Thoughts on the Michael Knowles vs. Pearl Davis “DEBATE”
As much as I generally avoid current socio-political commentary, I recently became aware of Pearl Davis, the so-called “female Andrew Tate”, and her refreshing views on the pitfalls of feminism in modern society.
Pearl is a 20-something volleyball player who has become the new female voice in the “red pill” movement after interviewing a thousand women and concluding that they (women) were, for the most part, the common denominator problem in all their failed relationships and marriages.
In the last few weeks, Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire (a right-wing media platform) had Pearl on set for an in-person, long-form interview, hailed as a “debate” on “marriage”.
Even though Michael and Pearl were in total agreement on most things, Knowles represents a more orthodox, Latin-mass style of Catholic with the sort of views you’d expect, and Davis represents a more Gen Z voice more in touch with the modern dating scene.
Now, it’s been years since I watched any Daily Wire content and, boy, was I disappointed.
Their entire two-and-a-half-hour disagreement boiled down to a difference of whether men should bother getting married at all while all the cards are stacked against them.
But what bothered me most, honestly, was the way the comment section mocked and ridiculed and slandered this woman for raising a valid problem that the neoconservatives aren’t addressing.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that all the top comments were a Knowlesian echo chamber — his core audience are his fans — but the way they lauded his intelligence while denigrating Pearl, who simply offered a different temporary solution to a real problem, left a really bad taste in my mouth.
The core substance of the points she was making is a very valid and relevant societal problem. It’s this:
Compared with previous generations, (i) the average American woman has become to feministic and degenerated, (ii) the government has gotten so controlling and interfering in our daily lives, (iii) inflation and taxation have devalued our labor so much, and (iv) the direct risks and costs associated with marriage have increased so substantially for men that the risk-reward calculation of marriage as an institution is no longer viable or favorable for the majority of men.
And she’s exactly right.
Until we can alter the base metrics of that calculation and make it favorable and viable to the majority once more, bringing greater rewards than risks, marriage will be a minority institution in our society.
Knowles extolling the virtues of marriage for its own sake appears increasingly out of touch to the younger generations who are now looking at the institution like it’s a pipe dream.
He might as well be extolling the virtues of owning your own yacht. Or a thirteen-bedroom mega mansion. That’s not the world most of us live in.
If the house — marriage, the institution — is on fire and burning down, there’s only a small window in which we can still save it from the inside of the house itself. Once we’re past that point of saving it, as a society, all we can do is get out altogether, try and minimize the collateral damage, and rebuilt things better after the dust has settled.
Pearl is essentially saying — I’m paraphrasing — the house is already too far gone to be saved in its current state, the majority have already given up, I don’t want anyone else to die in this fire, so, everybody get out now or you’ll probably die or be badly burned.
And Michael is saying, no, we can still beat it, it’s more virtuous to keep trying even though we appear to be losing, and if a bunch of good men and women and children die or get badly burned in the process, well, it’ll be worth it in the end if and when we save the house.
Now, THAT is actually a very interesting and worthwhile discussion to have.
I just wish Knowles would have stopped being so preoccupied with getting a gotcha moment and making her appear stupid or hypocritical to the audience long enough to actually get down to brass tacks and deal with the real issue at hand.
Is marriage, the institution as we currently know it, even capable of being saved?
I don’t think so.
Marriage in nature and in Ancient Israel according to the Torah was pretty simple. If a man puts his seed inside a virgin woman, his DNA is now inside her and she is one-flesh with him, the fruition of which is a child or children made from both of them, and he owes her lifelong commitment and provision for having exclusive access to her bearing and nurturing his children.
However, commitment didn’t mean monogamy. He was at liberty to have as many wives as he could provide for (including sexually) and she was free to leave if she didn’t like it, though she wasn’t entitled to take anything of his, including his children, with her. She always had an out if she felt things were bad enough, but she wasn’t ever rewarded for leaving.
In contrast, according to divorce attorneys in modern America, 80–90% of the time in divorces, women will file for divorce, simply because they aren’t happy, not because of any fault on the man’s part, the women will lie about the man, and in most cases, even though they are proven in court to have lied, will still get majority or full custody, plus alimony, plus child support.
Men are basically being robbed of their children, their wealth, their property, and are being forced to start over again at the bottom in their 30s, 40s and 50s, because their wife — who promised to be faithful to him for life for better or for worse — decided she just wasn’t happy any longer.
Men can do everything right, provide, be totally faithful, and still bomb out at marriage because she changed her mind and the whole system is rigged against him.
This is why, to Pearl’s point, until we change the marriage laws, or get the state out of the business of marriage altogether, and handle everything with private contract, the risks associated with marriage have become too great for men to bother with it any longer.
And this is one of the many reasons I advocate for Biblical marriage. It incentivizes and rewards good, strong husbands and fathers.
If we want men to be real men again, we have to stop punishing them for the problems feminism caused.
And Knowles, come on, you’re better than that. Stop appealing to the lowest common denominator here.
