Lions and Scavengers by Ben Shapiro

The book is Lions and Scavengers by Ben Shapiro. It was published in 2025. I read the first edition hardcover by Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. I read it in October of 2025. 

Lions are the innovators, the builders, the conquerors. The lions are the ones who build civilization out of enlightenment and exploration. Scavengers are the ones who want to tear it all down out of jealousy and hate. This is the premise of Shapiro’s book. Lions built western civilization. The Romans, the English, the French, the Spanish, the West. The scavengers are the Muslims and the Marxists. 

I’ve read all of Ben Shapiro’s books as soon as they’re released ever since 2020. I’ve been listening to Ben Shapiro’s podcast everyday since then as well. He’s one of my favorite political commentators. He went to Harvard law school and was a lawyer so his punditry is very evidence and fact based. He doesn’t fall down conspiratorial rabbit holes. And he’s not too gimmicky and flamboyant with his commentary. Very straightforward and to the point. He’s all about what could hold up in a court of law. Could his arguments get a conviction? That’s how he approaches political theorizing. 

That’s also why I like Megyn Kelly. She was also a lawyer before her journalism career. Although she is more dramatic in her commentary. But still she sticks to the facts and focuses on what could get an indictment or what could hold up in court. 

Shapiro makes a strong point in his analysis of those who are lions and those who are scavengers. The mindset of western civilization is one of building and creating. 

Shapiro is Jewish but from what I understand he still believes that this universe was created by God. He does try to meld creation with evolution. I haven’t heard exactly how he justifies that but he does not believe that this world is a mere cosmic accident with no real purpose or meaning. However, his apologetic for the existence of God is rooted in atheistic thinking regarding evidence and proof. Of course I believe that concedes too much. We should not allow the pagan to steal from our worldview of an intelligible universe and use it against us to argue for chaos and unintelligibility. Reason and logic belong to God. The atheist naturalist materialist must first justify their use of immaterial realities such as morality and reason from their godless worldview, before they can start attacking us with it. 

That being said, Shapiro does understand that belief in God and his intelligible created universe is the foundation for scientific endeavor from the beginning. 

“Ironically enough, the starting point of science is the totally unprovable precept that the universe is understandable and logical. Without an understandable universe of predictable rules, searching for such rules would be a waste of time…the very notion of a causal universe of discernable rules is a faith assumption-and that anyone who seeks answers in the universe relies on that assumption, whether explicitly or implicitly. Those who proclaim the uselessness of the Divine rely on the Divine in order to define their own purpose in life.” (p18)

I am so delighted that this point is being made from such a prominent voice in our culture. Van Til and Schaeffer and Bahnsen and Wilson and Meyer and Durbin have been making this argument for decades. But none of them have the reach of Shapiro. This point needs to be made more often to the general public.  

My main takeaway from this book is that while I believe that ultimately the gospel of Jesus Christ will be victorious in human history (even before the eschaton), the civilization we’ve been able to build upon a Christian biblical worldview could come crumbling down around us. America could very well be merely a blip on human history. We’ve only been around for a little more than two hundred years. That’s a “cute little run” compared to most nations and civilizations that have already transpired in our human timeline. What we have is so fragile. It could all fall away. A real biblical Christian nation could emerge in humanity and it doesn’t necessarily have to be America. I hope and pray that it will be but that’s only because I’m an American. Of course I want it to be us. But it doesn’t have to be. I look around and see plenty of Sodom and Gomorrah attributes that are incurring God’s wrath on our country. Things are not as “bad as they’ve ever been” in our nation but we’re doing more than enough at the present time to incur God’s righteous condemnation. There’s no guarantee that America will be the one to usher in the golden age of Christian piety. 

This book made me think about what I am doing to drive our culture towards the light of Christ’s kingdom. Am I following God’s masculine mandate to “work and keep” God’s world according to God’s word? (Gen 2:15) Am I building a legacy of generational Christianity for my ancestors? What familial precedent am I setting? What example am I being for my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren? Will I be a Godly patriarch, or a cautionary tale? What bad trends am I breaking? What hereditary cycles am I perpetuating? Maybe that’s all too heavy. Or maybe I’m taking it all too lightly. And is there any leeway to just sit and be useless for 10 minutes and read a comic book? Will I be remembered as a lion or a scavenger? 

Nothing really surprised me from this book. I listen to Shapiro everyday on the Ben Shapiro show podcast so I’m familiar with his arguments about the dangers of open borders and immigration and I wholeheartedly agree with him. But it’s great to have his ideas in print to pull quotes and write about it and share it. 

Shapiro writes almost as fast as he talks. His work is always a quick read. He writes economically and direct. He gets to the point quickly and unpacks it thoroughly but in a way that’s easy to follow.  

I learned a lot from this book. Shapiro references a lot of other authors and thinkers that I want to read like Freidman and Hayak. 

I’d recommend this book to liberals or anyone who is skeptical of Trump’s border policy. I’d recommend this to anyone who has fallen under the delusion that all people everywhere want the same thing out of life. The truth is, we don’t. Some of us in the Christianized West want life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We want health and prosperity for ourselves and our families. We want education and enlightenment. We want innovation and technological progress. We want freedom. The pagans in the middle east want death and war for Allah. The godless communists want control and authoritarianism. We want freedom. Everyone needs to read this book. 

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Quotations 

When faced with a problem, the Lion does not complain about the unfairness of life: He seeks an answer. (p4)

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The spirit of the Scavenger is the spirit of envy. (p5)

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But de Laplace was wrong. Ironically enough, the starting point of science is the totally unprovable precept that the universe is understandable and logical. Without an understandable universe of predictable rules, searching for such rules would be a waste of time.

the very notion of a causal universe of discernable rules is a faith assumption-and that anyone who seeks answers in the universe relies on that assumption, whether explicitly or implicitly. Those who proclaim the uselessness of the Divine rely on the Divine in order to define their own purpose in life. (p18)

“”””

So, what changed things?

Innovators.

All the materials we currently use in all our technology have existed on earth before mankind. But it took innovators to turn those materials into things worth having.

Take, for example, sand.

Today, sand is one of the most important stores of value on the planet.

Those wafers are then polished, sent to a semiconductor fabrication plant-and become the basis for microprocessors in all of our advanced technology. So, what changed?

Not the sand.

Innovation over time. (p33)

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Weavers are prudent. They respect wisdom and apply it to the real world. They are often the people whom others go to for advice. Because their focus is constantly on maintaining and fixing institutions—the institutions that serve as the foundation for both hunters and warriors— they inherently embody a certain prudence.

This is why religious leaders often find themselves in the role of weaver: They are representatives of ancient wisdom, defenders of a centuries-old legacy. (p45)

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Children lie; they are selfish; they cheat and they steal. They have few concerns other than their wants and needs. Children must be civilized.

They must become Lions. (p51)

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Free markets do one thing better than any other system in human history: They incentivize innovation. And it is innovation that turns luxuries into everyday necessities, and makes even poor men rich by comparison with their ancestors. (p75)

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Eventually, abolishing private property ends with someone needing to point a gun at someone else and saying, “Build, or else.” The absence of property rights first leads to impoverishment, as Lions cease to build; then the Scavengers employ violence to compel the Lions to do work they no longer wish to do. (p86)

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The Scavengers do not wish for a better world, or at least a better world for everyone; they would rather everyone be equal in misery than that everyone be unequal in prosperity. (p127)

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Stalin, of course, made Lenin seem mild in his own enthusiasm for vicious brutality: Between deliberately starving millions of his own citizens in Ukraine during the Holodomor-children were found eating the bodies of their siblings, parents the bodies of their children-and purging all he perceived as threats to his rule, Stalin was responsible for somewhere between 6 and 9 million deaths. (p133)

“”””

Lechery results in deep unhappiness.

We are far more than our genitals. We are embedded beings— embedded in our time, embedded in our society, embedded in our family. Removing from us all of those connections leaves us aimless, confused.

But behavior can be trained, controlled, shaped by environment. Indeed, it must be.

That is the essence of the Lion’s philosophy-that we are made in the image of God.

The Lecher, as a Scavenger, insists that we are merely beasts, and in fact ought to be. (p138)

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The Scavenger points to the Higher Law and says, “Look, you have violated this law. You ought to feel guilt.”

The Lion listens. And the Lion submits.

The Lion submits because the West has become, in narcissistic and navel-gazing fashion, obsessed with its own guilt. (p198)

“””””

The Scavenger’s promise of absolution is, of course, a lie.

Scavengers embrace the uncompromising religion of envy, which offers no absolution. (p201)