Interview: Will Knowland – desire to weaken the family spreading in modern culture

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Will Knowland was sacked from his position as an English Literature Master at the prestigious Eton College. He had prepared a video for a debating class of sixth form students, referencing the immutable differences between men and women. A strong supporter of man-woman marriage, Will and I discussed the detail of his firing and his wider stand.

Will tells me how students at the £46,000-a-year school had not complained about the 30-minute talk with 45 academic references, but one member of staff had found it offensive.

He goes on to speak about a prevailing ‘arrogance and hubris’ in modern culture, which sees “the idea of family as oppressive”. At the core of this liberalism, he says, is an “obsession with autonomy”. Because “family is our first experience of authority”, their desire is to “weaken the family” and “strengthen dependence” on the state. This, Will claims, represents “a broader attack on patriarchy” and on fathers in general.

He emphasises that man-woman marriage “is a human universal”. Will also adds that “all the data points towards the fact that children do best in a home with both biological parents”. An “attack on the institution of marriage”, he says, is an attack on the “stability of society more broadly”. 

According to Will, “we know that any of these fantasies not founded on human nature ultimately break in the end”. Parents, he encourages, must begin “figuring out that this is bad” and “commit with renewed seriousness to the dignity of marriage”.

C4M exist to promote the dignity of man-woman marriage, including the immutability of gender. This is not a preference, but an evidence-based enabler to a flourishing society. The lie of promoting ‘progressive’ alternatives, is in fact, according to the overwhelming body of research, a very regressive step.