The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 217 - George Orwell’s Diversity University

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

An extensive survey of Yale’s incoming freshmen has found that the Class of 2022 will be “the most diverse in University history.” They’ll be five percent homosexual, 9% bisexual or transsexual, 8% asexual, and 3% unwilling to answer the question, which sounds pretty coy-sexual to me. Also, they’re all left-wing. We’ll analyze the increasingly homogenous “diversity” on campus and what can be done about it. Then, speaking of diversity, the Dalai Lama defends nationalism in Europe, and Twitter bans oldspeak. Finally, the Mailbag! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An extensive survey of Yale's incoming freshman class has found that the class of 2022 will be, quote, the most diverse in university history. There'll be 5% homosexual, 9% bisexual or transsexual, 8% asexual, and 3% unwilling to answer the question, which sounds pretty coy sexual to me. Also, they're all leftists. We will analyze the increasingly homogenous diversity on campus and what can be done about it. Then, speaking of diversity, the Dalai Lama. defends nationalism in Europe. Drink up, folks.

And Twitter bans old speak. Finally, the mailbag. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is the Michael Knowles show. By the way, I'd like to make a correction. I'm sorry. How insensitive of me. I use the word freshman to describe the incoming class. Obviously, fresh man is a sexist term.

So I should say fresh person. Well, except, of course, that son is a sexist term too. So I guess it should be fresh per daughter. The Yale, fresh per daughter class. We'll analyze the incoming fresh per daughter class. But first, I've got to thank our sponsor at Thrive Market. Oh, Thrive is really good.

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That's pretty good, man. You do it now, you'd be a fool not to. You get 20 bucks off your first three orders of $49 or more plus free shipping. Most shoppers will spend more than that anyway because they have such good stuff. So you will automatically get back $20. So your total purchase becomes $30 per, deal. You get this deal three times in a row. Thrivemarket.com slash Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L. Get instant $60 of free groceries. Thrivemarket.com slash Michael. Okay, we've got a ton of stuff to get to today,

so we've got to get right into it. A lot of chakras are going out of alignment today. A lot of, you can, do you hear it happening? All the crystals and the chakras just going out. A lot of people, they were doing their sun salutations. Now they're doing downward-facing dog because the Dalai Lama is defending nationalism in Europe. This is a beautiful thing. It's one of those news stories where do I care what the Dalai Lama says? Not really. Do I even care that much about what's going on in European politics? Not really.

But when these things line up like this, it is just too good. Because every little hippie-dippy, unshowered, you know, wild-haired weirdo walking around Los Angeles with their Bernie bumper stickers on is now going to be very upset. They all do yoga. Yoga has become the church of millennials and the Dalai Lama defending nationalism, which makes perfect sense. He probably was listening to our show yesterday, and that's why he did it, because we've been talking about nationalism now for a couple of days. And by the way, I don't know if the Dalai Lama is looking for a new job, but my own church, the Catholic Church, could use some new bishops. And it sounds like this guy is at least right about a few things. So maybe consider replying.

The Dalai Lama was at a conference in Sweden yesterday. This was three days after the right-wing party in Sweden, which is called the Sweden Democrats. I see why that's confusing. But they're the right-wing party there. they did very well in the general elections. And so he was speaking in Sweden. And I think the left was expecting him to say, look, reject right-wing politics.

Open borders, man. Come on. Let's all, you know, kumbaya. But he didn't say that. He said, quote, Europe belongs to the Europeans. Receive them, help them, educate them, but ultimately they should develop their own country with regard to the Islamic refugees,

the immigrants who are over there. Europe belongs to the Europeans. This is a truism. This shouldn't be a controversial statement. Of course that's true. Europe belongs to the Europeans. America belongs to the Americans. China belongs to the Chinese. That is the definition of the nation.

But now to say that is controversial. It's seen as racist. I don't know how it's racist. There are a lot of different races in Europe. But somehow that's considered racist now because you have floods and floods of Islamic migrants coming across borders in Europe and flooding these countries.

In many cases, invading these countries with the protection of the European Union, with the encouragement of the European Union. There was that great book on it, The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray, I think, it came out a little while ago. Excellent book on this topic. It talks about whole Italian towns being overrun

by Islamic migrants coming across borders. And what the Dalai Lama is defending here is the right of European nations to remain European nations. I get why the left. is surprised by this because the Dalai Lama is a cool, like, hippie-dippy guy. If anybody's going to be a nationalist,

it's going to be the Dalai Lama. He has been fighting for the right of the nation of Tibet against the imperial encroachments of China for all of our lifetimes. He went on, he said, quote, I think Europe belongs to the Europeans. They ultimately should rebuild their own country. And he said, by the way,

this wasn't just a reaction to Trump. It's not like he is playing some political game, and he say, oh, I see Trump is popular. Okay, I'll mimic him. In 2016, before Donald Trump was elected, the Dalai Lama said, quote, Europe, for example, Germany cannot become an Arab country. Germany is Germany. There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult, meaning there are so many migrants coming across the border. He said, as we all feel, when we look into the face of every single refugee, especially the children and women, we can feel their suffering. And therefore, we should help them. Of course, we should help them. The goal, however, should be that they return and

help rebuild their countries. End quote. That, again, should not be controversial. When we're talking about refugees, why would we have refugees come over from a totally foreign region of the world to a totally foreign region of the world rather than people within their own neighborhoods helping to take care of them? Why wouldn't we want to rebuild those countries? Perhaps there is a problem in certain cultures there.

Perhaps there are conflicts among cultures over there. Why would we import wholesale, unvetted, those sort of culture. cultural problems. This is, this used to be a progressive position. This used to be accepted by the left and the right because in the old days you had imperialism. And then in the wake of the Second World War, we had a surge of nationalism. India becomes a nation. The countries in the Middle East get to become their own nations. Countries in Africa. This was the height of freedom because the nation can protect liberty for individuals, for communities, for different groups, without descending into anarchy on the one hand or becoming oppressive and imperial on the other hand.

So I understand that the orthodoxy of the left right now is that we need to become one world government under a totally benevolent empire. Oh, it'll be different this time. It'll be totally benevolent. But perhaps the left should look to some of the people that for a long time it's admired, like Dalai Lama to see where they've gone so, so wrong. And in the meantime, we can fill up our leftist tears. So the Dalai Lama is on one side of that. Twitter is now on the other. Twitter banned the phrase in its advertising platform. It banned the phrase illegal alien.

Because that's hate speech. That's hateful content now. You can't say illegal alien. Illegal alien is not a hateful phrase. Illegal alien is the precise technical term for illegal aliens. All the other things are euphemisms. Dreamer, undocumented future, whatever, those are euphemisms that don't precisely describe what we're talking about.

Illegal alien does. But Twitter doesn't care. Jack Dorsey, the head of Twitter, basically admitted to shadow banning 600,000 accounts. Because Twitter is an international company. It views itself as an international company. It doesn't have bonds of national loyalty. When the right and the left at various points complained about multinational corporations, they do have one point, which is that these supernational, extra transnational organizations don't have the same priorities that you and I do, because they don't have loyalty to communities into states

and to countries. They're bigger than that. And this brings us to the Yale of it all. Because Yale calls itself, even in recent years, even when I was there, they call themselves a global university. Not an American university, a global university. The catchphrase for Yale used to be

for God, for country, and for Yale in that order. But now, that is not the case. Now it is an international university. It touts all the time how many foreign international students are coming in there and always trying to increase that number, in part because they pay a lot of money to go. And there was a magazine when I was there. I think it still exists. It's called the Yale Globalist. That was the very fashionable magazine to write for as an undergraduate. And now they talk about the most diverse class ever. And you say, oh, good. Oh, thank goodness, because all I'm hearing is this one point of view, this one

perspective, the global university, the globalist, the left-wing progressive, oh, good, now we have some diversity. What diversity do we get? So, when it comes to sexual diversity, the old line at Yale was one in four, maybe more for gay students. And now the numbers are almost exactly that. In terms of students who are not straight, students who have more creative sexual preferences, the number actually is close to one and four. This is no surprise. This has gone on a long time. you know, Yale did turn out Cole Porter. I think American Psycho said that that Yale thing is when you

have either repressed homosexuality or a cocaine addiction. Maybe both, I don't know. But when you get down to intellectual diversity, ideological, philosophical diversity, this wide-ranging study found that just 9% of Yale incoming students consider themselves

somewhat conservative and just 2% consider themselves very conservative. And let me translate that for you. having, being familiar with how this goes. Somewhat conservative at Yale means that you don't think that Mitt Romney is Hitler. That's what somewhat conservative means. Very conservative means, I don't know, that you registered as a Republican at 18. I think that probably counts, you know, you have some, you have an American flag bow tie or

something. That's like very, very conservative. And so we're talking about 2% of pretty serious conservatives there. There is very little intellectual diversity. Same thing on the faculty. I saw some conservative faculty members or would-be faculty members get run out of town. A 2016 survey by the Yale Daily News shows that 95% of conservative students felt that their views were unwelcome at Yale. And I don't want to beat up on Yale too much.

But the reason that this is a national story is that Yale is representative, not just of some school in New Haven, but of all of these campuses across the country with very few exceptions. They are all being overrun by the left. They're all indoctrinating rather than educating to increasing degrees. And we've got to find a way to stop this. You remember, you know, the craziness that kind of typified the craziness on all campuses, but it really was most prevalent, I think, at dear old New Haven, was Shrieking Girl that came out a few years ago just to refresh your memory and because I need a little refill on my Tumblr.

Take it away, Shrieking Girl, Gerald and Luther. Be quiet! For all Simmons came. You understand that? As your position as master, it is your job to create a place of comfort and home for the students that live in Cilliman. You have not done that. By sending out that email that goes against your position as master, do you understand that? No, I don't agree with that.

Then what the f***ing? Because I have a different vision. You should step down. You should step down. It is not about creating an intellectual speech. You're supposed to be our advocate. My favorite part of this video is it's a very distressing video, but my favorite part is that guy at the end, the advocate guy,

because you know he was just standing there. Everyone's yelling. Everyone's trying. He's like, all right, Johnny, this is your chance. This is your chance to finally, what am I? Oh, I'll say, yeah, that he was supposed to be our advocate. All right, everyone's talking. All right, here.

You were supposed to be our advocate. Ah, nobody's talking anymore. Oh, it's so embarrassing. So awkward. And the girl, this girl, should, have been expelled. Right. Gerald and Luther

should have been expelled for this. It is so horrifically disrespectful. All of the students involved screaming at their professor should have been

expelled on the spot. What happened? Instead, the students who led this revolt on campus were given awards at their graduation. They were given awards.

This is a really horrifying turn of events. You're seeing the American University, not just at Yale, but all around the country imploding. And we're very lucky

because there is a guy who is running for the Yale Board of trustees on a campaign to turn this around to make sure that events like this never happen again, not at Yale. And hopefully this can be a signal to all of the universities around the country to stop this. Jamie Kirchick is an American reporter, foreign correspondent, candidate for the Yale Board of Trustees. I spoke to him last week. Here's Jamie.

Jamie, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. So, Jamie, obviously, I feel a personal connection to your campaign because you're running for the Yale corporation for the Yale Board of Trust. trustees, but I think your campaign and the issues you're talking about actually reflect a national trend that's going on on colleges, that's going on universities across the country. Why are you running for the Yale Board of Trustees? Well, like you say, I think our universities play a major role in educating future leaders,

in Yale in particular in the Ivy League. And a lot of the ideas that come out of universities that have become popular in universities, eventually seeped their way into the general public. And I think over the past couple of years, we've seen at Yale and many other universities is growing intolerance for differing viewpoints. And not necessarily conservative viewpoints, by the way. I mean, the clip that you just showed,

you know, it wasn't a right-wing professor being yelled at. It was a quite liberal one. So things are, I think, getting out of hand. You know, just two weeks ago, we had this huge, or last week, excuse me, this huge controversy with the New Yorker canceling an interview with Steve Bannon. I'm no fan of Steve Bannon, I've criticized him many times in print, but to pretend that he or his ideas don't exist and that they're not influential and they actually haven't been used to win elections in major countries across the Western world. You know, from a left-wing perspective, I don't see how that actually helps you to just sort of put your fingers in your ears and pretend that these things don't exist and wish them to go away.

So I've been really disappointed at what I see is a kind of climate of growing intellectual intolerance on the Yale campus in particular, but also across the country. And I think that, you know, alumni of these institutions really need to try to exercise some more influence because they're really the only part. They're the only constituency of the university that I think has any chance of fixing this. That's absolutely right. A few years ago, when we saw that clip from Yale of the girl, you know, this is not an intellectual space. This is not a home and, you know, shrieking at her, shrieking profanity at her professor. You've seen this happen so many other places as well. One thing I love about your candidacy is that you're not some rock-ribbed conservative. I don't think you're a hardline Republican in your own work. And yet you're, you're reflective of this

view now in the center and among independence and reasonable-minded people that even if I disagree with speech, we should permit free speech, especially on a campus. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm probably center, maybe vaguely center right, politically. I voted for Hillary Clinton. I'm endorsed just to give your listeners an idea. I'll forgive me. I've lived overseas. I've lived overseas.

I've lived in, you know, other democratic countries that don't have the same culture of free speech that the United States does. And I've really just come to appreciate how lucky, we are. And of course, do we hear things that we don't like? Absolutely. You know, Alex Jones is sort of the cost of free speech. It's the crazy homeless guy, you know, shouting, you know, curses at you as you as you go to work. But you have to put up with that. You can't just put the homeless guy in prison for screaming something that you don't like. And so I really am an absolutist when it comes to this. I think it's a small L liberal position. I think it's a position that frankly throughout history,

it's usually been people on the left whose free speech has been quashed. I mean, if you go back to, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the palmerades after world, around World War I, McCarthyism, the various, you know, very controversial art exhibitions that were, um, put up during the 80s and 90s, um, it's usually people on the left, but now I think that the left has basically come to dominate media, um, academia, cultural institutions. They've now come to dominate these institutions. they are now in absolute total control. And it's just unfortunate to see that they haven't really learned the lessons that, you know,

when they were in need of people to defend their free speech, they're now completely flipped. That's exactly right. And they're going after anyone, yeah, yeah. Well, if a university doesn't have the free exchange of ideas, then where is going to have a free exchange of ideas? You know, I'm sure people are looking at your candidacy and they're saying, what can we do? What can we do to help bring the universities and liberal education? back from the brink. So my question has two parts.

One, what will you do when you're on the Yale Corporation Board? And what can other people do who are alumni of other universities or who are at other universities to try to stop all the censorship, stop the screaming, stop the degradation of the liberal education culture, and actually reclaim the free exchange of ideas? I think the universities need to stop putting up basically kick these signs on their backs. and they need to make it very clear. The administrators need to make it very clear to incoming freshmen.

These are our values. We believe in free speech. They're not going to be shouting down speakers. And so there's a very excellent letter that was written by, I believe, the dean of students at the University of Chicago. And it was sent out to every incoming freshman. And it's very blunt.

And it says there's no trigger warnings. There's no safe spaces. This is a place for intellectual development and debate. And so I think students coming to Chicago, they already understand this. And if they really don't like it, then they're not going to go to Chicago. And so I really would like to see, you know, if I'm elected to the board, I would urge the president of Yale, the dean of students, to send out similar letters. Yale actually has an excellent policy known as the Woodward Report. It was published in 1974 after some very high-profile controversial speakers and riots grew up around that.

the University Commission this report, and it's really looked and cited upon as being one of the best expressions in defensive free speech in an academic setting. I would send that to every incoming freshman. Perhaps there's a program that Princeton has where they assign all the incoming freshmen to books that are basically, you know, pro and con on a very contentious subject, like abortion, say, a book that's in favor of abortion rights and one that is against it. and all the incoming freshmen, no matter what they're majoring in, even if they're going to be majoring in astronomy or whatever. They have to read these books, and there'll be a classroom discussion about it just to sort of get them in the mood and to inculcate these values. So those are some of the ideas that I've brought forth. And then, you know, for me personally, I'd love it if you're listeners, if they know people who went to Yale, if they did go to Yale,

go to the website, jamieforetrustee.com. They can sign my petition to get me on the ballot. And I would just encourage people, you know, most universities, they have similar bodies like the Yale Corporation. They have boards of trustees. They have governing bodies on which alumni sit and play a role. So that's, you know, do what I'm doing. Run to be on the board of trustees. You can also, frankly, put your money where your mouth is. And if the university that you are an alum of is not, you know, behaving or not defending enlightenment values like you want them to,

and make it clear to the financial office, the giving office, that you're not going to be donating anymore. And that's ultimately what might have to happen in order for real serious, positive change to take place. That is such a good point. I love it when the fundraising committee calls me, and they ask for my annual $20 that I donate to Deerold Yale. And I say, no, you're not getting it this year. Shut down the programs, and I go on my long lecture. because you see this at a lot of institutions, even outside of education, you hear get woke, go broke. People are really, they don't want this oppressive, censorious politics of division shoved in their face all the time. And so I hope it's very important if you do know anybody who went to Yale or is at Yale or whatever, make sure you go to jamieforTrustee.com because I think this is going to send a message nationally. You mentioned you Chicago. They had a great statement on free speech. Purdue University under Mitch

Daniels had a great statement on free speech. And Yale is not living up to the Woodward report. They're not defending free speech. So I wonder, you know, when the right sort of lost any influence at all at universities, they started think tanks. There are other alternatives to traditional four-year college degrees. Are we going to see a shift away? If the colleges remain totally opposed to free ideas, politicized increasingly ideological majors, are we going to see some new competing form of education crop up, or are we consigned to just this left-wing malaise that's going to get worse and worse and more censorious as time goes on? I think we're already seeing perhaps the early development of this, one, in sort of the formation of this heterodox academy and this whole intellectual dark,

Mark Webb and people are seeming to, you know, there's clearly a lot of interest in this. And a lot of people are kind of becoming autodidacts, you know, and they're educating themselves outside of the traditional university structures. The other developments that I would say indicates that something that you suggest might be happening is we're seeing a lot of millennials, you know, leave college with these very expensive four-year degrees in various, you know, very obscure subjects. And they're not getting jobs and they're living with their parents. and I think it's eventually going to dawn on people that the education that they're getting in some of these schools are just not marketable in a free society.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why millennials are increasingly attracted towards socialism because they're not making this connection. They're not making this connection in their head. They feel very aggrieved and resentful that, you know, the four-year degree that they got in performative puppetry or whatever is not translating into a $100,000 a year job right out of school. And so rather than say, well, maybe I shouldn't have gotten this useless degree, perhaps I, you know, I'm going to blame society and I'm going to demand, you know, socialism and free education and free this and free that. So I think we're already seeing sort of the understanding that something is off. That, you know, Peter Thiel has referred to a higher education bubble. I think there is something like that going on. And, you know, if it's going to explode or how that's going to develop is, you know, anyone's guess. Well, as a transformative puppetry minor, I have to tell you, the job market was really tough on me when I got out of dear old college. I noticed that you have... You seem to have done well for yourself. Yeah. Well, the key was that I didn't write a book. That was the one good idea I had. I noticed you have very strange-looking wallpaper behind you. That's because you're coming to us from the middle of nowhere somewhere on the other side of the earth. I'm at a conference in the nation of Georgia, not the U.S. state, which about 10 years ago, just last month, you'll remember, was invaded and occupied by Russia, 20% of its territory.

So I come here every year for a conference. I think it's a great country, great people, freedom-loving, very pro-American, very westward-looking. And I always try to come to this conference every year to really remind myself, what America's role in the world should be. What freedom means? More important now than ever before, perhaps. So, Jamie, I'm going to let you go. I know it's about midnight over there where you are.

So go keep it up. If you are a Yale, no, Yalee, go to jamie for trustee.com, and help out. Try to spur similar campaigns at your college, at your university, because that's the only way we're going to restore some sanity to the campuses. Jamie, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. All right, we've got a lot more to get to.

I'm finally leaving enough time to do the mailbag. I always don't leave enough time and then there are like five minutes left and I speed through them, but I'm finally leaving enough time. So go to daily wire.com. If you're on Facebook and YouTube, I'm shocked to hear it. If you're on Daily Wire, thank you. You help us keep the lights on and Cofepe in my cup. Go over there.

It's $10 a month, $100 for an annual membership. What do you get? What don't you get these days? You get me, you get the Andrew Claven show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get the Matt Wall Show. You get to ask questions in the mailbag, which is coming up. You get to ask questions in the conversation. The big boss, Ben Shapiro is coming up this month, I believe.

And none of that matters because you get this special Dalai Lama edition of Leftist Tears. He's causing them. He's not the one producing them. Do you remember, I think it was about 20 years ago when the Dalai Lama did a Rolex ad, you know, he was wearing a Rolex or something. This is the new conspicuous consumption piece that you need, the Leftist Tears Tumblr. We should do like a gold-plated one or something like that. Go get it.

It's the only FDA approved vessel of salty, delicious, leftist tears, which we're going to get a lot of if Jamie wins. Thank you. Board of Trustees, which is just a lovely thing. It's a lovely thing when sort of people in the center, liberals, center, left, center, right? When they are like considered to the right of Genghis Khan, which is the culture that we're in now. Excuse me, go to dailywire.com. We'll be right back with the mailbag. Jumping right in from Nathan.

Hey, Michael, a few weeks ago, you suggested I start reading C.S. Lewis with Mirre Christianity, and I'm about done with it, incredible read so far. There is one part I wanted to ask your opinion on. In his section on pride, he talks about looking down on people, making it impossible to look up toward God. Does God really expect us to look down on no one? Is it really conceitful to think I am better than a person who skins 30 people alive and then sleeps soundly, or that I'm better than the person I was in the past? It seems to me that if we can't think ourselves superior to at least some others without the sin of pride, the concept of trying to be a good person loses meaning. I see why this is confusing. I have a solution. The issue here is not that

you should think of yourself. It's that you should think of yourself less. And that will solve the problem. If you're sitting there thinking, well, how should I think about me and how should I think about my relation to other people and where I am in the pecking order of the hierarchy of people, you're doing it wrong. Pride is the queen of all sins. This is the hardest one to root out because it is the essential sin. It is the original sin. The cause of the original sin is pride, wanting to elevate yourself, thinking of yourself. A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package indeed. It caused the fall of Satan, of Lucifer from heaven. It's so insidious. It is always waiting there for you. And, you know, the more humble you think you've become, the more prideful

you'll be in your humility. So the key is to think of yourself less. Think about other people more. Think of yourself less. You will have a better life. We all fall into pride from time to time, but pride will make you miserable. The more you think about yourself, you think it's going to make you happy because you feel really good. You think, oh, you know, I hit a home run today in baseball. That never happened to me, obviously. But you think, I'm really cool. I'm a real cool guy. The more you do that, the more miserable you'll be.

The less you think about yourself, the more joyful you'll be. From Ryan, I'm a Catholic, and I feel that pledging allegiance to the flag is idolatrous. As a result, I feel that I shouldn't say the pledge or place my hand over my heart. I do love my country, but my allegiance is only to God. Can you explain why this is permissible? Love this show. Absolutely. The Pledge of Allegiance is a wonderful thing.

Do you have any allegiance to your wife? Do you have any allegiance to your parents or your kids or your family or your community? Do you have any of course we have loyalty to many different things and not all equally. I have a loyalty to my broom closet. You know, this is my community here that I'm locked up in all day. And of course, everybody has a loyalty to your family, to your community, to your state, to your country, and ultimately to God. That's perfectly fine. It's only a crazy rationalism that makes us pretend that we can only be loyal to one thing.

You know, Christ tells us in scripture that unless you hate your father and your mother and your family, you can't follow him. But God also tells us that husbands should love their wives. How do you resolve these things? Rationalists want to pick one or the other. But what both are doing is telling us a spiritual truth. We have many loyalties and allegiances, but we have to keep them in the proper order. And our Pledge of Allegiance is a wonderful expression of that because our Pledge of Allegiance keeps it in order.

We pledge allegiance to one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We actually clarified it in 1954 to add in under God to make it clear that we're not committing some heresy or making an idol out of our nation, but that we have a natural loyalty to our communities and clans and, you know, groupings and ultimately into the nation. And all of that is under God. And America has been guided so clearly by Providence since her very beginning that

that's a wonderful thing to pledge allegiance and to know that all of that allegiance is ordered and under and looking up to God. From Nathan. A lot of Nathan's coming in today. Hey, Michael, a question about free will. How do you square the concepts of an omniscient God and me having free choice? Both are fundamental to our religion, but I don't see how I can have real choice unless God does not know what I'm going to do next.

For example, Judas Ascariot needed to betray Christ in order for the crucifixion to take place. Christ said he knew about it beforehand. So could Judas have chosen to do otherwise? Did God create Judas knowing for certain he would go to hell or Pontius Pilate for that matter? Because then he would know for all of us and my choices can't change anything. Any advice? God bless. Yes. All of heresy comes from impatience with mystery.

I think just about all of it comes from that. It comes from not being able to resolve how God can have perfect justice and perfect mercy, how there can be perfect grace and perfect free will. And so what happens is people who want to rationalize their way out of that pick one or the other. But it isn't one or the other. Thomas Aquinas could give you a much better version of this than I could and there isn't enough time to go into it. But I'll give you a little trick or a shortcut on this, which is the question of time and space. I never really understood the confusion on free will and the omniscience of God

because God is outside of time and space and I'm inside of time and space. So I'm here in time and space and I have my free choice and I'm choosing to do things. But from the perspective outside of time and space, you see all those choices as having already happened. Even my language is misleading here because I'm speaking in tenses that have to do with time and we're talking about something outside of time. But those are different perspectives, the perspective of being inside of time and space and the perspective of being outside of it.

Those can simultaneously be true. I can live my life freely and have free choice and have free will, and someone who is outside of time can see what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen all at the same time outside of which he is. This came into great confusion

during the Protestant Revolution. You know I criticized Martin Luther a little bit on the show, on occasion, this time is no different. Luther and Calvin both came down on the side that there is no such thing as free will. They denied free will. Luther in his

writings, disagreeing with Erasmus and John Calvin in his doctrine of predestination. But human freedom is very, very important. It is the central fact that we have here, that we are in possession of,

that leads to our happiness in the world. free choice is what caused the fall. And forget, you're talking about how it caused Judas, you know, God knew that Judas would betray him. But go all the way back to the fall. God knew that Adam would sin. God knew that mankind would fall. And because of Adam's free will, we had the fall. And because of the fall, we got the incarnation.

And because of the incarnation, we got the crucifixion and we got the resurrection. We got the happy fall. We got a wonderful joy, the greatest story ever told, the greatest possible world. That's because we have free will. because of the grace of God. You see this in the incarnation. When the angel comes down, says to Mary, hail Mary, full of grace.

You will conceive a child, even though you haven't known a man. You will conceive a child. And you are blessed. And that was the grace. God comes down the mountain. You see all of this grace, but then Mary consents to it.

She says, I am the Lord's servant. Let it be done according to your word. all of heaven is holding its breath. God and his omniscience knew what she was going to say, but she still has that opportunity to ascend to turn toward God or turn away from God. And we can do that all of the time. And just because someone outside of the perspective

of time knows what you're going to do doesn't mean that you aren't really doing it. From Bob. Hi, Michael. I'm an atheist and support abortion within the first trimester or beyond it given the rise of specific circumstances. Case in point. personal friend decided on an abortion

when she learned that a medication she was temporarily taking caused birth deformities. She was married at the time and later conceived and gave birth to healthy properly developed babies. Would you have preferred to see her forced to carry to term a malformed child?

Well, I would prefer if she didn't kill the child, yeah. Because nobody's perfect. Are you perfect? Were you properly formed? Given your question, I wonder if you were properly formed. What do you mean perfect? What baby is perfect? Should we now, so you're saying the baby had a deformity.

Let's say it was missing a finger or something. Should we kill babies that don't have fingers? Should we kill adults who are missing a finger? What if the baby has Down syndrome? Should we kill people with Down syndrome? Plenty of villains throughout history have killed mentally retarded people, people with mental deficiencies. Is that what you suggest we do?

What about physical ones? ones. I'm not a great athlete. Should I be wiped out? Maybe my mother could have tried again. The doctor could have looked in and said, oh, you know, he's okay. He's got really poofy hair. He should have nice, oily, swarthy skin. But he's not going to be much of an athlete. He's going to be pretty slow and, you know, he'll probably strike out most times in baseball. Just say, okay, get rid of him, we'll try again. Nobody suggests that. Nobody thinks we should do that. You've got to follow the logic of these to their logical conclusion. If we were perfect, If we were all perfect, then maybe there would be something to your argument, but then you wouldn't have an argument at all.

And then we live in a fallen world. And getting back to that first question we talked about, perhaps we should stop thinking so much of ourselves and start looking at our own deficiencies and therefore having a little more grace for other people. From Benjamin, from Benjamin. Hey, Michael, I am in week three of my first semester at a very left-wing college here in California. I'm going to begin to bring my leftist-tires tumbler to school so I can sip on Cofi to keep me awake during my 8 a.m. class. That's so good. I love it. If a classmate, presumably a lefty, asks me about my tumbler, how would you respond so I can keep a potential friendship while explaining the wonders of this tumbler? Thanks, Benjamin.

This is a win-win. You've put yourself in a win-win scenario. So you're sitting there in class, take a little, take a little Dalai Lama sip, and your classmate comes up to you and says, what's that? Your answer has to be, this is a leftist tears tumbler.

And if the person has a sense of humor, left or right, they will laugh and say, ha, ha, ha, that's pretty funny. If they don't have a sense of humor, you probably don't want to be friends with them anyway, and you'll get a free refill of your leftist tears. This is the perfect scenario to be in. If only I could go back to college,

what a great time that was. We still have a little bit of time. I can go through a few more. From Veronica. Hey, Mikey Pooh. Hey, Veronica. Hey, Ron, Ron. How you doing?

I would like the inside scoop on how to do New York City. I want to see cool things, but avoid crowds and tourists. And I would like to not go broke. Sorry. Go to Chicago. What do you want me to tell you? Give me the ultimate guide to the Big Apple, if you're really from there, since there's an epidemic of people lying about their origins these days.

I was actually born in Kenya. So, I mean, I'll have to tell you about that. Thanks, Dahl. Yeah, you bet. Thanks, Veronica. So, there's no way to do New York without going broke. It's an expensive place and there's a lot of fun stuff to do. So just do it. One thing you can do, and you also can't have all, you want to avoid the crowds, you don't want to go broke. You want, you can't do all those together.

The cheapest thing you can do that's pretty cool is very early in the morning, get on the Staten Island Ferry, and you will get a free view of the Statue of Liberty. It is $0 to get on. There will be a crowd, but it's pretty cool. I used to do it back in my harder partying days. I would, after a nice long night of going out on the town, having a couple adult beverages, some friends and I would get on the Staten Island ferry right at sunrise,

and you get to see the Sunrise, and you get to see the Statue of Liberty. You get to go eat a sandwich in Staten Island, and then immediately get back on the Staten Island ferry, you know, go back. And so that's a fun thing to do. It's always bad to ask a New Yorker, what to do in New York, because I've lived in New York for most of my life in the city, outside the city, around, you know, nearby. I've never been to the Empire State Building. I have never,

I have not been in the new World Trade Center building, even though I lived a block away from it. I had never been inside the old World Trade Center, the Twin Towers. I've never been to the Statue of Liberty Island, never gone there, never done a carriage ride and, you know, all the things that the tourists want to do. None of us ever, ever do there. So my recommendation, I'm just going to, I'm going to give you what I do when I go to New York and take it for what it's worth. I go to the great cigar bars, cigar in on 53rd and 2nd, Carnegie Club. It's a little price here, but they have a great Sinatra Saturday.

I'll go to Keene's Steakhouse. It's the greatest steakhouse in the world. Then if you want a bagel early in the morning, go down to Leo's downtown. It's by the World Trade Center. And there's a great boozy brunch at Harry's Steakhouse down there. and the finest bar in all of New York. The most degenerate, disgusting, despicable den of debauchery is the iron horse on Fulton.

What is it, Fulton and Cliff, I think. They used to light the bar on fire a couple times a night. I think now they've stopped doing that. But, you know, they have like a pool table and mean-looking biker dudes, and it's just terrific. It's just a great time. It's great to walk in there in your little like polo shirt, Oxford, you know, a little loafer.

Hey, fellas, how you doing? Great bar. Do that. let me know how you enjoyed it. From Austin. Dear Archangel Michael lookalike. Not after a night at the Iron Horse. Let me tell you that.

Defender of conservatism, protector of the Ben Shapiro Show, broom closet. I require your expertise in relationships. Bring it on. I've been single for a while, about two years, and have found myself falling for two women. One is currently in the Navy Academy,

and the other is pursuing education to become a psychiatrist. I hold both as close friends and care for both of them equally. I am at the point where I want to date for marriage, and not just for a hookup. I live in Pennsylvania, so I won't be able to see the girl in the Navy Academy much,

but the psychiatrist to be has a few extracurricular activities that I'm not entirely kosher with. Pot, the old Haitian oregano. But she lives just a short drive away. Thanks for all your help. You are truly deserving of the title Kosovo of the Daily Wire.

Much love, Austin. So, this is, I'll give you my advice. I'm trying to calibrate how much I can say. You always want to be honest. You don't want to be a jerk about dating girls. But if you're not sure who you want to date, then you should spend a little time with both girls.

Being honest, though, go to dinner, you know, kind of get to, you don't, I don't know your age if you're 18 or something. You don't have to make a decision right away. I don't know enough about the girls. I mean, all I know is one girl's going on the Naval Academy. That's great. good on her. And the other girl's a psychiatrist. I've always had a preference for psychiatrists.

The pot thing, I don't know, if she's in college that could pass by, you know, that, I mean, who knows, in the culture now, marijuana is becoming a sacrament. So perhaps, perhaps we'll all end up puffing on the old Haitian oregano. I prefer cofefe. But it's about the girls, you know. I gave this advice to some other guy. You got to tell me about the person. Don't, don't date someone or marry someone because of their job or how much money they're going to make or if they're going to travel or whatever, you know, because they like to smoke pot when they're 18. It's about the person, and that's ineffable. I can't tell you about that. The way that you can find that out, though, is by talking to the girls honestly, you know, being

interested in what they have to do, trying to learn about them, trying to get a sense of them, and seeing what clicks, because there is a little chemistry. This isn't so clinical. I know now we're in the swipe culture, but Cole Porter didn't sing, let's do it. it. Let's be in an exclusive relationship after we date for a little while because we swiped right on Tinder. That's not what he said. It's a let's do it. Let's fall in love. So that's really what you've got to focus on a little bit. Just don't be a jerk about it. Don't, you know, we've all been jerks when it comes to girls, but try not to be. And depending on your age, you might be a little old for that anyway. So, you know, find out what that person is. And

don't go in saying I want to date because I need a girlfriend and I want to get married and me me me me me me it's about the other person go in enjoy it keep it fun if dating isn't fun then I got nothing for you you know the great consolation

of life do we have time for one more one more okay is that enough all right from Matthew Michael I really enjoy the show and it has become my favorite Daily Wire podcast yeah do you hear that Ben? No he did Ben doesn't listen to this show whenever I tell people

people about the Daily Wire, I always tell them I came for Ben, stayed for Michael. Thank you very much. Anyway, my question refers to the fall of Adam and Eve. More specifically, is there any extra-biblical, anthropological, or historical evidence to support the claim of the fall that there were once two first people who were in a perfect state of grace and would never have died had they not sinned and disobeyed God? If there is no evidence for this, how would we argue for it to a secular person, especially since their argument from a Darwinian perspective, see that they're not. seems more tenable, though it does not explain the desire for meaning and the fact we have a consciousness. It seems like a conundrum. I look forward to hearing your answer and keep up the good

work respectfully met. So we cannot know about the garden. We can't know about pre-fall. Everything that we have in front of us is a product of the fall. Our minds are a product of the fall. We are in a fallen world. We are not, we're not in a fallen world that has a perfect place, in the middle of Iraq. That's not how it works. We were kicked out of the garden. There is an angel with a flaming sword. So I have a few thoughts on all of this. Broadly speaking, if you're looking to the Bible for science or scientific history or scientific fact, you're looking in the wrong place. I think it was it. Cardinal, I'm going to get it wrong. Cardinal Barronius was it? Maybe who knows? I'll look it up. Who said, the Bible teaches us how to go to heaven

not how the heavens go. So just keep that in mind. Nevertheless, because the Bible contains myth and history and poetry and history and all of these things, and journalism and theology, because it contains all of these genres, I know that the biblical description of the creation is the most precise and truthful way that I can understand the creation of being, of the universe. That is the most precise way. If there are a more precise way, if there were a better way,

If there were a better way to do it, God would have told us in that way. So I know that for a fact. Now I'm going to violate what I just said, which is that I'll analyze it from an anthropological or historical or scientific perspective. At C.S. Lewis did this in some book. I forget where. Maybe it was Chesterton. That the fact of the first person is a truism. Certainly there was a first man.

There has to have been. because even assuming you refer to it as the Darwinian perspective, and people abuse that term endlessly, but even assuming that there was some sort of evolutionary process, some process of natural selection, at a certain point a distinction was made between a beast who is all instinct and a human being, which has intellect and will.

At a certain point, a distinction was made, and a way that we can imagine this is God reaching down and touching Adam, God touching the man and him having a consciousness, him having intellect and will and being more than a grunting brute who is driven only by instinct. By definition, that's the first man. So certainly that is the case. And so even if you want to follow the evolutionary perspective or one of the many evolutionary perspectives, you still have to butt up against that fact of the first man. But your understanding of it will be much better if you focus on that consciousness and what it means. to be a man and what the fall means and what it means for us today as we live as we live as conscious beings with intellect and will. I hope I was able to sum up the creation of mankind

in 20 seconds. Do you think I succeeded? I don't think I did. But hopefully that helps. Okay, that's our show. You've got to binge another kingdom. Season one, because we are vigorously recording season two and it is very cool. This is like we took it up a notch for this new season and the script of the new season is terrific and the production quality is really good. So make sure you've been to season one written by the one and only Andrew Claven because we're going to have season two coming out very soon.

I will not tell you when, though. Okay, that's our show. I'll see on Monday. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. I'll see you next week. The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Sennia Villa Reel, executive producer Jeremy Boree, senior producer Jonathan Hay. Our supervising producer, Mathis Glover, and our technical producer is Austin Stevens,

Edited by Jim Nickel. Audio is mixed by Mike Coramina. Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. The Michael Knoll Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production. Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.