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

I liked this book a lot. I am very into spirituality; Zen, Yoga and all the scriptures that free the mind of the self image. Philosophy I feel is another animal and it is much more complex and often intimidating and confusing....BUT, I think there is a purpose to study it which is not about pride or trying to become a morally superior intellectual who dominates others for sport. As a poet, I would like to uncover dozens of these thinkers and find out how liberated their minds were and how afflicted they were and be able to convey this info with satire, music and simple conversation. Ben reveals that some of these thinkers helped to liberate the minds of many or at least challenged the status quo. Some of them made things much worse and influenced tyrants. I feel the key to helping people dissolve their conditioning and their group think parasites which prevent them from using critical thinking with the potential for insight and revelation could be finding the connections between all these psychologists, professors and philosophers along with the religious leaders and retaining an understanding that can be imparted without a long and dry diatribe; I intend to spice it up with pop culture and use hip hop as a vessel to spark the interest of others who might be seduced into being a slave to entertainment and believing the main stream....worshiping celebrities on pedestals. This book has shown me that it is worth years of study to be able to tell this epic of the dream of the human story as we atone and realize the simple truth of NOW as we peel back layers of attachment to our narratives. I want to find where religion, philosophy and spirituality meet with history and then let the spirit do its thing with whatever medium it happens to find most enthusiastic; hip hop music video..., book...ect. Like a rapper Prodigy made an epic album called the Hegelian Dialectic which is one of my fav., I too want to help people see how this dream of suffering and release from suffering came about and the lies and misunderstandings that are pervasive in our western culture which were created to keep us in bondage. So ultimately, this book has shown me it is worth the time to be able, like Ben, to offer to the world the importance of this evolution of thinking in history and how wars, the economy, genre's of music and our reality manifested and how to transcend judgement and uncover our inherent wisdom...how to strip away our allegiance to the government or to pagan hipster green nazi..ism. I highly recommend it.

Ben Shapiro. You love him or you hate him. So liberals beware. This is a short book by historical/philosophical standards. Shapiro summarizes the influence of Greek and Judeo/ Christian thought on the West and as the basis for the foundation of democracy not only in the West but on the Founding Father's and the United States. And of course, progressives will likely find that appalling. Shapiro argues that Greek and Judeo/Christian thought and values are responsible for the birth of science, ended slavery, promoted human/equal rights, has lifted billions out of poverty, and has given dignity to humans (including children) as no other philosophical thought has done. Shapiro also argues that all of that is in danger of disappearing because we are abandoning those values and principles that shaped the West and are retreating into tribalism (us and them/left and right/conservatives and liberals), hedonism (our feel good philosophy) and moral subjectivity (True for you but not for me) where anything goes all under an authoritarian government that controls nearly all aspects of our lives (including what we are allowed to believe?) Shapiro argues that we have come to believe that under moral subjectivity we can solve our problems (history had shown us we can't and that moral subjectivity only deepens the pit and widens the gap). Without an objective morality we lose sight of our moral purpose. In spite of all this, Shapiro does end on a happy note and makes his claim as to how we can recover the greatness that is the West. The Right Side of History is a brief book and not one that is easy to read without some knowledge of Western Civilization (which may be a call to put Western Civilization back into the high school curriculum). Shaprio uses copious references to support his themes. He isn't just an angry Jew with an ax to grind, but presents cogent arguments for his stance. He never argues that the West is perfect but it shines brighter than all others, and without an objective moral standard and an objective moral purpose we will cease taking steps to perfection and retreat once again into paganism.

I have listened to Ben's radio show for a while now, and when I heard about his book coming out I wanted to see what it was about. What I found was a well-written, accessible, eloquently argued defense of the moral and philosophical underpinnings of modern Western civilization. Ben's thesis--the four "things" needed to spur our civilization to the greatest the world has ever known--is remarkably insightful, for how simple it sounds on the surface. He spends the vast majority of this book defining what he means by each term and how they came from our ancient forebears; some of the text is devoted, of course, to modern philosophies, and how they do away with at least one of those four pillars and thus bring us tottering closer and closer to collapse. The weakest part of the book, I think, is the conclusion--the "So what do we do about it?" section. Of course, in fairness, Ben has hinted at suggestions to this throughout the book, and it *is* difficult to suggest concrete courses of action to combat philosophical and moral problems in exacting detail, at least when the problems are at a civilizational scale. Overall, this book is an excellent read and a passionate defense from a very, very smart guy who really did his homework.

I enjoy listening to Ben Shapiro – even when I don’t wholly buy what he is saying. When he announced his latest book: The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great, I knew I had to read it. Shapiro argues that the foundation of the existence of the United States is Judeo-Christian ethics and Greek reason – American happiness is founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and Greek reason. And, in order to be happy, we need four things: “individual moral purpose, individual capacity to pursue that purpose, communal moral purpose, and communal capacity to pursue that purpose” (9). In the ensuing chapters, Shapiro makes the case that the United States is based in and could only come from Judeo-Christian ethic and Greek philosophy. From Moses on Sinai to the present day, Shapiro draws a compelling parallel to his thesis. And the shows that failures to achieve the goal of happiness – such as the Holocaust – are due to straying from these foundations and the individual and communal purpose and capacity. He diagnoses the current state of America as “a return to paganism” (183ff). The book ends with a call to rebuild. The way to do this is to understand that “your life has purpose,” “you can do it” – achieve your purpose, recognize that “your civilization is unique,” (215) and that “we are all brothers and sisters” (216). Shapiro writes, “It is our job to carry on the tradition. It is our job to push the task forward. “If we do, then we will be truly deserving of God’s blessing, and fit to proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. We will choose life, so that we and our children may life” (218). Shapiro presents a compelling case for learning and retaining our founding principles. It is a sobering book, yet a hopeful one. I do have some questions about some of his comments about the Reformation (I am a Calvinist), nevertheless, I recommend this book to any concerned about the United States. [This review appears on my blog, Amazon.com, and Goodreads.com.]

This book is a diagnosis of the decline of the modern western world. We live in the greatest civilization that has ever existed; it is the safest, healthiest, and most prosperous society in history. Yet, we’re throwing it away. Depression, drug use, and conspiracy theories are rampant while marriage rates, community cohesion, and overall religiosity are fast declining. So, what happened? Here’s an appropriate metaphor: If a frog is put into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out immediately. If, however, a frog is put into a pot of room temperature water which is then slowly heated to a boil over time, the frog will cook to death. This is the argument for how we got to where we are today (and also for why global warming is such a threat, but that’s a different topic.) It has happened slowly, over the course of generations, and now it feels as though the water is suddenly boiling! Shapiro posits that when The United States was first founded, it was on the twin pillars of Judeo-Christian ethics and an Aristotelian belief in the use of human reason to understand the world around us. “The Bible and the Philosopher come to the same conclusion” he writes, “the Bible commands us to serve God with happiness and identifies that moral purpose with happiness; Aristotle suggests that it is impossible to achieve happiness without virtue, which means acting in accordance with a moral purpose that rational human beings can discern from the nature of the universe.” The definition of the word virtue, similar to most words, has changed over the course of time. Whereas virtue was once associated with individual character development, it is now defined as “conformity of one’s life and conduct to moral and ethical principles” (taken from dictionary.com). This new definition is tricky, because who decides what is morally correct and ethical is important. Conforming to that which has been dictated as morally correct is often a recipe for disaster. This is exactly how the atrocities of communism and nazism happened, as the individual was sacrificed in service to the greater good of the nation. Shapiro says that a happy and prosperous society requires “four elements: individual moral purpose, individual capacity, collective moral purpose, and collective capacity.” I also believe this to be true. Human beings need to feel happy with themselves and their individual work towards the betterment of their own lives. They also need to feel content within their communities and to feel as though their contributions to the collective matter. Human beings exist on both planes, the individual and the communal, and must nurture both. In his book, Shapiro takes us on a ride through history, stopping along the way to visit the different philosophers and thinkers who got us to where we are today. It started in Athens, around 2500 years ago with Aristotle and the birth of human reason. This is where humanity first tried to understand the world through an objective lens. Then came Judaism, closely followed by Christianity, and the belief that human beings served a larger moral purpose. While these two pillars of thought were honed and redefined throughout the ages, the next biggest break was the Enlightenment (occurring in 17th and 18th century Europe) which placed the focus on the individual. Up until this point in history, societies had all been mostly constructed around the greater good of the whole. Now, all of a sudden, people began to value themselves. It is no coincidence that this is also around the same time that the industrial revolution occurred and capitalism began. Capitalism is focused on the individual and what that individual can produce. If you can make more than your neighbor, or make something better, than the quality of your life improves. That is how the United States, and by association the western world, grew to become to most advanced and prosperous country in the history of humanity, lifting billions of people out of poverty along the way. If you didn’t know, Ben Shapiro is a conservative political pundit here in the United States and spends a considerable amount of time and energy diagnosing the present political scene. Considering his biases towards the left, he makes a good point about the foundations of their current destructive nature. The Democrats, as they stand today, seem to be throwing away the importance of the individual for the importance of the whole. We can see this in the relentless ‘cancelling’ of people on social media, or how they don’t seem to have a good answer to the question of why there are gay and black people in the Republican Party. The damaging philosophy, as posited by Shapiro, is their dependance on their own subjectivity in relation to the world around them, as opposed to the objectivity of days long gone. “By focusing on self-esteem” he writes, “the New Left could kill three birds with one stone: they could overturn reliance on Judeo-Christian religion, Greek teleology, and capitalism.” When Shapiro says facts don’t care about your feelings, a sentiment often repeated by pundits on the right, this is what he means. He goes on to say how “Religion suggests that ‘your bliss’ does not exist; only God’s bliss does. Greek teleology is utterly unconcerned with your personal definition of self-realization; the only thing that counts is whether you are acting virtuously in accordance with right reason. And capitalism cares far less about how you’re feeling than about your ability to create products and services someone else wants.” This, according to Shapiro, is how the left is destroying the America we all know. Meanwhile, modern Democrats assert that they are intent on dismantling the patriarchal hierarchy of the current system, fighting for justice for marginalized people, and doing away with a system that is unequal. The problem is that they are also correct in their beliefs. Is Shapiro right when he says that the Left is doing tremendous damage to the collective psyche of the country when they ignore the individual in preference of the community, and when they focus on subjectivity over objectivity? Yes. Is the Left right when they say the reason for this is because the community has been racist, sexist, and homophobic since the founding of the country? Also yes. Anyways, whether we like it or not, here we are, boiling. And whether we choose to accept it or not, the warning signs were there. We, as a society, have stopped focusing on individual character development as a route to a more harmonious society. Instead, we have everything we want at our fingertips and it will never be enough, because without virtue, without individual meaning to our lives, no amount of material stuff can make us happy. The same goes for collective meaning, which is equally important. The great Russian writer and thinker Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) once remarked that “materialist man is far more of a threat than religious man.” Regardless of whether you are on the political left or right, whether you live in the modern western world or not, the lessons here still apply. Society needs people who use their reason and their objectivity to be both virtuous individuals and valuable members of their communities. Whether we return to Judeo-Christian ethics and Aristotelian virtue remains to be seen. Without these things, however, society will surely continue to crumble.

Shapiro is done and it again with an excellent book for the ages. It truly is a reflection of the right side of history as this title implies

I know.... "page turner"? I didn't expect it either. I excepted a tough, complex, deep dive into philosophy and ideology. I got that for sure, but it kept my interest and had me swiftly navigating the chapters for more. This is a summation of multiple philosophies and how they forged the West. It's an analysis of the philosophies that are trying to destroy the West. Its a history lesson and a theology lesson. None of that sounds like it should excite or impassion a simpleton like me to keep me reading at a steady pace. But I made quick work of this book, and probably will read it again, because of its thoughtful, thorough, concise presentation of the facts and history that made the greatest country ever dreamt of, and the motives of those who wish to destroy it. Don't be intimidated by the subject matter. It's a must read. Note: After reading the reviews, I caught quite a few "1 star" reviews. Having read this book and subsequently reading those reviews, I can tell you these people did not read the book or, if they did, attempt to see through their blatant bias to comprehend the material. It's a shame people would less be intentionally misleading reviews because of politics disagreements. An annoying symptom of the often dishonest social media world we live in!

“What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem?” Asked around the year 200 by Tertullian, answered very well by Ben Shapiro in 2019, though probably not in the way Tertullian would have expected. In his new book, The Right Side of History, Ben takes the reader through centuries of philosophical thought while keeping the current American culture in sight. “This long philosophical journey would come to fruition in the first country in history to be crafted based on philosophy: the United States of America. ... The notion of all men having equal freedom and independence sprang originally from the Biblical notion of man being made in God’s image, admixed with the Greek tradition of individual reason, and passed down generation after generation, transmuted over time into the understanding that not only are human beings made in God’s image with will and reason, but with the liberty to exercise that will and reason in accordance with the pursuit of virtue.” Ben then describes our movement away from those foundational principles over time. Jerusalem and Athens combined to create the greatest country in the history of the world, with the most free and most prosperous people the world has ever seen. Read the book for a glimpse into how that happened and how we can keep it. “You did not create your freedoms or your definition of virtue, nor did they arise in a vacuum. Learn your history. Explore where the roots of your values lie: in Jerusalem and Athens. Be grateful for those roots. Then defend those roots, even as you grow to new heights.”