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Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds
“Every single American needs to read Michael Knowles’s Speechless. I don’t mean ‘read it eventually.’ I stop what you’re doing and pick up this book.” —CANDACE OWENS "The most important book on free speech in decades—read it!” —SENATOR TED CRUZ A New We Win, They Lose The Culture War is over, and the culture lost. The Left’s assault on liberty, virtue, decency, the Republic of the Founders, and Western civilization has succeeded. You can no longer keep your social media account—or your job—and acknowledge truths such Washington, Jefferson, and Columbus were great men. Schools and libraries should not coach children in sexual deviance. Men don’t have uteruses. How did we get to this point? Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire exposes and diagnosis the losing strategy we have fallen for and shows how we can change course—and start winning. In the groundbreaking Controlling Words, Controlling Minds Knowles How the “free speech absolutists” gave away the store The First Amendment does not require a value-neutral public square How the Communists figured out that their revolution could never succeed as long as the common man was attached to his own culture Where political correctness came from How, comply or resist, political correctness is a win-win game for the bad guys Why taking our stand on “freedom of speech” helps put atheism, decadence, and nonsense on the same plane with faith, virtue, and reality The real Will we shut down drag queen story hour, or cancel Abraham Lincoln? For 170 years the First Amendment was compatible with prayer in public school How the atheists got the Warren Court to rule their way To this day, there’s a First Amendment exception for obscenity. What exactly is the argument that perverts’ teaching toddlers to twerk is not obscene? Read Controlling Words, Controlling Minds if you want to learn how to take the fight to the enemy.
383 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 22, 2021
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March 11, 2023
That the podcaster who scrawled this bad-faith screed in which he asserts campus rape is mostly clout chasers, rails against ideas of consent because it ‘takes the fun out of sex,’ and spends 200pgs holding an umbrella over racism or homophobia would go on record to say that ‘for the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated’ should come as no surprise. Still not a shocker he argues that he never meant it to mean anything about trans people, just the idea of it, as if someone's existence is just jolly fun for a spirited debate by those completely outside the situation. But that’s his goal, because now it’s a debate over semantics where either he means violence, or he just simply meant that trans people should not be welcome or accommodated in society which isn’t actually any better and he will get the screen time he craves because of it. It’s a classic example of crybullying for edgy points where this podcaster knows damn well that he nudged the language of genocide so he can smugly act innocent but ensure the message was delivered all the same. Which is the lesson he wants to teach with Speechless, a book that, while attempting to show how knowing the rules, buzzwords and cherry-picked research can create word games that seem to make a point, crumbles under its own weight from lack of critical thinking in actual application. Knowing the terms and using rhetoric productively are two different things. This is the equivalent of the person in a classroom who spends a great deal of time arguing technicalities that are essentially meaningless instead of actually doing an assignment and insisting they get a good grade, which amounts to not much other than edgelord posturing. This whole book is just mediocrity screaming through a bullhorn. Sure, there is a great deal of supposed research here, but it is more about framing a useful narrative than adherence to reality. Which, in his defense, is part of the point I suppose, as a major point he sobs about is that “leftists” control language to achieve their purpose, but his understanding of language seems very narrow and neglects that language is not a precise tool but is instead a very malleable system of signifiers that naturally adapt. It’s as if poetry or fiction are complete strangers to his worldview. A primary purpose for his work is to uphold christian mythology and to assert that people must push out anything in society that isn’t moving towards Christian theocracy. So, here’s another episode of I Read It So You Don’t Have To.
The groundwork of this book is his argument that free speech absolutism is just not realistic and that all societies have engaged in censorship or suppression of some form. For the most part this segment and arguments are well constructed, it does start to get pretty authoritarian when he calls for embracing censorship. This book is certainly written with a conservative audience in mind, though not all right-wingers as libertarians are also under attack from him (this book, I assume, is a call to move to the upper right of the political compass). He attacks Republicans who believe in a neutral public square where all opinions should be heard (he uses the term RINO often, and this book does include a lot of in-group specific terminology) as having opened the door for what he believes to be social ills, which is primarily any sort of inclusivity or pluralism in society. Knowles isn't against censorship, just that he thinks the ways speech is curtailed in the US is faulty and it all sort of boils down to he thinks that accommodating views other than conservative Christianity is to blame. The basis of the aspects of controlling words is he talks about making really tricky semantic choices so you can get a message across while washing your hands like Pontius Pilot. Basically crybully your way through arguments acting super elitist. It's not great, and he pretty openly preaches that the point is to be divisive through manipulation of words. It's the type of person that will constantly try to re-contextualize any argument to fit their needs. Wittgenstein once said an argument is only worthwhile if it is two people digging the same hole from both sides to seek truth together, Knowles falls under a category of attention seeking that Wittgenstein stresses are not people worth taking seriously.
Also, people like Knowles who love to cite 1984 in opposition against leftists know he said about that very book 'every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it,' and was loud and proud about being a socialist, right?
Moving on, there is just a lot of really bad faith stuff here. It’s not worth reading and it’s not even particularly interesting. He spends a lot of time denying that institutionalized racism exists by citing the popularity of Ta-Nehisi Coates, because apparently in his mind if Black people can win the National Book Award then racism must have been solved? He also talks about how rape isn’t a problem on campus because Botswana (why Botswana? Is it supposed to just imply Black people?) has more sexual assaults, then picks four examples of retracted sexual assault statements to insist that most women (he frequently uses the antiquated term ‘strumpet’ which probably hasn’t been used since The Big Lebowski) make up claims for attention. This is the sort of rhetoric that makes it harder on those who are victims to speak up and holds an umbrella for abusers. Couple this with his statement that drinking and college go hand-in-hand so if you are passed out drunk it is your own fault for being assaulted. Gross, dude. Sounds like Knowles is the problem here.
There’s a whole bunch of sobbing about cancel culture despite being in support of censorship of anyone on the left. But he doesn't mean canceling like the cops murdering Fred Hampton to silence him but more just people saying mean things on twitter they disagree with, and a lot of claims about social media “suppressing” voices and being shady. Which like, yea, social media are for-profit businesses, does he honestly expect them to not be? It’s just odd his argument is that leftists are trying to be make everyone Marxist but apparently also to blame for capitalism doing what it does? Like, of course content moderation is a thing on a social media site that is funded by advertising. Not great but what does anyone honestly expect? Also he really harps on a “war on christmas” and I have no clue what the fuck that even means. He lives in the US, where its the biggest retail season of the year. Nobody is trying to end christmas lol
But the key issue is that Knowles' ideas wallow in their own inconsistencies because manipulation is the goal instead of realistically useful rhetoric. He attempts to discredit ideas on the basis that academic institutions cannot be trusted and are marxist, yet then cites Princeton (an academic institution) saying the 1619 Project has inconsistencies as a reason to dismiss the entirety of it. He also uses faulty sources or single, highly debatable ones, as sweeping "evidence" against larger ideas. He is a person that knows rules of logic but is not interested in using them to construct his own arguments, only weaponizing them against any others, knowing them well enough to be manipulative about it.
OH but he also blames Derrida for ruining language but then admits he’s never read Derrida. But it gets into some weird stuff where like, apparently phenomenology is an attack against US republicans? I don’t think Husserl was thinking about Donald Trump, sorry bruh. A lot of the philosophy of language in this book is, like everything else, rather selected for what is useful and anything else is apparently atheist propaganda. This guy really goes out of your way to let you know he dislikes anyone who is non-Christian (but only hyper specific types of Christian) but he really hates atheists. He also believed there is a definitive and fixed moral code, something philosophy Simone De Beauvoir and Sartre really drove home as being nonsensical and useless in the face of reality.
Knowles sums it all up when he writes ‘all cultures have standards, so conservatives should try to suppress the Left and its organizations.’ So he’s not against “cancel culture,” just against any pushback on what he thinks and openly supports silencing critics. What he means by the Left is a complete mystery in this book as the term seems to be a placeholder for anyone who disagrees with him. Except for Republicans who believe in an equal public square, he hates them too and blames them for the most part. Knowles comes across as a bitter rhetorical regurgitator riding the coattails of people like Ben Shapiro (another podcaster who is relatively known in small corners of the internet) desperate for attention. He is pedantic to a fault, stuffing his sentences with as many big terms as possible less as an appeal to academia but more in a showy way to insist on himself. He spends a lot of space saying things like 'Political correctness has left us speechless, but the right to speak means nothing to those who have nothing to say,' which is just utterly fucking meaningless and sounds like something people wrote as a Myspace status in 2005 to sound smart but just meant that they were currently getting high in their mom's minivan. Every aspect of the book and the writing gives the appearance of being dense despite rather shallow thinking. Anyways, a main theme is that free speech absolutists are wrong and that it has paved the way for marxism and atheism. Strict evangelical moralism, he argues, is the only way forward and he even goes so far to deny that Christianity incorporated aspects of paganism and that it is false that Christmas incorporates aspects of other beliefs. Which is a weird claim to make.
But this whole book is awkward and ends up nothing more than smug edgelord static. Even those who might agree with him are probably better off looking elsewhere as this is pretty useless rhetoric on topics that aren't fresh and is more about being seen for an opinion than having one that is useful. Not that I agree with any of it, but even in an effort of fairness it's still garbage. He also offers little to no advice at what to actually do if these are the opinions you hold (even saying 'I have intentionally avoided precisely what [people] ought to say...I will not attempt to tack on a new conservative governing philosophy.'). It is just a lot of empty rhetoric. Still I'm sure there will be people hooting and hollering over this mess, but at the end of the day I'm really not into this and can't wait to forget he exists.
The groundwork of this book is his argument that free speech absolutism is just not realistic and that all societies have engaged in censorship or suppression of some form. For the most part this segment and arguments are well constructed, it does start to get pretty authoritarian when he calls for embracing censorship. This book is certainly written with a conservative audience in mind, though not all right-wingers as libertarians are also under attack from him (this book, I assume, is a call to move to the upper right of the political compass). He attacks Republicans who believe in a neutral public square where all opinions should be heard (he uses the term RINO often, and this book does include a lot of in-group specific terminology) as having opened the door for what he believes to be social ills, which is primarily any sort of inclusivity or pluralism in society. Knowles isn't against censorship, just that he thinks the ways speech is curtailed in the US is faulty and it all sort of boils down to he thinks that accommodating views other than conservative Christianity is to blame. The basis of the aspects of controlling words is he talks about making really tricky semantic choices so you can get a message across while washing your hands like Pontius Pilot. Basically crybully your way through arguments acting super elitist. It's not great, and he pretty openly preaches that the point is to be divisive through manipulation of words. It's the type of person that will constantly try to re-contextualize any argument to fit their needs. Wittgenstein once said an argument is only worthwhile if it is two people digging the same hole from both sides to seek truth together, Knowles falls under a category of attention seeking that Wittgenstein stresses are not people worth taking seriously.
Also, people like Knowles who love to cite 1984 in opposition against leftists know he said about that very book 'every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it,' and was loud and proud about being a socialist, right?
Moving on, there is just a lot of really bad faith stuff here. It’s not worth reading and it’s not even particularly interesting. He spends a lot of time denying that institutionalized racism exists by citing the popularity of Ta-Nehisi Coates, because apparently in his mind if Black people can win the National Book Award then racism must have been solved? He also talks about how rape isn’t a problem on campus because Botswana (why Botswana? Is it supposed to just imply Black people?) has more sexual assaults, then picks four examples of retracted sexual assault statements to insist that most women (he frequently uses the antiquated term ‘strumpet’ which probably hasn’t been used since The Big Lebowski) make up claims for attention. This is the sort of rhetoric that makes it harder on those who are victims to speak up and holds an umbrella for abusers. Couple this with his statement that drinking and college go hand-in-hand so if you are passed out drunk it is your own fault for being assaulted. Gross, dude. Sounds like Knowles is the problem here.
There’s a whole bunch of sobbing about cancel culture despite being in support of censorship of anyone on the left. But he doesn't mean canceling like the cops murdering Fred Hampton to silence him but more just people saying mean things on twitter they disagree with, and a lot of claims about social media “suppressing” voices and being shady. Which like, yea, social media are for-profit businesses, does he honestly expect them to not be? It’s just odd his argument is that leftists are trying to be make everyone Marxist but apparently also to blame for capitalism doing what it does? Like, of course content moderation is a thing on a social media site that is funded by advertising. Not great but what does anyone honestly expect? Also he really harps on a “war on christmas” and I have no clue what the fuck that even means. He lives in the US, where its the biggest retail season of the year. Nobody is trying to end christmas lol
But the key issue is that Knowles' ideas wallow in their own inconsistencies because manipulation is the goal instead of realistically useful rhetoric. He attempts to discredit ideas on the basis that academic institutions cannot be trusted and are marxist, yet then cites Princeton (an academic institution) saying the 1619 Project has inconsistencies as a reason to dismiss the entirety of it. He also uses faulty sources or single, highly debatable ones, as sweeping "evidence" against larger ideas. He is a person that knows rules of logic but is not interested in using them to construct his own arguments, only weaponizing them against any others, knowing them well enough to be manipulative about it.
OH but he also blames Derrida for ruining language but then admits he’s never read Derrida. But it gets into some weird stuff where like, apparently phenomenology is an attack against US republicans? I don’t think Husserl was thinking about Donald Trump, sorry bruh. A lot of the philosophy of language in this book is, like everything else, rather selected for what is useful and anything else is apparently atheist propaganda. This guy really goes out of your way to let you know he dislikes anyone who is non-Christian (but only hyper specific types of Christian) but he really hates atheists. He also believed there is a definitive and fixed moral code, something philosophy Simone De Beauvoir and Sartre really drove home as being nonsensical and useless in the face of reality.
Knowles sums it all up when he writes ‘all cultures have standards, so conservatives should try to suppress the Left and its organizations.’ So he’s not against “cancel culture,” just against any pushback on what he thinks and openly supports silencing critics. What he means by the Left is a complete mystery in this book as the term seems to be a placeholder for anyone who disagrees with him. Except for Republicans who believe in an equal public square, he hates them too and blames them for the most part. Knowles comes across as a bitter rhetorical regurgitator riding the coattails of people like Ben Shapiro (another podcaster who is relatively known in small corners of the internet) desperate for attention. He is pedantic to a fault, stuffing his sentences with as many big terms as possible less as an appeal to academia but more in a showy way to insist on himself. He spends a lot of space saying things like 'Political correctness has left us speechless, but the right to speak means nothing to those who have nothing to say,' which is just utterly fucking meaningless and sounds like something people wrote as a Myspace status in 2005 to sound smart but just meant that they were currently getting high in their mom's minivan. Every aspect of the book and the writing gives the appearance of being dense despite rather shallow thinking. Anyways, a main theme is that free speech absolutists are wrong and that it has paved the way for marxism and atheism. Strict evangelical moralism, he argues, is the only way forward and he even goes so far to deny that Christianity incorporated aspects of paganism and that it is false that Christmas incorporates aspects of other beliefs. Which is a weird claim to make.
But this whole book is awkward and ends up nothing more than smug edgelord static. Even those who might agree with him are probably better off looking elsewhere as this is pretty useless rhetoric on topics that aren't fresh and is more about being seen for an opinion than having one that is useful. Not that I agree with any of it, but even in an effort of fairness it's still garbage. He also offers little to no advice at what to actually do if these are the opinions you hold (even saying 'I have intentionally avoided precisely what [people] ought to say...I will not attempt to tack on a new conservative governing philosophy.'). It is just a lot of empty rhetoric. Still I'm sure there will be people hooting and hollering over this mess, but at the end of the day I'm really not into this and can't wait to forget he exists.
June 21, 2021
Michael Knowles is not just a conservative talking head, he is an intellectual in his own right with a thorough understanding of the classical political tradition. In Speechless, Knowles attacks "squish" conservatives who have ceded the political arena to cultural Marxists out of cowardice and an adherence to self-defeating libertarian principles. Political correctness, cancel culture, and big tech censorship continue to chip away at the American free speech tradition and conservatives who love "to lose with dignity" have been impotent to stop it. This is because, Knowles argues, the right still labors under the illusion of a neutral public square. It's not a question of whether standards of speech, action, and decency will be enforced, but which standards, and enforced by whom. The loss of a substantive vision of the common good on the right has allowed the Marxists free rein to deconstruct our culture and impose their agenda upon us; Knowles thus argues for a return to the preliberal distinction between liberty and license to recapture a conception of the good. This book is valuable because Knowles is introducing so-called "illiberal" ideas that are popular in traditionalist Catholic circles to a wider audience that has been accustomed to repeating free speech absolutist talking points that are incoherent and play into the hands of the radicals.
June 30, 2021
A fantastic book. We always talk about the PC culture and how toxic it is. But I was surprised just how pernicious the origins are. I know it's very cliché today, but today we are seeing the Orwellian dystopian world from his classic book "1984" coming to life. Anyone who has not read that book should stop reading now and either buy it, check it out at the library or ask a friend and read it. He (and I mean that pronoun in the general term not the specific 🤦🏼♂️) who controls the speech controls the future.
We have seen meanings of words changed, villainized, weaponized and distorted to meet a particular and specific perverted agenda or narrative. Sadly the political left is the main culprit in this attack on words.
Years ago when same-sex marriage was in the headlines, I had a conversation with my then 80 year old father. He is a Cuban and very Christian man and to him homosexuality was a nonstarter. I remember telling him "Dad, even if they are not "married" they are still having sex. This is not about homosexuality but rather equal rights under the law". I did tell him that the Christians, the biggest group that were against same-sex marriage should have changed the argument. What they should have said is that "marriage" connotes a religious component and thus should be maintained as such but that the legal aspect of two people, regardless of their sex and now (although I do not buy into it) their gender, should be called a civil union and that civil union under the eyes of the law should be equal while maintaining he original meaning of marriage. The argument became a red herring to pint the Christians as homophobic and bad people. All heterosexual "marriages" and thus the term itself would be maintained by the religious meaning of it while we ALL adopted the civil union status to be "equal in the eyes of the law".
Today, we have seen how toxic this PC culture has become. These SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) literally sit around trying to find what the new offensive term de' jour is going to be. How they are going to trigger the non-pc crowd
I am always shocked to see the left, which always pushed the narrative that they are much smarter than the right follow along like sheep just to virtue signal. That was very apparent during the Trump administration where saw the Trump Derangement Syndrome become a reality. Never have a seen a group of people go out of their way to discredit ANYTHING that man said regardless of it being true or not; the most notable was HQC for the treatment of COVID. How many people lost their lives or sent their loved ones to their demise for vilifying HQC and thus making it ALMOST a crime (at least in Social Media law) to even mention it?
Even Bill Maher, a strong supporter, advocate and proponent for the left has seen the damage done by the PC and cancel culture and now regularly calls it out. Comedy is officially dead. No longer can we go to a show and laugh about ourselves and others without a bunch of childish snowflakes making a scene and messing up for us adults. The only thing that can be made fun of these days is Trump, his supporters and Christians and that material gets covered in media everyday. It's old and played out.
If you read one book this year, let it be "Speechless" by Michael Knowles.
We have seen meanings of words changed, villainized, weaponized and distorted to meet a particular and specific perverted agenda or narrative. Sadly the political left is the main culprit in this attack on words.
Years ago when same-sex marriage was in the headlines, I had a conversation with my then 80 year old father. He is a Cuban and very Christian man and to him homosexuality was a nonstarter. I remember telling him "Dad, even if they are not "married" they are still having sex. This is not about homosexuality but rather equal rights under the law". I did tell him that the Christians, the biggest group that were against same-sex marriage should have changed the argument. What they should have said is that "marriage" connotes a religious component and thus should be maintained as such but that the legal aspect of two people, regardless of their sex and now (although I do not buy into it) their gender, should be called a civil union and that civil union under the eyes of the law should be equal while maintaining he original meaning of marriage. The argument became a red herring to pint the Christians as homophobic and bad people. All heterosexual "marriages" and thus the term itself would be maintained by the religious meaning of it while we ALL adopted the civil union status to be "equal in the eyes of the law".
Today, we have seen how toxic this PC culture has become. These SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) literally sit around trying to find what the new offensive term de' jour is going to be. How they are going to trigger the non-pc crowd
I am always shocked to see the left, which always pushed the narrative that they are much smarter than the right follow along like sheep just to virtue signal. That was very apparent during the Trump administration where saw the Trump Derangement Syndrome become a reality. Never have a seen a group of people go out of their way to discredit ANYTHING that man said regardless of it being true or not; the most notable was HQC for the treatment of COVID. How many people lost their lives or sent their loved ones to their demise for vilifying HQC and thus making it ALMOST a crime (at least in Social Media law) to even mention it?
Even Bill Maher, a strong supporter, advocate and proponent for the left has seen the damage done by the PC and cancel culture and now regularly calls it out. Comedy is officially dead. No longer can we go to a show and laugh about ourselves and others without a bunch of childish snowflakes making a scene and messing up for us adults. The only thing that can be made fun of these days is Trump, his supporters and Christians and that material gets covered in media everyday. It's old and played out.
If you read one book this year, let it be "Speechless" by Michael Knowles.
June 23, 2021
“Political correctness has left us speechless, but the right to speak means nothing to those who have nothing to say.” (Michael Knowles)
Almost every page of this book is highlighted somewhere. Author, Michael Knowles, is rapier sharp, clearing away the rhetoric and exposing truth. He begins by discussing language, speech & political correctness, the first amendment and what “freedom of speech” really mean. I will never utter a turn of a phrase again without careful consideration for its meaning.
“Political correctness blurs the distinctions between public and private spheres. According to political correctness, nothing can be merely personal. Everything must become political, with one exception: politics.” Following this statement early in chapter 2, Knowles goes on to carefully explore how political correctness has overturned the foundations of America, claiming virtually every aspect of our lives. How did this happened? Ya gotta read this book and will want to have it to read again and share.
Knowles takes apart many of the key issues my friends and I have discussed over the last decade or so and some that we just moan about: free speech, critical theory, (NOT CRT), education, Mao, language on TV, etc.,
battle of the sexes, Christmas and more. Each of these has key events and people attached to them many of which were new considerations for me.
My biggest take away from reading this powerful little book is this: silence is NOT golden when it comes to
protecting our rights, political or otherwise. Since politics/government either has or is trying to insinuate itself into every facet of my life, including places I don’t want them and they don’t belong, it’s up to me to do my part to stop them. Stopping them begins with understanding how we all became “Speechless”📚
Almost every page of this book is highlighted somewhere. Author, Michael Knowles, is rapier sharp, clearing away the rhetoric and exposing truth. He begins by discussing language, speech & political correctness, the first amendment and what “freedom of speech” really mean. I will never utter a turn of a phrase again without careful consideration for its meaning.
“Political correctness blurs the distinctions between public and private spheres. According to political correctness, nothing can be merely personal. Everything must become political, with one exception: politics.” Following this statement early in chapter 2, Knowles goes on to carefully explore how political correctness has overturned the foundations of America, claiming virtually every aspect of our lives. How did this happened? Ya gotta read this book and will want to have it to read again and share.
Knowles takes apart many of the key issues my friends and I have discussed over the last decade or so and some that we just moan about: free speech, critical theory, (NOT CRT), education, Mao, language on TV, etc.,
battle of the sexes, Christmas and more. Each of these has key events and people attached to them many of which were new considerations for me.
My biggest take away from reading this powerful little book is this: silence is NOT golden when it comes to
protecting our rights, political or otherwise. Since politics/government either has or is trying to insinuate itself into every facet of my life, including places I don’t want them and they don’t belong, it’s up to me to do my part to stop them. Stopping them begins with understanding how we all became “Speechless”📚
June 29, 2021
This book is well researched and well written. That being said the research is extremely one sided and the purpose of this book does not seem to be to convince others of the authors argument but to preach to the choir. I understand this but when the author subtly seems to provide reason and necessity to racism and religious supremacy it lost me. There is also one chapter where the author seems to say that all people who claim that they have been sexually assaulted are lying because four examples of people lying to gain status and possible flaws in research from statisticians show over inflated numbers. He does make some interesting points and some convincing arguments but for the most point this book is written in an echo chamber for the authors ego of wanting to make some money on rhetoric. Some will disagree and say this book is amazing and some will hate it.
I would not recommend this book to anyone but if one is curious about the idea of cancel culture or victim hood from conservative pundits take a look.
I would not recommend this book to anyone but if one is curious about the idea of cancel culture or victim hood from conservative pundits take a look.
May 9, 2022
Q:
The difference may be semantic, but semantics matter. When people describe a distinction as “just semantics,” they mean to dismiss it as trivial. But how many of those people know what the word “semantics” means? “Semantics,” it turns out, means meaning itself. Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, which exist so that we can distinguish one thing from another. (c)
Q:
Language changes naturally over time. A notable recent example is the word literally, which once meant the use of words in their most basic sense without recourse to metaphor but now also describes the use of words metaphorically, which is the opposite of literally. If that isn’t confusing enough, the word literal refers to letters, which are symbols and therefore the opposite of literal, and the non-literal sense of literal goes back at least a century, to James Joyce’s novel Ulysses—all of which is to say that the natural evolution of language is complicated. (c)
Q:
Consider social scientists’ newly invented, politically correct name for young criminals. There is nothing natural about calling a young criminal a “justice-involved youth,” and the reason for the lexical change isn’t complicated. (c)
Q:
the polite euphemism softens the reality it describes, but it doesn’t contradict that reality. The old woman is indeed a woman of a certain age. The poetical “passing away” describes the spiritual fact of death. Women may indeed powder their noses after they’ve done whatever else they do in rooms that often include a bath and in which anyone might rest. Polite euphemisms soften the truth, but they do not lie. (c)
Q:
Harvard is not more dangerous for women than Botswana. It isn’t more dangerous for women than the surrounding neighborhoods of Boston. In fact, it is much safer, as everyone knows intuitively. Yet the popular fantasy of epidemic campus rape persists, encouraged by regular, high-profile hoaxes. (c)
Q:
The race-hustling writer Ta-Nehisi Coates quoted Bellow with indignation in his second autobiography, Between The World And Me. “Tolstoy was ‘white,’ and so Tolstoy ‘mattered,’ like everything else that was white ‘mattered,’ ” wrote Coates. “And this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior.”
But Tolstoy does not matter because he was white; he matters because he wrote War and Peace. He wrote Anna Karenina and countless other stories that plumb the depths of human nature and hold a mirror to mankind. Plenty of white people do not matter in the slightest to the advancement of knowledge—for example, the many frivolous whites who admire Coates’s work. But Coates’s radical materialism prevents him from recognizing the metaphysical character of Tolstoy’s greatness. For Coates, only matter matters.
But even as a matter of matter, the perpetually aggrieved Coates reveals at best his ignorance and at worst his cynically selective indignation. The Russian Tolstoy looms large in the Western tradition, but not nearly so large as the African Saint Augustine. Three Berbers ascended to the papacy within the first five centuries of the Church, which since the fifth century has venerated Saint Moses the Black, among other non-white Christians.
Later in Between The World and Me, Coates recalls the sports journalist Ralph Wiley’s famous rejoinder to Bellow. “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus,” admonishes Wiley, “unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.”31 Coates and Wiley are right that reading Tolstoy edifies readers regardless of their race. But Tolstoy was no Zulu, and the “universal” mind of “mankind” did not educate him. A specific culture—loosely Western, specifically Russian—produced Tolstoy. That same culture has generously opened its books, classrooms, and ports of entry to the rest of the world.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s own career disproves his thesis. In 2015, Coates’s prosaic whining won him the National Book Award and a MacArthur “Genius Grant” worth half a million dollars.
Establishment elites cannot get enough of his grousing. Despite possessing a “black body”—the singularly oppressed flesh that Coates never ceases to lament—today the young author of two memoirs enjoys far greater acclaim than Bellow and perhaps, in some circles, even Tolstoy. (c)
Q:
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them—specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter,” the company explained, “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”6 At the time of Trump’s suspension, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei continued to enjoy use of his Twitter account, which he has repeatedly used to call for the genocide of Jews.7 Twitter has long defended maintaining the Ayatollah’s account on the grounds that world leaders constitute a special category and may therefore violate the company’s ever-changing speech code. But while the network affords this privilege to genocidal foreign dictators, it would not extend the same courtesy to the sitting U.S. president. (c)
Q:
When Twitter stripped the president of his personal account, Trump took to his official White House handle (@POTUS) to protest the company’s decision. “As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform to silence me—and YOU,” the president tweeted, “the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me.” Trump went on to explain that Twitter had exploited a legal loophole in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that protected internet service providers from the legal liabilities incurred by traditional publishers. Twitter had claimed to be a neutral technology platform for the purpose of legal protection but behaved like a publisher when it censored politically incorrect views. Trump noted that under the guise of free speech Twitter had established a rigid system for the enforcement of leftist orthodoxy.8 Within minutes the platform banned his presidential account as well. m its App Store, relegating users to accessing the platform through traditional web browsers. ...
Meanwhile, the comedienne Kathy Griffin tweeted a photo of herself holding a likeness of President Trump’s bloodied, decapitated head.17 The phrase “Hang Pence,” referring to the vice president, trended a few days later.18 Twitter did not receive any notices from Apple, Google, or anyone else threatening to sever their professional relationship. The platform did not even remove Griffin’s graphic tweet, which she had first posted in 2017. The technology giants’ tacit policy had become clear: speech would be tolerated or censored according to ideological content. (c)
The difference may be semantic, but semantics matter. When people describe a distinction as “just semantics,” they mean to dismiss it as trivial. But how many of those people know what the word “semantics” means? “Semantics,” it turns out, means meaning itself. Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, which exist so that we can distinguish one thing from another. (c)
Q:
Language changes naturally over time. A notable recent example is the word literally, which once meant the use of words in their most basic sense without recourse to metaphor but now also describes the use of words metaphorically, which is the opposite of literally. If that isn’t confusing enough, the word literal refers to letters, which are symbols and therefore the opposite of literal, and the non-literal sense of literal goes back at least a century, to James Joyce’s novel Ulysses—all of which is to say that the natural evolution of language is complicated. (c)
Q:
Consider social scientists’ newly invented, politically correct name for young criminals. There is nothing natural about calling a young criminal a “justice-involved youth,” and the reason for the lexical change isn’t complicated. (c)
Q:
the polite euphemism softens the reality it describes, but it doesn’t contradict that reality. The old woman is indeed a woman of a certain age. The poetical “passing away” describes the spiritual fact of death. Women may indeed powder their noses after they’ve done whatever else they do in rooms that often include a bath and in which anyone might rest. Polite euphemisms soften the truth, but they do not lie. (c)
Q:
Harvard is not more dangerous for women than Botswana. It isn’t more dangerous for women than the surrounding neighborhoods of Boston. In fact, it is much safer, as everyone knows intuitively. Yet the popular fantasy of epidemic campus rape persists, encouraged by regular, high-profile hoaxes. (c)
Q:
The race-hustling writer Ta-Nehisi Coates quoted Bellow with indignation in his second autobiography, Between The World And Me. “Tolstoy was ‘white,’ and so Tolstoy ‘mattered,’ like everything else that was white ‘mattered,’ ” wrote Coates. “And this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior.”
But Tolstoy does not matter because he was white; he matters because he wrote War and Peace. He wrote Anna Karenina and countless other stories that plumb the depths of human nature and hold a mirror to mankind. Plenty of white people do not matter in the slightest to the advancement of knowledge—for example, the many frivolous whites who admire Coates’s work. But Coates’s radical materialism prevents him from recognizing the metaphysical character of Tolstoy’s greatness. For Coates, only matter matters.
But even as a matter of matter, the perpetually aggrieved Coates reveals at best his ignorance and at worst his cynically selective indignation. The Russian Tolstoy looms large in the Western tradition, but not nearly so large as the African Saint Augustine. Three Berbers ascended to the papacy within the first five centuries of the Church, which since the fifth century has venerated Saint Moses the Black, among other non-white Christians.
Later in Between The World and Me, Coates recalls the sports journalist Ralph Wiley’s famous rejoinder to Bellow. “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus,” admonishes Wiley, “unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.”31 Coates and Wiley are right that reading Tolstoy edifies readers regardless of their race. But Tolstoy was no Zulu, and the “universal” mind of “mankind” did not educate him. A specific culture—loosely Western, specifically Russian—produced Tolstoy. That same culture has generously opened its books, classrooms, and ports of entry to the rest of the world.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s own career disproves his thesis. In 2015, Coates’s prosaic whining won him the National Book Award and a MacArthur “Genius Grant” worth half a million dollars.
Establishment elites cannot get enough of his grousing. Despite possessing a “black body”—the singularly oppressed flesh that Coates never ceases to lament—today the young author of two memoirs enjoys far greater acclaim than Bellow and perhaps, in some circles, even Tolstoy. (c)
Q:
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them—specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter,” the company explained, “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”6 At the time of Trump’s suspension, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei continued to enjoy use of his Twitter account, which he has repeatedly used to call for the genocide of Jews.7 Twitter has long defended maintaining the Ayatollah’s account on the grounds that world leaders constitute a special category and may therefore violate the company’s ever-changing speech code. But while the network affords this privilege to genocidal foreign dictators, it would not extend the same courtesy to the sitting U.S. president. (c)
Q:
When Twitter stripped the president of his personal account, Trump took to his official White House handle (@POTUS) to protest the company’s decision. “As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform to silence me—and YOU,” the president tweeted, “the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me.” Trump went on to explain that Twitter had exploited a legal loophole in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that protected internet service providers from the legal liabilities incurred by traditional publishers. Twitter had claimed to be a neutral technology platform for the purpose of legal protection but behaved like a publisher when it censored politically incorrect views. Trump noted that under the guise of free speech Twitter had established a rigid system for the enforcement of leftist orthodoxy.8 Within minutes the platform banned his presidential account as well. m its App Store, relegating users to accessing the platform through traditional web browsers. ...
Meanwhile, the comedienne Kathy Griffin tweeted a photo of herself holding a likeness of President Trump’s bloodied, decapitated head.17 The phrase “Hang Pence,” referring to the vice president, trended a few days later.18 Twitter did not receive any notices from Apple, Google, or anyone else threatening to sever their professional relationship. The platform did not even remove Griffin’s graphic tweet, which she had first posted in 2017. The technology giants’ tacit policy had become clear: speech would be tolerated or censored according to ideological content. (c)
February 28, 2022
"Under political correctness, saying the right thing supplants doing the right thing."
In a world that thrives on discord and staying riled, I found myself angry. So I stopped reading the news and anything related to politics.
But I kept seeing this book, so I finally got a copy and read it. I still don't plan to read much of the news but I have gained much by reading this. Not only in seeing how powerful our speech is but how it connects to the past and to one another. We say a whole lot these days. Our way of life outside the private realm of our homes is all political. We are giving a message to one another whenever we are in public. What are we conveying? We may say we aren't a leftist or don't support Trump or whatever but our actions and our words are powerful. What do we believe?
"The state imposes on citizens the principle that murder is wrong, but that principle would be morally true whether the state enforced murder laws or not. The method by which one comes to understand reality does not change reality itself."
Why do you believe what you believe? This is foundational to knowing what we say and how we live our lives. When angry people get up and shout "So-and-so was a racist." Or "that event should be erased from history." We need to understand their goal and not just shrug our shoulders because theirs nothing that can be done.
Michael Knowles uses wit and precise (sometimes very deep) words which made me feel smarter 😅 I read a page out loud to my sister and found several words I couldn't even pronounce, so I also felt dumber too.
This is a must read, with great historical relevance and connections of what we see going on in our world today. There is some foul language used in context of quotes or illustrations so warning. It is a book I'll return to whenever I want to scream at the craziness we see around us 😆
In a world that thrives on discord and staying riled, I found myself angry. So I stopped reading the news and anything related to politics.
But I kept seeing this book, so I finally got a copy and read it. I still don't plan to read much of the news but I have gained much by reading this. Not only in seeing how powerful our speech is but how it connects to the past and to one another. We say a whole lot these days. Our way of life outside the private realm of our homes is all political. We are giving a message to one another whenever we are in public. What are we conveying? We may say we aren't a leftist or don't support Trump or whatever but our actions and our words are powerful. What do we believe?
"The state imposes on citizens the principle that murder is wrong, but that principle would be morally true whether the state enforced murder laws or not. The method by which one comes to understand reality does not change reality itself."
Why do you believe what you believe? This is foundational to knowing what we say and how we live our lives. When angry people get up and shout "So-and-so was a racist." Or "that event should be erased from history." We need to understand their goal and not just shrug our shoulders because theirs nothing that can be done.
Michael Knowles uses wit and precise (sometimes very deep) words which made me feel smarter 😅 I read a page out loud to my sister and found several words I couldn't even pronounce, so I also felt dumber too.
This is a must read, with great historical relevance and connections of what we see going on in our world today. There is some foul language used in context of quotes or illustrations so warning. It is a book I'll return to whenever I want to scream at the craziness we see around us 😆
October 9, 2021
This is an extremely erudite book. Masses of research and 100's of quotes. It's about language, words, and cultures. And how words are redefined. And for what purposes.
It's not what I expected either. Far, far more difficult in context to connote all of the superb examples and connections. Especially to what we hear, observe, experience around us presently and how core tenets have become twisted and ironically in many cases become absurd to compare the language to the real.
This is not easy read and you'll need considerable education within philosophy, economics, history (arts and literature's past included) and linguistics to fully comprehend all the data here. Knowles is NOT making a Conservative only argument in the whole either. Some of these one star reviews have not read much of any of this book. Nor have they begun to answer any arguments made by Knowles or any of the authorities or mores of the past quoted. This author also notes Conservative error. Like the defense and confusion often made upon the standards of free speech or slanting that free speech policy or standards wrongly.
Excellent book. There are 3 or 4 chapters which are fully 5 stars. Especially, The Tolerant Left. And The School of Resentment.
NOT an easy read. And absolutely not only for the choir.
It's not what I expected either. Far, far more difficult in context to connote all of the superb examples and connections. Especially to what we hear, observe, experience around us presently and how core tenets have become twisted and ironically in many cases become absurd to compare the language to the real.
This is not easy read and you'll need considerable education within philosophy, economics, history (arts and literature's past included) and linguistics to fully comprehend all the data here. Knowles is NOT making a Conservative only argument in the whole either. Some of these one star reviews have not read much of any of this book. Nor have they begun to answer any arguments made by Knowles or any of the authorities or mores of the past quoted. This author also notes Conservative error. Like the defense and confusion often made upon the standards of free speech or slanting that free speech policy or standards wrongly.
Excellent book. There are 3 or 4 chapters which are fully 5 stars. Especially, The Tolerant Left. And The School of Resentment.
NOT an easy read. And absolutely not only for the choir.
July 7, 2021
"All cultures have standards, so conservatives should try to suppress the Left and its organizations." Michael should stick to writing books without words.
July 26, 2021
Knowles’ pedantic, holier than thou “arguments” are hidden behind deep but myopically-researched sources (as expected from someone with Ivy League education who ultimately has nothing but vitriol to say). I enjoy reading things that challenge my perspective and worldview, however, this book is trash.
July 11, 2021
“If conservatives hope to offer an alternative to the new social standard of political correctness, we must first admit that there is such a thing as the common good, that consequently there must be such a thing as the Highest Good, and that both the common good and the Highest Good have played a significant role in the American political tradition. We must then articulate a plausible vision of both the common and Highest Good…When conservatives eschew any political vision of the good, we do not leave each individual free to pursue his own conscience in the supposedly neutral and value-free playing ground of secular liberalism, as many seem to believe. Instead, we give our ideological foes free rein to define and enforce their opposite vision of the good, to which everyone will ultimately be forced to submit or else face censorship and ostracism, as we see occurring now in real time.”
All I can say is what a rebuke! Knowles lays down the mechanics of Political Correctness in one of the most eye opening books I’ve read in the last couple of years. PC as a tool originated from Marxist philosophers and was popularized in the west after the translation of Mao’s ‘little red book’, the effects of which have been fiercely subversive to western culture.
Free speech as a principle is far different than what most conservatives including myself think it is. It isn’t a principle that protects the neutrality of public discourse in which all ideas have equal value, rather, it protects public discourse as long as it adheres to the principles of virtue that permeates the traditional culture of the nation. Just because an idea exists doesn’t mean we should allow it to flood public discourse on the pretense of freedom of speech because the opponents of virtue have no intention of allowing opposing beliefs to exist at all. If we are to retain a culture of morality we must have the balls to stand up against all that is amoral.
Public discourse has become a place in which the missionaries on both sides of the political spectrum battle it out to see who’s standards and moral (or amoral) sentiments become the norm for society at large. Unfortunately those that would destroy our culture wield the discreet weapon of political correctness well. Again, all ideas and sentiments should not be encouraged on the false pretense that freedom of speech is neutral. It’s not and we are in the middle of a culture war. Unfortunately conservatives have been lackadaisical in showing up for the fight. Perhaps they lack their own convictions and standards. They shirk presenting their own conception of the good and what’s morally acceptable on a false pretense that “the radicals have the right to free speech just like me”. Sadly, the result of this laziness is men dressed as women preying on your children, glorification of promiscuity, the destruction of the family unit, politicized “science”, the undermining of true scholarship in academia, the glorification of vice to the point where we can’t even voice our own opinions about the sanctity of life without being berated and kicked out of classrooms and work meetings.
I highlighted something on practically every page and plan to reread it again to better grasp the concepts presented.
Prose are easy to digest and the ideas are well presented with a lot of citations. I genuinely think anyone who considers themselves right leaning should pick this up as soon as possible.
All I can say is what a rebuke! Knowles lays down the mechanics of Political Correctness in one of the most eye opening books I’ve read in the last couple of years. PC as a tool originated from Marxist philosophers and was popularized in the west after the translation of Mao’s ‘little red book’, the effects of which have been fiercely subversive to western culture.
Free speech as a principle is far different than what most conservatives including myself think it is. It isn’t a principle that protects the neutrality of public discourse in which all ideas have equal value, rather, it protects public discourse as long as it adheres to the principles of virtue that permeates the traditional culture of the nation. Just because an idea exists doesn’t mean we should allow it to flood public discourse on the pretense of freedom of speech because the opponents of virtue have no intention of allowing opposing beliefs to exist at all. If we are to retain a culture of morality we must have the balls to stand up against all that is amoral.
Public discourse has become a place in which the missionaries on both sides of the political spectrum battle it out to see who’s standards and moral (or amoral) sentiments become the norm for society at large. Unfortunately those that would destroy our culture wield the discreet weapon of political correctness well. Again, all ideas and sentiments should not be encouraged on the false pretense that freedom of speech is neutral. It’s not and we are in the middle of a culture war. Unfortunately conservatives have been lackadaisical in showing up for the fight. Perhaps they lack their own convictions and standards. They shirk presenting their own conception of the good and what’s morally acceptable on a false pretense that “the radicals have the right to free speech just like me”. Sadly, the result of this laziness is men dressed as women preying on your children, glorification of promiscuity, the destruction of the family unit, politicized “science”, the undermining of true scholarship in academia, the glorification of vice to the point where we can’t even voice our own opinions about the sanctity of life without being berated and kicked out of classrooms and work meetings.
I highlighted something on practically every page and plan to reread it again to better grasp the concepts presented.
Prose are easy to digest and the ideas are well presented with a lot of citations. I genuinely think anyone who considers themselves right leaning should pick this up as soon as possible.
August 13, 2021
Man whines for a few hundred pages like the grifting sophist he is whilst being ahistorical, anecdotal and just plain wrong most of the time. This is a much better written grift compared to Shapiro but it falls apart after the first chapter.
Also the misreading of 1984 would be perfect satire if he meant it comedically.
Also the misreading of 1984 would be perfect satire if he meant it comedically.
June 24, 2021
Hateful piece of bigotry against folks of different religious beliefs and non-belief, and LGBTQ people.
September 2, 2023
I knew Mickey Knobs as the insufferable sidekick of Ben Shapiro, a presenter for the 3rd-rate propaganda of Prager U, the only person who could sit next to Rafael Cruz and make Ted seem like a man's man, etc.
I found a copy of this in a local library's giveaway bin, where they put donations that aren't suitable for their weekly book sale.
The fact that they thought nobody would be willing to pay two bucks for this, when they have an entire shelf of 'Killing Bill OReilly' should have been a clue to me that it was not worth my time, but morbid curiosity over whether the author of a bestselling blank book actually would say anything worth reading got the better of me.
As it turns out, this was a study not only in the contempt Knobs has for his political opponents, whom he consistently misrepresents and obviously does not understand, but also in the contempt any 'author' of a bestselling book entirely devoid of content must have for his own audience.
The most interesting part of this book-length prager U clip was Knobs' elucidation of his pre-paleoconservative political perspective. (Yes, I am stretching the meaning of the word interesting with that assertion, I admit it.) The Yale grad, who grew up in a tony NYC suburb that is also home to George Soros, sneers at 'leftist' intellectuals because he alleges their ideas haven't caught on among the masses (in the middle of a book whose main thesis relies on the assertion that conservatives are losing the culture war) but makes continued reference to 'the traditional liturgical calendar,' GK Chesterton, and Edmund Burke, which everyone knows all the guys down on the shop floor can't stop talking about. In all seriousness, this book is as much a chastisement of conservatives for excessive 'liberalism' as it is a clumsily executed exposition of the 'leftist' strategy of 'cultural marxism.'
Knobs has clearly marinated in the reactionary ideological material, but his grasp of leftist thought and critique ranges from 'poorly understood' to 'complete strawman.' That he gives little to no attention to the class struggle, the main focus of Marxism since the 1850s, and portrays Derrida, Marcuse, and even Hilary Clinton as paragons of leftism should be evidence enough of how far he has his head up his own arse on this topic. He also out and out admits that he is not up to reading Derrida. Of course, one can't write a self-serving history of 'political correctness' without reference to deconstruction, so naturally he must include the obligatory denunciation of an author he obviously hasn't read.
Most meaningfully, in spite of Knobs' repeated protestations to the contrary, his thesis is just another variation of the Hitlerian 'Kulturalbolshewismus,' itself an extrapolation of the reactionary conservatism of Burke, etc. In order to portray the 'traditional' order as natural, it is necessary to dehumanize and delegitimize the critics. Rather than confront the issues social critics present, better to just denounce their entire critique as the project of a cabal of outsiders, envious intellectuals incapable of assimilating to the natural social order, who need to implement their designs through nefarious and authoritarian methods etc.
Knobs actually comes closest to the mark when he approaches a critique of capitalism, ironically in that the necessity of appeasing both the wealthy benefactors who furnish his livelihood as a modern conservative propagandist and his putative audience of ill-informed and miseducated Repubelican voters means that he cannot fully articulate the logical conclusions of his traditional Catholic perspective. So according to him phenomena like 'the war on Christmas' or twitter bans of Nazis or January 6th insurrectionists are examples of some shadowy 'marxist' agitation rather than ostensibly 'market-driven' actions by capitalist middle-managers who need to justify their jobs with some kind of corporate initiative.
(As an aside, I would challenge any conservative to read Domenico Losurdo's Counter History of Liberalism and War and Revolution (at minimum.) Conservative authors, Knobs included, tend to build their cases on sources that align with their ideology (to that end, most of Knobs' sources on e.g. Communism come from people like anti-communist Catholic propagandist Paul Kengor, defector and religious crank Whittaker Chambers, and Tsarist reactionary Solzhenitsyn, whose only beef with Hitler was that he wasn't astute enough to successfully overthrow the USSR.)
Losurdo's method uses the statements of conservative ideologues, historians, etc. to point out the contradictions between their apologia for their own actions and their condemnations of the actions of their political opponents. It is a far more intellectually honest and rigorous approach than the straw-manning and cherry-picking that Knobs performs in this work.)
Finally, since I've wasted enough time on this trash book, what kind of thirty-something man calls women 'strumpets' in 2021?
I found a copy of this in a local library's giveaway bin, where they put donations that aren't suitable for their weekly book sale.
The fact that they thought nobody would be willing to pay two bucks for this, when they have an entire shelf of 'Killing Bill OReilly' should have been a clue to me that it was not worth my time, but morbid curiosity over whether the author of a bestselling blank book actually would say anything worth reading got the better of me.
As it turns out, this was a study not only in the contempt Knobs has for his political opponents, whom he consistently misrepresents and obviously does not understand, but also in the contempt any 'author' of a bestselling book entirely devoid of content must have for his own audience.
The most interesting part of this book-length prager U clip was Knobs' elucidation of his pre-paleoconservative political perspective. (Yes, I am stretching the meaning of the word interesting with that assertion, I admit it.) The Yale grad, who grew up in a tony NYC suburb that is also home to George Soros, sneers at 'leftist' intellectuals because he alleges their ideas haven't caught on among the masses (in the middle of a book whose main thesis relies on the assertion that conservatives are losing the culture war) but makes continued reference to 'the traditional liturgical calendar,' GK Chesterton, and Edmund Burke, which everyone knows all the guys down on the shop floor can't stop talking about. In all seriousness, this book is as much a chastisement of conservatives for excessive 'liberalism' as it is a clumsily executed exposition of the 'leftist' strategy of 'cultural marxism.'
Knobs has clearly marinated in the reactionary ideological material, but his grasp of leftist thought and critique ranges from 'poorly understood' to 'complete strawman.' That he gives little to no attention to the class struggle, the main focus of Marxism since the 1850s, and portrays Derrida, Marcuse, and even Hilary Clinton as paragons of leftism should be evidence enough of how far he has his head up his own arse on this topic. He also out and out admits that he is not up to reading Derrida. Of course, one can't write a self-serving history of 'political correctness' without reference to deconstruction, so naturally he must include the obligatory denunciation of an author he obviously hasn't read.
Most meaningfully, in spite of Knobs' repeated protestations to the contrary, his thesis is just another variation of the Hitlerian 'Kulturalbolshewismus,' itself an extrapolation of the reactionary conservatism of Burke, etc. In order to portray the 'traditional' order as natural, it is necessary to dehumanize and delegitimize the critics. Rather than confront the issues social critics present, better to just denounce their entire critique as the project of a cabal of outsiders, envious intellectuals incapable of assimilating to the natural social order, who need to implement their designs through nefarious and authoritarian methods etc.
Knobs actually comes closest to the mark when he approaches a critique of capitalism, ironically in that the necessity of appeasing both the wealthy benefactors who furnish his livelihood as a modern conservative propagandist and his putative audience of ill-informed and miseducated Repubelican voters means that he cannot fully articulate the logical conclusions of his traditional Catholic perspective. So according to him phenomena like 'the war on Christmas' or twitter bans of Nazis or January 6th insurrectionists are examples of some shadowy 'marxist' agitation rather than ostensibly 'market-driven' actions by capitalist middle-managers who need to justify their jobs with some kind of corporate initiative.
(As an aside, I would challenge any conservative to read Domenico Losurdo's Counter History of Liberalism and War and Revolution (at minimum.) Conservative authors, Knobs included, tend to build their cases on sources that align with their ideology (to that end, most of Knobs' sources on e.g. Communism come from people like anti-communist Catholic propagandist Paul Kengor, defector and religious crank Whittaker Chambers, and Tsarist reactionary Solzhenitsyn, whose only beef with Hitler was that he wasn't astute enough to successfully overthrow the USSR.)
Losurdo's method uses the statements of conservative ideologues, historians, etc. to point out the contradictions between their apologia for their own actions and their condemnations of the actions of their political opponents. It is a far more intellectually honest and rigorous approach than the straw-manning and cherry-picking that Knobs performs in this work.)
Finally, since I've wasted enough time on this trash book, what kind of thirty-something man calls women 'strumpets' in 2021?
July 25, 2021
Where do I begin? There are so many inconsistencies in this book, and the author also seems to intentionally choose to stay things in an offensive way if possible. In my opinion, the most troubling claims he makes are with regard to rape and consent. The author expresses that seeking consent throughout an intimate encounter takes the “fun out of sex”. For whom? He also asserts that alcohol and sex just go together on college campuses, so if a woman is too intoxicated to say no, that’s not necessarily a rape. Oh. My. Goodness! I cannot even. He goes on to share stories of women who made false allegations of rape and based on the handful of accounts he has found, claims that campus rape isn’t nearly the problem we think - that is literally a hoax. And BS like this is why many women do not report being sexually assaulted — because they may not be believed. There are lots of other reasons to detest this book, but the chapter about rape takes the cake. I give two stars because although I disagree with most of the content, the work is well researched (although one-sided in it’s research).
May 5, 2023
Speechless,
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” (Isa 5:20-24)
Every conclusion and observation in this book is spot on. Conservatives have forgotten what is worth conserving. Or maybe they don’t know anymore. They can’t or won’t see that a society that accepts anything will eventually only accept the grossest and vilest in all spheres. In contrast, Knowles argues for enforcing standards, banning the evil and vile, and judging between ideas, people, and actions on their merits. I couldn’t agree more. The past seventy years have been a long slow demonstration of good men doing nothing. It’s scary to think of the pain and suffering that come after such a historic path.
But that is where this book falls desperately short. It is a depressingly good chronicle of what has gone wrong, but the real answer is only vaguely hinted at. It’s a call to fight for standards, but those are left undefined. It assumes that the reader will understand the opposing side and its rightness. That’s a dangerous assumption in the modern world. As he so clearly illustrates, the education system has done its best to erase those very standards. A complete explanation of the opposition may have been beyond the scope of this book, but the lack of a strong alternative made it depressing.
The inclusion of the hinted-at Christian worldview would have made a wonderful contrast with the vileness of the current speech standards and beliefs. It would also have relieved the despair that ended the book. God does not lose. His truth will not die. The multitudes being deceived now are heartbreaking, but they are fighting the power of the Creator. They will lose.
That’s really the fight going on behind all the debates today. Who defines reality? If it’s just one man’s reason against another man’s wishes, it’s a pointless argument. For both are changeable and fallible. But if God defines reality and truth, there is an unchanging perfect standard to judge everything against. That is what needs to be explained. Reason isn’t enough to reason to hold to Christian standards. God’s authority is the reason to hold to His standards.
Our speech matters, because God is holy. Our ideas matter because God is Holy. Our understanding of the world matters because God is holy and just. The political implications of such things are really only secondary. Righteousness in a population will always bring blessings to a nation, and evil always brings God’s judgment, but true Biblical righteousness through faith in Christ brings personal eternal life. That is the basis of traditional values. Christ said that out of the heart men speak, and only through being born again can we have a clean heart. It was a righteous heart that motivated historic heroes to impose righteous standards on others in the past. They desired everyone to have a chance of finding eternal life. They wanted everyone to know the Truth. Ask the Pilgrims. And today, it’s the motive for breaking evil speech codes. It’s the reason that we can face persecution and threats: the Love of God.
In attempting to explain the vileness of modern culture, Knowles includes examples of profanities and lewdness. It was completely unnecessary. Public language is getting more and more wicked, but there was no need to include it.
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” (Isa 5:20-24)
Every conclusion and observation in this book is spot on. Conservatives have forgotten what is worth conserving. Or maybe they don’t know anymore. They can’t or won’t see that a society that accepts anything will eventually only accept the grossest and vilest in all spheres. In contrast, Knowles argues for enforcing standards, banning the evil and vile, and judging between ideas, people, and actions on their merits. I couldn’t agree more. The past seventy years have been a long slow demonstration of good men doing nothing. It’s scary to think of the pain and suffering that come after such a historic path.
But that is where this book falls desperately short. It is a depressingly good chronicle of what has gone wrong, but the real answer is only vaguely hinted at. It’s a call to fight for standards, but those are left undefined. It assumes that the reader will understand the opposing side and its rightness. That’s a dangerous assumption in the modern world. As he so clearly illustrates, the education system has done its best to erase those very standards. A complete explanation of the opposition may have been beyond the scope of this book, but the lack of a strong alternative made it depressing.
The inclusion of the hinted-at Christian worldview would have made a wonderful contrast with the vileness of the current speech standards and beliefs. It would also have relieved the despair that ended the book. God does not lose. His truth will not die. The multitudes being deceived now are heartbreaking, but they are fighting the power of the Creator. They will lose.
That’s really the fight going on behind all the debates today. Who defines reality? If it’s just one man’s reason against another man’s wishes, it’s a pointless argument. For both are changeable and fallible. But if God defines reality and truth, there is an unchanging perfect standard to judge everything against. That is what needs to be explained. Reason isn’t enough to reason to hold to Christian standards. God’s authority is the reason to hold to His standards.
Our speech matters, because God is holy. Our ideas matter because God is Holy. Our understanding of the world matters because God is holy and just. The political implications of such things are really only secondary. Righteousness in a population will always bring blessings to a nation, and evil always brings God’s judgment, but true Biblical righteousness through faith in Christ brings personal eternal life. That is the basis of traditional values. Christ said that out of the heart men speak, and only through being born again can we have a clean heart. It was a righteous heart that motivated historic heroes to impose righteous standards on others in the past. They desired everyone to have a chance of finding eternal life. They wanted everyone to know the Truth. Ask the Pilgrims. And today, it’s the motive for breaking evil speech codes. It’s the reason that we can face persecution and threats: the Love of God.
In attempting to explain the vileness of modern culture, Knowles includes examples of profanities and lewdness. It was completely unnecessary. Public language is getting more and more wicked, but there was no need to include it.
June 26, 2021
I listened to this on audible, and it’s another book that I wish I had also purchased the kindle version. It’s a good listen, but it’s hard to capture the key thoughts in a way that I can retain them. I may go back and buy the hard copy or the kindle version. Knowles really emphasizes the fact that the left is just way better at manipulating language. It’s killing us. They have cut off most of our ability to argue and fight for the beliefs and the country we want. It feels like it’s too late. They own the language, the media, academia , social media and most identity groups. We need to take a stand and be just as aggressive and just as relentless as the left. Knowles is not giving up and neither should we.
November 4, 2021
I was considering giving this book 2 stars just because of all the laughs I got from it, but I decided against it. Half of the book just reads like a middle school essay, and the rest is just blatantly biased and self-unaware.
Read
July 12, 2021Look at me finishing a book before a month even goes by!
I jokingly say that I got Pavlov'd into buying the book because of all the dings every time the book was mentioned. But I seem to enjoy reading about language/history of language/how it evolved to what we have now. So it was a win for both of us.
Ok, enough about me.
I found this to be a worthwhile read! Well written, smart, but not dry like you're reading a textbook. It had new information, to me at least, and he made some good points and connections. And of course he has about 100 pages of books cited and notes. If you were thinking about checking this book out, I support it! and do yourself a favor and don't pass up the Glossary of Jargon. I enjoyed the sassy use of "Can I see it used in a sentence?"
I feel like I saved so many quotes, but I don't want to put too many down because I don't want to spoil it. Let's see:
"To call something "politically correct" is to acknowledge that it is not correct, at least not by the standard of reality."
"Cultures on the rise know wha they believe, and they possess the confidence to defend those beliefs; decadent societies retreat into irony and criticism."
-56
"There will never be a firm separation of church and state, because all laws invoke a moral order, and any moral order relies upon religious tenets. "Cult" and "culture" derive from the same root word; what a culture prohibits and encourages reveals what the culture worships.
-167
I jokingly say that I got Pavlov'd into buying the book because of all the dings every time the book was mentioned. But I seem to enjoy reading about language/history of language/how it evolved to what we have now. So it was a win for both of us.
Ok, enough about me.
I found this to be a worthwhile read! Well written, smart, but not dry like you're reading a textbook. It had new information, to me at least, and he made some good points and connections. And of course he has about 100 pages of books cited and notes. If you were thinking about checking this book out, I support it! and do yourself a favor and don't pass up the Glossary of Jargon. I enjoyed the sassy use of "Can I see it used in a sentence?"
I feel like I saved so many quotes, but I don't want to put too many down because I don't want to spoil it. Let's see:
"To call something "politically correct" is to acknowledge that it is not correct, at least not by the standard of reality."
"Cultures on the rise know wha they believe, and they possess the confidence to defend those beliefs; decadent societies retreat into irony and criticism."
-56
"There will never be a firm separation of church and state, because all laws invoke a moral order, and any moral order relies upon religious tenets. "Cult" and "culture" derive from the same root word; what a culture prohibits and encourages reveals what the culture worships.
-167
July 2, 2021
I highly recommend this book so that people can understand why esoteric notions of free speech have failed. There will always be standards; the question is, which standards will we follow? Michael Knowles lays out the issues we currently face with clarity, and, even more importantly, levity. Anyone with the IQ above that of a kumquat will realize that something is wrong, and it can be downright depressing thinking about how pedantic we have to be in the most minute of conversations, lest we run afoul of ever changing speech codes. Knowles explains it all, and makes you laugh while he does it.
January 16, 2026
A phenomenal in-depth look of political correctness. Highly, highly recommend!
July 2, 2021
It was good at parts and not good at others. While I think the criticism of modern scientism and the difference between liberty and licentiousness that Knowles touches upon often are great lessons that society needs to learned; I felt the book was less original-thought relating to the mature of society and words, and more of the everyday conservative culture-war stuff. While many think its important, and in some instances it is, it is a bit tiring as its the same talking points recycled constantly.
That being said, Knowles is a great writer, and does sprinkle in original thought in with his culture-war conservatism, so I’ll give it three stars. If not for that, I would find many of the passages to be needlessly anti-intellectual. It was obvious Knowles was marketing his arguments for a audience which enjoys saying “what can’t be said” over asserting proper argumentation for what is true. Of course, what can’t be said can also be true, and often is or it wouldn’t be barred, but merely stating it does nothing but alienate it farther if not coupled with reason.
That being said, Knowles is a great writer, and does sprinkle in original thought in with his culture-war conservatism, so I’ll give it three stars. If not for that, I would find many of the passages to be needlessly anti-intellectual. It was obvious Knowles was marketing his arguments for a audience which enjoys saying “what can’t be said” over asserting proper argumentation for what is true. Of course, what can’t be said can also be true, and often is or it wouldn’t be barred, but merely stating it does nothing but alienate it farther if not coupled with reason.
January 4, 2022
Highly recommend!
While the writing can be a bit flowery at times, the plethora of information is invaluable. This book shows just how deeply PC has taken root and how badly it has infected our way of thinking and behaving on both sides of the aisle and in our society as a whole. There's so much to unpack and absorb from this book that I'm not sure where to start! I took some "notes"(by notes I mean pics of paragraphs with my phone;)). **I highly recommend getting your own copy so you can actually highlight, note, and reread at your leisure.** I'm gonna look at my said "notes" and come back and add those to my review....soon...ish..
While the writing can be a bit flowery at times, the plethora of information is invaluable. This book shows just how deeply PC has taken root and how badly it has infected our way of thinking and behaving on both sides of the aisle and in our society as a whole. There's so much to unpack and absorb from this book that I'm not sure where to start! I took some "notes"(by notes I mean pics of paragraphs with my phone;)). **I highly recommend getting your own copy so you can actually highlight, note, and reread at your leisure.** I'm gonna look at my said "notes" and come back and add those to my review....soon...ish..
August 29, 2021
Let’s try to unpack this:
Brief Summary
Knowles's key argument is that political correctness is a mental virus taking over academic, social, and political institutions. The result is that political correctness replaces simple direct speech and traditional conservative values with: critical theory (derived from Marxist ideas) and a sinful population.
Flaw #1: Critical theory is bad, but it’s okay for the author
An objection to critical theory used within academia is that: being a critic is easy, providing solutions is hard; and critical theory often fails to provide solutions. “Speechless” presents a critical theorist approach to conservatism. Each chapter is spent criticizing "the radical left" and "soft conservatives" before concluding on page 230:
This is conservative social criticism that proposes no solutions. This is ironic at best, and hypocritical at worst.
Flaw #2: Inconsistencies when trying to connect political correctness to current events
Consider three ideas the author presents:
(1) Academic institutions cannot be trusted because they have been infiltrated by politically correct Marxists.
(2) Historians from Princeton and other academic institutions said the 1619 Project was flawed (page 97).
Therefore: The 1619 Project was flawed.
See the problem? “We cannot trust academics, but we should trust academics who say the 1619 Project is flawed.” I don’t expect any person to be perfectly consistent, but this borders on absurd in a book that lauds Orwell’s prophecy of "doublethink."
Flaw #3: Distorting evidence
I’ll pick one example: the author’s denial that trans people exist. What evidence does the author provide for this claim? Michael Knowles presents the case of John Money’s sex reassignment of David Reimer, and makes references to "commonsense biology."
Both are instances of pseudoscience:
1. Presenting a single case study, then using it as proof for a conclusion
2. Appealing to “simple solutions”
(1) A single highly-flawed case study that is unlikely to meet today’s ethical standards is not proof, in the same way that a certain dismissed study is not proof that “vaccines cause autism.” (2) “Commonsense biology” is not “biology” in the same way that “homeopathy” is not “medicine,” and a simple solution is not necessarily the truth.
Michael Knowles is not a biologist. His degrees in History and Italian have helped him in a few parts of this book, but his statements here are seriously flawed. I would strongly recommend for readers to engage with the wider literature around human sex (including topics like Intersex), sexuality, and gender; then seek out voices of trans people.
Conclusion
In normal cases (like my review for Undaunted) I would suggest a pass with a strong editor, and probably cutting every chapter after 5. As an added benefit it would sidestep the racism, sexism, rape apologism, anti-LGBT stance and a myriad of other issues.
Salvaging this book would be a massive labor.
Brief Summary
Knowles's key argument is that political correctness is a mental virus taking over academic, social, and political institutions. The result is that political correctness replaces simple direct speech and traditional conservative values with: critical theory (derived from Marxist ideas) and a sinful population.
Flaw #1: Critical theory is bad, but it’s okay for the author
An objection to critical theory used within academia is that: being a critic is easy, providing solutions is hard; and critical theory often fails to provide solutions. “Speechless” presents a critical theorist approach to conservatism. Each chapter is spent criticizing "the radical left" and "soft conservatives" before concluding on page 230:
"I have intentionally avoided precisely what [conservatives] ought to say. That topic deserves its own volume ... and I will not attempt to tack on a new conservative governing philosophy ... to this study of political correctness."
This is conservative social criticism that proposes no solutions. This is ironic at best, and hypocritical at worst.
Flaw #2: Inconsistencies when trying to connect political correctness to current events
Consider three ideas the author presents:
(1) Academic institutions cannot be trusted because they have been infiltrated by politically correct Marxists.
(2) Historians from Princeton and other academic institutions said the 1619 Project was flawed (page 97).
Therefore: The 1619 Project was flawed.
See the problem? “We cannot trust academics, but we should trust academics who say the 1619 Project is flawed.” I don’t expect any person to be perfectly consistent, but this borders on absurd in a book that lauds Orwell’s prophecy of "doublethink."
Flaw #3: Distorting evidence
I’ll pick one example: the author’s denial that trans people exist. What evidence does the author provide for this claim? Michael Knowles presents the case of John Money’s sex reassignment of David Reimer, and makes references to "commonsense biology."
Both are instances of pseudoscience:
1. Presenting a single case study, then using it as proof for a conclusion
2. Appealing to “simple solutions”
(1) A single highly-flawed case study that is unlikely to meet today’s ethical standards is not proof, in the same way that a certain dismissed study is not proof that “vaccines cause autism.” (2) “Commonsense biology” is not “biology” in the same way that “homeopathy” is not “medicine,” and a simple solution is not necessarily the truth.
Michael Knowles is not a biologist. His degrees in History and Italian have helped him in a few parts of this book, but his statements here are seriously flawed. I would strongly recommend for readers to engage with the wider literature around human sex (including topics like Intersex), sexuality, and gender; then seek out voices of trans people.
Conclusion
In normal cases (like my review for Undaunted) I would suggest a pass with a strong editor, and probably cutting every chapter after 5. As an added benefit it would sidestep the racism, sexism, rape apologism, anti-LGBT stance and a myriad of other issues.
Salvaging this book would be a massive labor.
August 7, 2021
This book describes a real problem—the ever-changing rules of political correctness and political conservatives failure to conserve anything. However, the book offers little by way of substantive action for genuine conservatives (as opposed to the populists that have risen up to make the term essentially meaningless) to take. Instead, it is another example of the issue that perpetuates the problem, along with extremely skewed interpretations of several events of the last five years. In other words, it’s another book preaching to a very specific choir. While the general principles in the final chapter for countering political conservatives aren’t wrong, they require a significantly more substantial thorough treatment.
July 3, 2021
Michael Knowles has gone off and wrote quite possibly the most important book for our current generation and culture. A must-read by all technicalities.
And just because I care so much;
Screw you Facebook, Apple, Amazon, YouTube, Google, Twitter, Instagram, (Insert any other big tech communist jackasses here)!
And just because I care so much;
Screw you Facebook, Apple, Amazon, YouTube, Google, Twitter, Instagram, (Insert any other big tech communist jackasses here)!
October 18, 2021
I listened to this because I really wanted to understand how the other side thinks. And I did agree that political correctness has gone too far. But I can't agree with any justification for the January 6th riots.
December 29, 2022
Brilliant! Found out so many new things. Michael Knowles is a true scholar. Exceeded all my expectations.
P.S. The Romanian translation has 105 pages of bibliography. This man did his homework.
P.S. The Romanian translation has 105 pages of bibliography. This man did his homework.
October 1, 2025
“The truth shall make you free.” The politically correct invert this understanding. They believe that the truth about the man who thinks he’s a women will actively harm him. The truth about a baby will damage the mother who wants to rid herself of it. They consider the truth destructive and lies compassionate. For the politically correct lie that the man is a woman will free him from the shackles of biology. The lie that a baby isn’t a human or alive will free his mother from the undesired umbilical chain that imposes responsibility upon her. If language really does constitute reality, there isn’t anything wrong with this lying. If words can redefine reality, it isn’t even lying at all. (Michael Knowles)
I have a lot of respect for Michael Knowles and his views and opinions on the world that is falling apart around us. I’ve been listening to his podcasts for over three years, so picking up this book made me really excited. Knowles’ writing style is engaging and very easy to read and understand, which is not a common thing in a political book; he’s also still very amusing. He doesn’t impose his conservative views on the reader. Instead, he uses reason to reach a definitive conclusion that true free speech can only survive if society reclaims objective truth and resists political correctness as a tool of control. Knowles touches on a lot of different political areas, such as political correctness, the role of relativism and subjectivity in weakening traditional values, how universities, media and entertainment have been central to enforcing political correctness and how there is a call for conservatives to reclaim cultural influence by speaking truth plainly instead of just defending ‘free speech’ in the abstract.
What I appreciated most is that this book isn’t just theory—it connects directly to real issues that we see unfolding every day. Knowles supports his arguments with historical, philosophical, and cultural examples that strengthen his points significantly. It’s not just a reactionary take, but a thoughtful analysis of where we are as a culture and where we’re headed if we don’t turn back to truth. At the same time, the book is sprinkled with his signature humour, which makes even the heavier parts enjoyable and memorable.
If you’re someone who feels frustrated with the way political correctness has stifled honest conversation, this book will resonate deeply. It’s both challenging and encouraging—challenging in that it asks readers to recognize how far society has drifted from truth, and encouraging because it reminds us that speaking truth boldly is the most powerful defence of freedom.
Overall, Speechless is a must-read for anyone who cares about free speech, culture, and the future of our society. Michael Knowles strikes the perfect balance of intellect, wit, and conviction. It’s one of those books that you’ll think about long after you’ve finished it. Five stars without hesitation.
I have a lot of respect for Michael Knowles and his views and opinions on the world that is falling apart around us. I’ve been listening to his podcasts for over three years, so picking up this book made me really excited. Knowles’ writing style is engaging and very easy to read and understand, which is not a common thing in a political book; he’s also still very amusing. He doesn’t impose his conservative views on the reader. Instead, he uses reason to reach a definitive conclusion that true free speech can only survive if society reclaims objective truth and resists political correctness as a tool of control. Knowles touches on a lot of different political areas, such as political correctness, the role of relativism and subjectivity in weakening traditional values, how universities, media and entertainment have been central to enforcing political correctness and how there is a call for conservatives to reclaim cultural influence by speaking truth plainly instead of just defending ‘free speech’ in the abstract.
What I appreciated most is that this book isn’t just theory—it connects directly to real issues that we see unfolding every day. Knowles supports his arguments with historical, philosophical, and cultural examples that strengthen his points significantly. It’s not just a reactionary take, but a thoughtful analysis of where we are as a culture and where we’re headed if we don’t turn back to truth. At the same time, the book is sprinkled with his signature humour, which makes even the heavier parts enjoyable and memorable.
If you’re someone who feels frustrated with the way political correctness has stifled honest conversation, this book will resonate deeply. It’s both challenging and encouraging—challenging in that it asks readers to recognize how far society has drifted from truth, and encouraging because it reminds us that speaking truth boldly is the most powerful defence of freedom.
Overall, Speechless is a must-read for anyone who cares about free speech, culture, and the future of our society. Michael Knowles strikes the perfect balance of intellect, wit, and conviction. It’s one of those books that you’ll think about long after you’ve finished it. Five stars without hesitation.
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