The Right Side of History by Ben Shapiro

We believe we can satisfy ourselves with intersectionality, scientific materialism, progressive politics, authoritarian governance, or nationalistic solidarity. Yet we are in the process of abandoning Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, watching our civilization collapse into age-old tribalism, individualistic hedonism, and moral subjectivism. Jerusalem and Athens built America, ended slavery, defeated the Nazis and the Communists, lifted billions from poverty, and gave billions more spiritual purpose. We can thank these values for the birth of science, the dream of progress, human rights, prosperity, peace, and artistic beauty. In The Right Side of History, Shapiro sprints through more than 3,500 years, dozens of philosophers, and the thicket of modern politics to show how our freedoms are built upon the twin notions that every human being is made in God’s image and that human beings were created with reason capable of exploring God’s world. What was so frightening about Shapiro? He came to argue that Western civilization is in the midst of a crisis of purpose and ideas that we have let grievances replace our sense of community and political expediency limit our individual rights that we are teaching our kids that their emotions matter more than rational debate and that the only meaning in life is arbitrary and subjective.Īs a society, we are forgetting that almost everything great that has ever happened in history happened because of people who believed in both Judeo-Christian values and in the Greek-born power of reason. Hundreds of police officers were required to protect his speech. In 2016, New York Times bestselling author Ben Shapiro spoke at the University of California–Berkeley. So why are we on the verge of throwing it all away? Human beings have never had it better than we have it now in the West.

The Right Side of History by Ben Shapiro