; left, right; etc.) by removing all that unites and unifies Americans of whatever stripe. Shapiro calls the opposite group "Unionists": people who might be different in whatever outward aspect or philosophical bent, but still believe in certain unifying beliefs about America. Endnotes, index. Interesting facts and philosophical thoughts.½

A bit dated, but fascinating for it's depth and breadth of research. Ben interviewed and quoted many, many people in this book, and they were quite candid about their choices and biases. It's not a book complaining about how liberal news is or broadcast TV is, but a book about the history and possible future of the medium based on the apparent nature of those in charge.

Eye opening way of considering the behaviors of the left. Lots and lots of examples for each of the claims made in this book.

A bit dated now, but lots of examples of bias and hypocrisy in the university system.

A good introduction to conservative philosophy and political theory. Shapiro breaks no new ground, but he puts into readable, yet scholarly, form these conservative views. It boils down to these twin pillars: Judeo-Christian morality and Greek philosophy/reason. Combine Judeo-Christian morals, stress on the individual, and care for your fellow man with Greek telos and reason and you get Western civilization, which has progressed (in a Whiggish sense, not a socialist sense) from barbarity to civilization. Though there were bumps on the way, slavery for instance, the arc of Western civilization bends toward greater freedoms for the individual and capitalistic progress of technology that makes life better. As I have always said, you need free market capitalism, a democratic republic, rule of law and order, and Christian morality to have a good civilization (you could distill this down to: you need capitalism tempered by Christian morality to have a good society). This is what Shapiro is presenting, in a more erudite and expansive form. It's a good book that deserves to be on any thinking conservative's bookshelf next to the likes of Kirk and Buckley. It can be a slog to read sometimes, but it is worth the effort.½

A long-winded book that does not deliver what it purports that it will. The "liberal left" - or those that support the Democratic party are the forces that have taken over the television industry and the "conservative right" have been shut out - including the author repetitively tells you - from employment opportunities. There is information on who headed what studios and produced what shows mixed in with the author's rant. A waste of time, and a book which I just scanned page after page after the first two chapters to unfortunately discover that there was no merit.½

Strangely enough, I don't take umbrage with some of the quotations from leftist professors that readers are clearly intended to take; overall, I enjoyed it. Shapiro was very quick-witted. He's an editorialist at heart, but I'd like to see what he would do with a less editorial-styled piece. The book makes me extremely happy with my St. John's College education particularly when compared with the average college university experience that he speaks to. The book contains no surprises. I would have given it three and a half to four stars but for the second half not being nearly as engaging or enjoyable as the first.½