Who is Creepier/more harmful - Maxwell vs Pearl

[lizziesmom]

Steve Maxwell or Michael Pearl? I will confess I didn't know a whole lot about either of this asshats until I joined this site but what I've read about both is horrifying. What say you FJers? Who is worse in your opinion and why?

[Mela99]

Oof... that's a loaded question.

Steve seems to have more of an impact on his own family, and Pearl seems to spread his douchiness around...

Hmm...

[Dysfundamental]

Stevehovah has only ruined his own family's life; it seems like people who follow them take what they like (chore packs, terrible children's books) and leave the rest (I've never read anyone saying they adopted his rules about their kids not having friends, frex).

The Pearls have spread their poison to lots of families. And children have died in homes where the parents used the Pearls' books as justification for physical abuse.

[Closed Womb]

Stevehovah has only ruined his own family's life; it seems like people who follow them take what they like (chore packs, terrible children's books) and leave the rest (I've never read anyone saying they adopted his rules about their kids not having friends, frex).

The Pearls have spread their poison to lots of families. And children have died in homes where the parents used the Pearls' books as justification for physical abuse.

To add on to that, I think it depends on the relationship to the offender. I think Dysfundamental is correct about the public at large, but I think a Pearl daughter is in a much better position than a Maxwell daughter, as they can escape. I think a Pearl son is in a much worse situation than a Maxwell son. I think Terri is in a better position than Debi because being denied Pepsi beats almost being fucked to death on your honeymoon any day.

[Justme]

To add on to that, I think it depends on the relationship to the offender. I think Dysfundamental is correct about the public at large, but I think a Pearl daughter is in a much better position than a Maxwell daughter, as they can escape. I think a Pearl son is in a much worse situation than a Maxwell son. I think Terri is in a better position than Debi because being denied Pepsi beats almost being fucked to death on your honeymoon any day.

What happened on the honeymoon?

Did Stevie ever beat his kids?

[Mela99]

What happened on the honeymoon?

Did Stevie ever beat his kids?

There's a thread about it, but basically Pearl wanted sex again and again and again and the wife hadn't slept, was in pain, had to cook for them, and eventually fainted in the bathroom from lack of sleep

[ILoveJellybeans]

Michael Pearl.

I dont know whether Steve ever hit his kids, I imagine he did, but the Pearls take it to the extreme. He also spanks other peoples kids, and gave parenting advice has killed three children. Steve's parenting advice may have ruined the lives of multiple children, but Michael's actually killed some.

They both are possible sociopaths, but Michael seems even more open about it, most of his articles are about his disgust for anything that isnt him and what he does to sadistically torture them. He talks openly about how he nearly broke Debi's vagina and spirit on their honeymoon, and thinks of it as romantic and sweet. The worst thing we have heard about Steve doing to Teri is denying her pepsi. I think Michael is probably way more likely to physically abuse his wife, because we know he has already raped her and thinks its socially acceptable to talk about it.

Physically they both have serial killer eyes, but Michael Pearl also looks like a deranged mountain man who eats child flesh.

[AnywhereButHere]

Michael Pearl. He seems to have a much wider/more mainstream audience. In my opinion, neither one does a great job of hiding the crazy, but there are people out there who apparently miss it in the Pearls. My mom, for one, has no idea who Stevie is, but she gave me the Pearls' book when I got pregnant. I ripped the pages out before I threw it away. I just had an awful feeling that, spawn of satanlike, it would manage to jump out of the garbage and into the hands of an unwary person who may actually follow it... :twisted:

[Arete]

Michael Pearl. No contest.

[Jana814]

I think their about the same!! Although I agree that Michael Perl is worse. However, I seen posts on the titus2 website where people have stated that they want their to be more like the Maxwells (i.e. no outside friends or influences)

[hoipolloi]

Michael Pearl is much more harmful. Toss-up on teh creepy since both of them make my skin crawl.

[E Street Fan]

Without a doubt, Michael Pearl. He belongs in a cage.

[Jana814]

Without a doubt, Michael Pearl. He belongs in a cage.

Agree!

[Sola]

Difficult question. The only way I could answer it is to imagine which one of them would I have preferred as a father growing up. Reluctantly I would have say I would have preferred Michael Pearl. At least with him you are allowed a childhood and freedom. Yes you get the plumbing line, but you also get playing in creeks, climbing trees, digging in the mud and banging nails into a piece of wood, all things that are so much fun in childhood.

With Steve-o as your dad you get the emotion sucked out of you, you are never, ever alone, swimming in creeks and climbing trees will be out and of course young ladies will never be permitted to make mud pies or mess around with hammers and nails. Plus I'd like to bet you also get the plumbing line at Chez Maxwell too as they support the Pearls child training methods.

So for me, if you got to take the plumbing line, you may as well take it with the fun things to do too. To be a Maxwell is to be one step away from severe clinical depression.

[rward]

That's like asking if I'd rather be loved by an infectious disease or eaten by a koala.

[docmom]

If I believed in the devil Michael Pearl would be it. Pearl is a true psychopath (anti-social personality disorder) as you can see by the checklist below (PCL-R):

I. Interpersonal: superficial glibness, charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathologic lying, manipulative

II. Affective: lack of remorse or guilt, emotionally shallow, lack of empathy

III. Lifestyle: parasitic, impulsiveness, lack of long-term planning

IV. Antisocial: poor behavioral controls

If you prefer the psychopathic personality inventory scale (PPI):

Psychopathic Personality Inventory: Factors and Subscales[ PP1–1: Fearless dominance PP1–2: Impulsive Antisociality Coldheartedness

Social influence

Fearlessness

Stress immunity

Machiavellian egocentricity

Rebellious nonconformity

Blame externalization

Carefree nonplanfulness

Coldheartedness

His honeymoon story alone hits all of these! These scales were really developed to determine criminality. Pearl hasn't been convicted of anything (although he's certainly morally responsible for several child deaths) but I think that's because he's actually very clever and hasn't been caught.

[Rarity65]

As much as I find Steve Maxwell a horrible person, Michael Pearl wins.

[laura oz]

Micheal Pearl, hands down. He actually makes me a little sick on my stomach.

[lilwriter85]

I gotta go with Michael Pearl.

[Justme]

Mike & Stevie were buds back in the day. Mike even wrote on Stevie's site. I'm not sure exactly what caused their divorce. If I remember correctly, mike dumped Stevie cause he (Stevie) was to "extreme".

Didn't mike also recently write an article taking little diggs at Steve? Something about letting your kids actually grow up?

[Mary C Doates]

Pearl is more dangerous since his "philosophy" (if it can be called that) is more widely disseminated and thus more accessible to the public. Steve is much more insular and secretive, but I find him much more creepy than Pearl-- it's his eyes *shudder*, and the fact that he finds it necessary to be so secretive, to the point of paranoia. Pearl makes no secret about what he thinks. Steve, on the other hand, seems almost manic about maintaining control.

[hoipolloi]

Mike & Stevie were buds back in the day. Mike even wrote on Stevie's site. I'm not sure exactly what caused their divorce. If I remember correctly, mike dumped Stevie cause he (Stevie) was to "extreme".

Didn't mike also recently write an article taking little diggs at Steve? Something about letting your kids actually grow up?

This commentary sure looks like it's aimed at Steve (nogreaterjoy.org/video/the-balanced-patriarch-our-job-is-to-turn-them-loose/):

I know some families that have eight or ten kids that none of them have gotten married yet. They’re all up into their mid‑20s, early 30s, still living with mom and daddy. They write us letters and talk about how, the kids, talk about how miserable they are, how unhappy, unfulfilled they are. Girls write and say they now feel like they’re going to be old maids forever. They’re 35 years old....

Many a father, out of a desire to keep that family unit together and protect it, is losing his children to boredom, to a life of mediocrity. He won’t have any grand‑kids. He won’t have any patriarchal family at all. Now, he will use guilt to control his children and prevent them from developing independence.

There's also this article from NGJ (nogreaterjoy.org/articles/patriarchal-dysfunctional-families-part-2/?topic_slug=teens) which is a follow-up to this one (nogreaterjoy.org/articles/cloistered-homeschool-syndrome/?topic_slug=teens):

We call it by different names. Today it is the Cloistered Homeschooled Syndrome. Briefly, it is the failure of the parents to understand, appreciate, and respect the individuality of their adult children. They sacrifice the individual identities of their children on the altar of their own emotional needs, making them nurse when they should be killing and dressing their own food, making them obey when they should be learning to command. They seem to think that grown children are God’s gift to them rather than their gift to God. Through letters and personal contact, we see more and more of this cult-like isolationism, parents demanding absolute allegiance to the family group, and fearing outside contact might break up their “fellowship.†Adult kids who want to launch out on their own are told that they are rebellious and disloyal and are causing grief to those who have nurtured them. Emotionally needy parents manipulate their grown children into remaining loyal to the unit. Thirty-year-old daughters sit at home acting as surrogate mothers, watching their prospects to ever be a mother dwindle.

[sparkles]

While I find elements of each philosophy to be worse than the other, on the whole if I absolutely had to choose, I'd have to go with Steve as being the greater of two evils. I detest Michael pearl with the fire of a thousand suns but at least he's given his kids a life in the here and now and (for the most part) the skills and the ability to enjoy it. Steve, on the other hand, lives only for death and what he thinks comes after. There's no one iota of joy in living for now and as a result he's raised a passel of emotionally crippled "children." At least the Pearl children seem to have the resources to eventually come to their senses and function in the real world. I can't say the same for the Maxwells, especially the women. Thanks the FSM that so far Steve's reach is so limited. Can you imagine what it would be like if his way actually took hold? We'd be a nation of barely functional depressives.

[Hane]

Didn't mike also recently write an article taking little diggs at Steve? Something about letting your kids actually grow up?

I don't know how recent that was, but Pearl was definitely not down with the permanent SAHD lifestyle.

[Lillybee]

If Stevio and MP were friends back in the day, I am sure that the Maxwell kids saw a lot of plumbing line.