Religion Replacing Politics w/Bari Weiss | Joe Rogan

And one of the things that's really good about church is the community. Yes. I mean, this to me connects to the thing that we open by talking about, which is polarization and tribal, you know, the tribal politics we're living in. I think you've had Jonathan Haidt on the show and his book, The Righteous Mind, is brilliant about this, that we were evolved to be religious creatures in a certain way. And what happens when we lose religion? That impulse goes somewhere. I think that impulse has gone into, you know, politics and the culture war. Yes. You know, it's like, why are the stakes of that so unbelievably high? Because that is sort of the operating system that people are organizing their life around. I think you're 100% right. I think it's the Protestants versus the Catholics. But it's like, what do we do, right? Because we're not going to go back, like, to convince people that are unconvincible, that they're, you know, I think fighting for the idea of God is sort of a losing argument in the culture. So how do we retain the good things that came from religious structures in a post-God age? I think that's a huge question. Well, what are people really wary of? One of the things they're wary of is the recluse, right? We're wary of the Unabomber. We're wary of that guy who lives in the woods and doesn't, the isolationist, who doesn't need anybody else. They're by themselves. Like, well, that person doesn't follow by the rules of our community. What are we comfortable about? We're comfortable about friendly neighbors. We're comfortable, like, hey, you need help? You know, you need me to help dig you out of the snow? Do you need this? Do you need that? Like, that's what we love, right? Because then, and we love people that share our values, right? We like to live in a community of shared values. Because then you're like, you're all, we're all comforting each other. We're all saying, we're all in this together. We're going to have hardships. We're going to have good times. But we'll have more good times. We'll be able to get through the hardships if we operate together with similar values. Yeah. Yeah, but we're kind of, we're not living in the age of the Unabomber, but we're certainly living in an age where people are completely isolated. You know, everyone on the campaign trail is talking about the diseases of despair and how the lifespan in this country has gone down for the past three, life expectancy has gone down in the past three years. Because of Trump? It must be. It must be. Because of opioids. Oh, it's Trump. Because people are out of work. Because factories are closing because we're going through whatever Andrew Yang calls it, the fourth industrial revolution because of globalization. Because we're living through an unbelievably trans... What I think will be remembered is an unbelievably transformative time. And Trump is only one data point. Yes. Like he's a symptom and he's a catalyst, but he's not the whole picture. And to see him as the whole picture, I think is just like completely missing the moment that we're in. Well put. Very well put. Yeah. I think, I really think you just nailed it. I really think that's a lot of what's going on here. And I think, I mean, what you said about people enjoying when people can speak their mind. When people see someone like Ricky Gervais get up at the Golden Globes and say, yes, yes. Yes. Or like Chappelle's. Like Chappelle's. Yes. Like that to me was... Or Bill Burr's. Yeah. But the Chappelle one was so good because if you looked at Rotten Tomatoes, right, the critics rating of it was something like 20% favorable. No, it was zero at first. It was zero. Yeah. And then they opened it up to the public, but they only had like five woke critics. But the public was like 99%. Exactly. And it's like we just keep living that out again and again and again. And I just wonder like how that resolves itself or maybe it doesn't. It does. How? It resolves itself through conversation like this. Yeah. That's really what it is. But the people are... When you have... Where I come to meet the common man? Yeah, I'm the common man, basically. I mean, when we talk and people listen to reasonable discussion, then they feel more emboldened to have reasonable discussion of their own. Maybe perhaps in private, maybe they have to fucking put tinfoil over the windows and bolt the door shut and make sure that they can talk honestly. That's insane. Yeah, it is insane. Like we're living in the freest society in human history and people are acting like the Stasi is looking over their shoulder. Yes, because it is. The social media Stasi. Yes. It is. Stay off social media, folks. No, for real. Look, if I wasn't promoting comedy shows and podcasts and the like, I don't think I'd be on it. I would definitely be off of it. I mean, I'm on it now, but I'm on it like a post it and leave it thing. I don't pay attention to anything anymore. So you have the luxury of that. Yes. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. I think about like what would it look like if all the journalists at The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were banned from being on Twitter? No, for real. Because like what happens, right, is like it's this circular thing where we all know the landmines, right? Like the things we don't want to touch, like the hills we don't want to die on. And it's what's scary about the Stasi-like atmosphere of it is like my job is to write opinion columns and commission other people to do that. And yet I feel the self-censoring even before I've written, right? Where I'm like, wait, I don't want to die on that hill. I don't want to die on that. That's really the battle I want to take on. I should probably just stick to this topic instead of that topic because I know if I do that topic, like I know it awaits me. Yes. Like why would I willingly go to the guillotine? Yes. You know? It's like, and people pretend like the reputational smears have no cost. Like they're insane. Well, that's what's weird about your position because you're an opinion writer. Right. I mean, that's what you do. Correct. You're not allowed to give your honest opinion in a lot of people's eyes. They want you to be compliant with woke culture. And I think one of the reasons that I get in a lot of trouble or I'm provocative or whatever the words that go before my name are whenever I mention now, controversial, is because I, you know, I think more than other people, I refuse to follow the rule. Because what's the point? Like we're all going to be in the ground anyway. Yes. I'm not going to waste my life following some fake rule determined by random people on the internet. No. It's not like... This desire for you to comply. I mean, this is part of the game that's going on. When people don't have control of their own lives, they love to control other people's lives. And one of the things that happens when you have an opinion that does not follow the, you know, whatever the path that's been clearly grooved for us to when you're supposed to have very specific ideas about these very clearly defined subjects, when you deviate from those and people start attacking you, what they're trying to do in many... There's a lot of what they're trying to do. It's nuanced. But one of the things they're trying to do is they're trying to get you to listen to them so that they have some power. They feel powerless in the world. And if they can push your button, if they can break your glass, then they have some power. But they're also trying to issue a warning, right? They're issuing a warning to the people in their group saying, if you deviate, we're going to do to you what we're doing to her right now. Yes. And it's going to be relentless. And it just like, what's sad about it is like the number of young people I know who are so talented and are heterodox or just independent minded people, like liberals, they choose not to become public people. Right. And they decide not to go into journalism, not to do comedy, not to do any number of things because like, why would you choose to be in that arena if this is what it means?