Ben Shapiro's end of the year Devil Talk

[2PhiloVoid]

In the video below, rightist conservative political pundit, BEN SHAPIRO, reviews various points in C.S. Lewis' book, The Screwtape Letters.

Shapiro offers an 18 minutes analysis and describes how he thinks Lewis predicted the shape of political and social things to come where ideology, morality and religion clash in the modern marketplace of ideas. Along the way, Shapiro offers his own political and moral essay on how he thinks Lewis' claims play out now in the modern world as many people slouch toward advocacy for sheer Materialism.

Ben Shapiro - How C.S. Lewis Predicted our Culture Today (December 30, 2022)​

​

​

...And no, I don't want to hear any claims that this thread "belongs in a Christian section of CF." No, it belongs HERE for points in Shapiro's talk that are evident.

 

[FireDragon76]

He needs to read the addendum, it's less cheery on the ability of religious ideologies to uphold and transform the human. The lowest rank in Hell in Lewis' account is for the religious hypocrite that deals in malice and dogmatism.

When you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss also stares into you, and to him whom much has been given, much will be expected.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I would say the abolition of man is more prescient in Lewis's ability to predict modernity and establishes the power of the current conditioners of society.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

He needs to read the addendum, it's less cheery on the ability of religious ideologies to uphold and transform the human.

Which "addendum" are you referring to, FD? I don't remember there being an addendum in The Screwtape Letters. There is "Screwtape proposes a toast," however. Is it this latter item to which you're gesturing?

The lowest rank in Hell in Lewis' account is for the religious hypocrite that deals in malice and dogmatism.

Whether or not Ben Shapiro (or even Matt Walsh or Candace Owens) are hypocrites I do not yet know. I suppose its possible, but does an allusion to someone else's hypocrisy have to be the first assumption to which we should be inclined? And was there some particular points in Ben Shapiro's comments on Screwtape that you found either interesting or particularly jilting?

Or are you attempting to imply that C.S. Lewis was a hypocrite? I'm not clear on your meaning or your referent in this matter.

When you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss also stares into you, and to him whom much has been given, much will be expected.

If you're going to quote Nietzsche as you've done here, it might be good to cite that this is what you've done so that anyone reading your Nihilistic blurb will gain a better clarity by its actual context and from whom it was taken.

Otherwise, for what purpose and to whom are you saying any of this?

And, moreover, please don't mix your metaphors. It may confuse onlookers. ... It won't confuse me, however.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I would say the abolition of man is more prescient in Lewis's ability to predict modernity and establishes the power of the current conditioners of society.

That may be, Kiwi. But since Ben Shapiro chose Lewis' Screwtape Letters, that's the content we're going to focus upon.

Did you like anything that Shapiro happened to say about Lewis' book? Did you disagree with anything he happened to say about it?

 

[FireDragon76]

Which "addendum" are you referring to, FD? I don't remember there being an addendum in The Screwtape Letters. There is "Screwtape proposes a toast," however. Is it this latter item to which you're gesturing?



Whether or not Ben Shapiro (or even Matt Walsh or Candace Owens) are hypocrites I do not yet know. I suppose its possible, but does an allusion to someone else's hypocrisy have to be the first assumption to which we should be inclined? And was there some particular points in Ben Shapiro's comments on Screwtape that you found either interesting or particularly jilting?

Or are you attempting to imply that C.S. Lewis was a hypocrite? I'm not clear on your meaning or your referent in this matter.



If you're going to quote Nietzsche as you've done here, it might be good to cite that this is what you've done so that anyone reading your Nihilistic blurb will gain a better clarity by its actual context and from whom it was taken.

Otherwise, for what purpose and to whom are you saying any of this?

And, moreover, please don't mix your metaphors. It may confuse onlookers. ... It won't confuse me, however.

Shapiro is a stone-hearted religious agitator. That fits the original meaning of "hypocrite" as used by Jesus.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Shapiro is a stone-hearted religious agitator. That fits the original meaning of "hypocrite" as used by Jesus.

So, what you're saying is that Shapiro was wrong about his understanding and application of what he found 'said' by Lewis in The Screwtape Letters?

I'm not really up on Shapiro and I rarely listen to him, but he seemed to have hit the marks on Lewis' assessments about our current World Culture, as far as I can tell. I find his commentary interesting in that, even though he isn't an evangelical Christian, he's willing to read Lewis' book and see some meaning and application in it that approximates a well-rounded description of the world we live in today.

Wouldn't you agree?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

He needs to read the addendum, it's less cheery on the ability of religious ideologies to uphold and transform the human. The lowest rank in Hell in Lewis' account is for the religious hypocrite that deals in malice and dogmatism.

When you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss also stares into you, and to him whom much has been given, much will be expected.

And again, what is the "addendum" to which you've referred?

 

[zippy2006]

I find his commentary interesting in that, even though he isn't an evangelical Christian, he's willing to read Lewis' book and see some meaning and application in it that approximates a well-rounded description of the world we live in today.

Wouldn't you agree?

I agree, and I enjoyed listening to a Jewish man read and reflect on Screwtape. It gave it a different flavor and provided a different perspective. Granted, one thing I like about Shapiro is that he talks fast, and condenses a great deal of content into a small period of time. This is helpful when it comes to current events, but with Screwtape it's tricky to process such fast speech, since you have to reverse-engineer the demon's advice.

I guess two things stuck with me. First, at 7:08 Shapiro talks about the way that we are encouraged to hide our religiosity but revel in our sin. This is definitely true. I have experienced it time and time again. The second one is at 11:07, where Shapiro talks about the subtle double standards that continually occur in domestic life, and which then compound to produce more substantial fights and disagreements. This is also true, and deeply important to recognize. Further, I strongly agree with his follow-up advice about trying to talk on the phone rather than via text message. I'd say the closer we can stay to in-person communication, the better.

(If anyone wants to look at these points in more detail, just click the links I gave. As I said, Shapiro speaks quickly, so the relevant sections are very short.)

 

[zippy2006]

I would say the abolition of man is more prescient in Lewis's ability to predict modernity and establishes the power of the current conditioners of society.

Yes, it is more prescient, but as Shapiro notes at 9:33, the truths that Lewis is presenting in Screwtape were as valid 4,000 years ago as they are today. So I don't think prescience is the goal with Screwtape. Beyond that, Screwtape is more engaging, entertaining, byte-size, and understandable than The Abolition of Man. I really enjoy The Abolition, but many people tell me that they weren't able to understand it at all, or take anything from it. I suppose they are different books, each with its own merit.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I agree, and I enjoyed listening to a Jewish man read and reflect on Screwtape. It gave it a different flavor and provided a different perspective. Granted, one thing I like about Shapiro is that he talks fast, and condenses a great deal of content into a small period of time. This is helpful when it comes to current events, but with Screwtape it's tricky to process such fast speech, since you have to reverse-engineer the demon's advice.

I guess two things stuck with me. First, at 7:08 Shapiro talks about the way that we are encouraged to hide our religiosity but revel in our sin. This is definitely true. I have experienced it time and time again. The second one is at 11:07, where Shapiro talks about the subtle double standards that continually occur in domestic life, and which then compound to produce more substantial fights and disagreements. This is also true, and deeply important to recognize. Further, I strongly agree with his follow-up advice about trying to talk on the phone rather than via text message. I'd say the closer we can stay to in-person communication, the better.

(If anyone wants to look at these points in more detail, just click the links I gave. As I said, Shapiro speaks quickly, so the relevant sections are very short.)

Oh, Shapiro definitely talks fast! I may have ask him which brand of coffee he drinks.

But on the point of his exposition on Screwtape, I too think he's right about how out and proud folks are about their sins, but any hit of religiosity is expected to be pocketed and mainly kept private. That's definitely where we're at these days in the public sphere, but I've always thought it was to be expected.

The double standards that exist in relationships and the ways in which we often misinterpret each other out of resentment are another close knit malady that also plague us. The caveat in this is that I'm not sure how well some folks can have in person conversations these days, though. Maybe I just see too many folks in each other's faces and it sometimes seems that communication from a distance is a constructive advantage. There is a lot of abuse going on out there. It's not good.

 

[zippy2006]

Oh, Shapiro definitely talks fast! I may have ask him which brand of coffee he drinks.

Hehe

But on the point of his exposition on Screwtape, I too think he's right about how out and proud folks are about their sins, but any hit of religiosity is expected to be pocketed and mainly kept private. That's definitely where we're at these days in the public sphere, but I've always thought it was to be expected.

Definitely. I experience this personally, and this was even truer when I was younger. It's as though being naughty, or counter-cultural, or impertinent is fashionable and promoted by our culture. Was it like that when you were younger too, or not?

The double standards that exist in relationships and the ways in which we often misinterpret each other out of resentment are another close knit malady that also plague us. The caveat in this is that I'm not sure how well some folks can have in person conversations these days, though. Maybe I just see too many folks in each other's faces and it sometimes seems that communication from a distance is a constructive advantage. There is a lot of abuse going on out there. It's not good.

Oh, that's an interesting point. I suppose that when you are in-person you are less likely to misunderstand someone, since there is more information available to you regarding their epistemic and emotional state. On the other hand, aggressive individuals may use this emotional vulnerability to provoke a more physical and more damaging altercation.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Definitely. I experience this personally, and this was even truer when I was younger. It's as though being naughty, or counter-cultural, or impertinent is fashionable and promoted by our culture. Was it like that when you were younger too, or not?

It was, but it didn't seem like it was to the extent that it is today. Then again, being that I didn't think much beyond the problems at home that we had, naive as I was as a teenager about the relational state of other families outside my own dysfunctional one, maybe I just didn't realize the spread of the discord. On the other hand, knowing what I know now, I think the patterns of dysfunction that display themselves among just the U.S. population alone is at least twice as problematic with twice or more of the Screwtapian type proliferation.

Oh, that's an interesting point. I suppose that when you are in-person you are less likely to misunderstand someone, since there is more information available to you regarding their epistemic and emotional state. On the other hand, aggressive individuals may use this emotional vulnerability to provoke a more physical and more damaging altercation.

Yep. There's a lot of emotionally laced political tension out there, especially among the younger crowed of 40 and under. And that intensity and spread isn't something I think was prevalent among my high school peers back in the 1980's. Something has changed, for the worse.

 

[Hans Blaster]

What on Earth was that?

From what I could tell it was just the same sort of "religion makes things better" moralizing that Shapiro is notorious for. He just inserts the "authority" of writer that seems to suffer from the same problem.

The video itself can be hard to follow since Shapiro is horrible narrator. His rapid cadence is made worse in that he doesn't use infection, pause, intonation or delivery speed to indicate when he is transitioning between reading the text and offering his own interpretations. There are a few clues added like text on the screen (though I had the video in a background window for some if it) and his references to "modern this and that" which were clearly Shapiro talking about now. In between he often spoke "screwtape says" which I could tell if he meant the book or those were the words of Lewis speaking in the character of screwtape. (Not sure what a screwtape is. Never heard of it before.) [I must say, the confusion could have been cleared if Shapiro had said "Lewis says (in screwtape)" if that's what he meant. It is an annoying habit to refer to a book speaking instead of the author that is not unique to Shapiro.]

All in all, it offered really nothing that a standard issue Shapiro rant about modernity, morality, secularism, nebulous enemies, and religion couldn't offer and at the waste of all of those minutes reading stuff to pad out the video.

Two other things:

1. This "screwtape" book seems to offer a template for these types of rants. Perhaps that is why they are so common as they have been around for so long.

2. Lewis' rant about the nature of modern swimsuits both revealing to much and being deceptively presented was quaint. If only old C.S. had known of the string bikini.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

What on Earth was that?

THAT, my friend, was a very brief summation of what's going on in the world today, for those who dont know ...

From what I could tell it was just the same sort of "religion makes things better" moralizing that Shapiro is notorious for. He just inserts the "authority" of writer that seems to suffer from the same problem.

Nah. It's not the same. Being that Shapiro was relying upon the content of Lewis' book, then that displaces whatever weakness in Shapiro's delivery that you perceive and, then you'd have to have read the book in order to say what you're saying here. Without that, you're not justified in fully having an opinion on it.

The video itself can be hard to follow since Shapiro is horrible narrator. His rapid cadence is made worse in that he doesn't use infection, pause, intonation or delivery speed to indicate when he is transitioning between reading the text and offering his own interpretations. There are a few clues added like text on the screen (though I had the video in a background window for some if it) and his references to "modern this and that" which were clearly Shapiro talking about now. In between he often spoke "screwtape says" which I could tell if he meant the book or those were the words of Lewis speaking in the character of screwtape. (Not sure what a screwtape is. Never heard of it before.) [I must say, the confusion could have been cleared if Shapiro had said "Lewis says (in screwtape)" if that's what he meant. It is an annoying habit to refer to a book speaking instead of the author that is not unique to Shapiro.]

Sure. I'm not a Shapiro fan, hence the reason you don't see me posting his vids one after another. But I liked his summary of what is one of my favorite, and I think very fitting, books that scrape at the veneer of today's world. I know, though, that some folks will just want to face-palm it all so they can go on about their anti-Christian lives. That's understandable. Screwtape has a lot to offer them...

All in all, it offered really nothing that a standard issue Shapiro rant about modernity, morality, secularism, nebulous enemies, and religion couldn't offer and at the waste of all of those minutes reading stuff to pad out the video.

Two other things:

1. This "screwtape" book seems to offer a template for these types of rants. Perhaps that is why they are so common as they have been around for so long.

2. Lewis' rant about the nature of modern swimsuits both revealing to much and being deceptively presented was quaint. If only old C.S. had known of the string bikini.

Two more things, Hans:

1) If The Screwtape Letters does offer a template for these kinds of rants, then I hope it succeeds in even more of the same. This is particularly so being that the topic of sex only takes up one or two of the couple dozen chapters in the book.

2) String bikinis would have been a sight for Lewis, for sure, but I'm sure C.S. Lewis already new about Hugh Hefner's illustrious career being that Lewis died the same year JFK did. And if there's a philosophical template for liberals and atheists to face-palm, it's the one that Hefner gave more than his right hand to help install and download [he wasn't the first or the last to do so, obviously] into our society and thereby, the world. Nasty but true, I know.

Now, if you have the time, maybe you'd like to comment on one of my other recent threads:

She looked at PORNHUB so you don't have to ...

No, don't look at this thread with that glazed over, blinkey-eyed stare! Give me a break! And yes, you heard it correctly! Candace Owens, one of the conservative pundits on DW, has weighed in on the nature of internet porn and related aspects of it that are born out of our modern culture...

www.christianforums.com

 

[Hans Blaster]

THAT, my friend, was a very brief summation of what's going on in the world today, for those who dont know ...

Viewed through the warped mind of Ben Shapiro.

Nah. It's not the same. Being that Shapiro was relying upon the content of Lewis' book, then that displaces whatever weakness in Shapiro's delivery that you perceive and, then you'd have to have read the book in order to say what you're saying here. Without that, you're not justified in fully having an opinion on it.

The presentation doesn't give that impression.

If you really cared about presenting/discussing the content of the screwtape book, why use a lousy Ben Shapiro video to present it. I can only work with what you give us. Your post gives me no further idea what that book might be about, nor any motivation to read it. I will criticize the portions of it that you presented as I choose.

Sure. I'm not a Shapiro fan, hence the reason you don't see me posting his vids one after another. But I liked his summary of what is one of my favorite, and I think very fitting, books that scrape at the veneer of today's world.

Then your interpretation of the book must be far different than mine as filtered through the summary of Shapiro. From Shapiro's presentation, I found no reason to have any interest in that book or its seemingly stale message.

I know, though, that some folks will just want to face-palm it all so they can go on about their anti-Christian lives.

Sure (eye roll).

That's understandable. Screwtape has a lot to offer them...

Doesn't seem to offer anything to me at least from what I've been presented.)

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Viewed through the warped mind of Ben Shapiro.

I sense that a lot of folks here have a severe allergy to Shapiro?

The presentation doesn't give that impression.

You won't know until you read the book, now will you?

If you really cared about presenting/discussing the content of the screwtape book, why use a lousy Ben Shapiro video to present it. I can only work with what you give us. Your post gives me no further idea what that book might be about, nor any motivation to read it. I will criticize the portions of it that you presented as I choose.

Oh, I see. It's my fault. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn'. But, let me get this straight. What little that you did understand that Shapiro said in drawing from Lewis, you don't agree with him?

Then your interpretation of the book must be far different than mine as filtered through the summary of Shapiro. From Shapiro's presentation, I found no reason to have any interest in that book or its seemingly stale message.

This sounds like stonewalling. Very strange for someone who uses Grant as his avatar. I'd think that you'd want to show me the error of my ways and read the book and thoroughly do what I do-----evaluate it.

Doesn't seem to offer anything to me at least from what I've been presented.)

Oh, of course, Hans. It's everyone else responsibility to "sell" you on a worldview that you've already said you don't care about, more than once. Got it!

 

[Hans Blaster]

I sense that a lot of folks here have a severe allergy to Shapiro?

He is irritating in many ways. Excess exposure could cause rashes.

You won't know until you read the book, now will you?

I'm not sure why I would. Nor have I determined what the devil reference is in the title. (Unless that is Ben himself.)

Oh, I see. It's my fault. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn'. But, let me get this straight. What little that you did understand that Shapiro said in drawing from Lewis, you don't agree with him?

It was all very forgettable. The kind of thing I've heard from Shapiro and others (especially here) repeatedly. So much so that I occasionally skipped ahead 5 seconds during his "commentary".

This sounds like stonewalling. Very strange for someone who uses Grant as his avatar. I'd think that you'd want to show me the error of my ways and read the book and thoroughly do what I do-----evaluate it.

I have no use for Confederate nonsense, but I don't know how that relates. (Sherman is not Grant. Neither Grant nor Sherman faced "Stonewall" in battle.) I just think you have a responsibility to include approriate information if you want to discuss an obscure book by a minor author.

Oh, of course, Hans. It's everyone else responsibility to "sell" you on a worldview that you've already said you don't care about, more than once. Got it!

So you can notice. That's good to know.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I have no use for Confederate nonsense, but I don't know how that relates. (Sherman is not Grant. Neither Grant nor Sherman faced "Stonewall" in battle.) I just think you have a responsibility to include approriate information if you want to discuss an obscure book by a minor author.

Oh, that's right! I remember now. We addressed Sherman's identity a while back. There was something about his "scorched earth" tactics that you liked..............

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yeah. I know you're out there, Screwtape! Laugh it up.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a hint from C.S. Lewis where he quotes Luther and Thomas More in The Screwtape Letters:

The best way to drive out the devil,​

if he will not yield to texts of Scripture,​

is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot​

bear scorn​

--- Luther​

​

The devil... the prowde spirit...​

cannot endure to be mocked.​

--- Thomas More​

​

And I concur. I'm not playing patty-cake.​