Dave Rubin: The Gateway Drug to the Intellectual Dark Web

It was around the end of 2015 that I first encountered Dave Rubin, host of The Rubin Report on YouTube.  The interview I watched that day was a sit down with Sam Harris, an influential philosopher, new atheist and neuroscientist.  Harris was one of the four horseman, which also included other intellectual heavyweights such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens.  It was a fascinating interview which, at the time, helped clarify some of the thoughts and beliefs of the fresh-faced university freshman I was.  It was a breath of fresh air.  And I was instantly hooked.

Over the next 18 months, I followed Rubin’s show like a good catholic boy.  As an interviewer he was likeable, engaging, funny, and most importantly, he asked open questions to his guests and allowed them to spell out their views.  His interviews weren’t combative, they were insightful.  He also had a good range of guests - many of whom make up what has become known as the intellectual dark web.   People like Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro, who hold almost none of the same positions, from public policy to existential questions around God, were suddenly in the same sort of club - united by a common goal to push back against what they saw as the increasingly authoritarian and intolerant progressive movement.

And united by Rubin too.  The Weinstein brothers, Douglas Murray, Maajid Nawaz, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christina Hoff Summers, Larry Elder, Candace Owens… the list goes on and on.  They all appeared as guests on Rubin's show.  These were insightful interviews, many with people I hadn’t heard of, but, thanks to Rubin, became interested in.  He introduced fans of one guest to other guests, expanding people’s horizons as he expanded his own.

Yet, around the summer of 2017 I stopped watching Rubin.  I’d gone from a fortnightly or weekly worshipper, to “Christmas and Easter will do”.  Not for any one reason.  But a combination.  One of the biggest was the sheer volume of people Rubin had introduced me to, many of whom challenged a lot of views I held.  He was the gateway drug.  He drew me in, and introduced me to some of the harder stuff.  The crack cocaine of Ben Shapiro, the MDMA of Sam Harris, the paracetamol overdose of Jonathan Haidt!  These, again, were people with diverse views themselves, saying interesting things about social and cultural issues. Instead of spending my time watching Rubin introduce me to more people, I focussed on depth rather than width.

Jordan Peterson, in particular, was the hardest of the intellectual dark web drugs.  The heroin so to speak.  He also became one of the most well known around the world, following the C-16 scandal in Canada, and in particular, the Cathy Newman interview on Channel 4 News in the UK.  And it was through Peterson that I started seeing more of Rubin again, as the two toured together through 2018.  Rubin acted as Peterson’s warm-up act and helped facilitate fascinating discussions, and insightful Q&A sessions with the thousands that flocked to see the Canadian Psychology Professor.  My own reaction to seeing Rubin was to skip what he said, because it was always essentially the same.  There was nothing wrong with that, it just wasn’t new or interesting.

And so we come to 2020, and after another year or so of not listening to much of what Dave Rubin had to say, he now has a book out: ‘Don’t Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason’.  “Hmmm”, I said to myself… “Dave Rubin has a book ?  I wonder if he has anything interesting to say.”

Unsurprisingly, the answer is no, not particularly.

The book is by and large a regurgitation of many of the things he has said since he came out of the political closet after leaving The Young Turks in 2015.  It confirms many of the things I have suspected and assumed about Dave Rubin for a couple of years.  Once you know his pitch, there isn’t much else to him.  Though as an interviewer he is effective and informative, cutting through the noise and focussing on substance, the irony is that Rubin himself is more noise than substance.

Those who are fans of people within the intellectual dark web know that over the last few years, it has shifted away from conversations on the common themes that unite them. Instead, it is morphed into more interesting debates and conversations between the likes of Peterson and Harris. And Dave Rubin is not central to these conversations. He is not in the same league as the public intellectuals of the dark web - something he would readily accept himself. Consequentially his book just isn't that interesting.

It is somewhat surprising for someone who has toured with Peterson that Rubin doesn’t think in any great depth about his own ideological positions.  Peterson thinks deeply about his own views, analyses them rigorously and continuously, and is always careful with how he uses his words. Yet, many of Dave Rubin’s answers revert back to his basic principles.  When challenged with a tough example, or something he doesn’t quite grasp, his response is often something along the lines of “I would just go back to maximum freedom” or “I’m a freedom guy”.  You get the sense that he shy's away from going into detail or substantial depth on political, socio-economic, or cultural issues.   Watch a Q&A with Harris or Peterson, and compare it to one with Rubin.

In his book, Rubin talks about a conversation with Larry Elder in the first year of his new show.  Larry Elder, a black conservative, challenged Rubin to give him some examples of systemic racism, and Rubin could not back up his claim with facts or details.  To put it bluntly, as Rubin himself says, he got torn to shreds by Elder that day.  He notes this to be a defining day for him.  The day he realised that the ‘factory settings’ of his progressive upbringing were wrong.  It was a defining day.  But not for the reason Rubin thinks.  That interview highlighted Rubin’s failings.  Failings that still plague him today.  He is not an intellectual, and just isn’t as capable as most of his guests are when he has his own views challenged.  Though his opinions have changed over the years, as he has shifted beyond classical liberalism, and more toward libertarianism, his ability to debate when challenged has not.  The impression with Rubin is often that his opinions have shifted because smart people have told him what to think, rather than thinking in any great depth himself.

I find this a hard article to write in some ways.  I like Dave Rubin.  He is an excellent interviewer.  Though he has been criticised by many for not challenging some of his more controversial guests enough, I don’t see a problem.  He gains more respect from guests by acknowledging that his role as an interviewer is to ask questions and listen to the answers.  Who would’ve thought?  Behind Joe Rogan, the undisputed king of long format conversations, Dave Rubin is the next best thing.  And the funny thing is, his book might motivate me to go back and watch more interviews from The Rubin Report.

But please, Dave.  Stick to the tepid THC.  It’s where you belong, and where you are best.