Exploring the Cultural Significance of Friendship in Jewish Life

This episode explores the contrasting approaches to friendship and family within Jewish and American Protestant Christian cultures. Through a detailed comparison, the speaker discusses how Jewish holidays and observances often include non-family members, contrasting this with the more insular family-focused events in certain Christian traditions. The discussion extends to examples from other cultures, including Catholic, Muslim, and Mormon communities, highlighting the social dynamics and the impact on community cohesion and individual behavior.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone.

Today. We asked the question. Why did Jews have friends? This question may seem odd at first to someone, but when I go through it, you're going to be like, Oh, wow, that is actually kind of weird. Specifically, what I will be laying out is that if you look at most Jewish holidays or religious festivals Or religious observances, they are encouraged to invite non family members, sometimes even non Jews. However, if you look at, and I'm talking about my own cultural background you know, coming from a Christian culture, from one category of Christian culture in America, and we'll do some diversification of the various Christian cultures, but the Christian culture that I come from, American Protestant Christian culture There are very few religious events or [00:01:00] celebrations in which you would invite people who are not extended family.

If I am inviting somebody to Christmas or to Thanksgiving That is basically an indication that I plan on marrying them. Like it's not even, it's seen

Simone Collins: culturally as one of those big leveling ups in a relationship. If you go to your girlfriend or boyfriend's house for Thanksgiving or Christmas, cause that is a sign of serious commitment.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and it made me realize how distant the culture I grew up in was from Jewish culture when we had a very Chabad guy very, you know extreme what's the word? I'm looking here very orthodox jew come to our house. He's a fan of the show really like the guy. He's actually inspired a number of episodes and he was talking with our son and he said something that sparked this whole chain of logic for me

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: He was interacting with our son and he said, Do you [00:02:00] have any friends? And my son said, Yeah, I have two friends. And he goes, What are their names? And he goes, Torsten and Titan. And those are our two other older kids names. And then he goes, Well, those are really your friends. Those are more like, Your siblings, do you have any friends?

And in my head, I'm immediately thinking, wait, what are you talking about? Your siblings are always your best friends. Why would you ever like all other friends come after family?

Burdened with new friends and tormented by the bounty hunter chains,,

Malcolm Collins: And a lot is bigger than water. Yeah. Yeah. That was said all the time to me growing up. Interesting, and that is a very bad metaphor to use because in the context of the Bible where it's being written, it is the blood is not thicker than the water of heaven.

It is, it is used to argue against this idea,

The original wording is the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, where it water. It's supposed to be familiar where relationships and blood is supposed to represent chosen [00:03:00] relationships. Whereas today it's often used where blood represents familiar relationships and water represents chosen relationships.

It reminds me a lot of another commonly misused phrase where people say.

I am not my brother's keeper. And I'm like D. Dan do you know the context of that line? Do you know the context of that line? That's a guy. Saying to somebody accusing him of killing his brother when he did kill his brother. Oh, I I'm not, I don't always know where he is. But people say that to like, legitimately be like, well, you know, I'm not responsible for him.

but it got me realizing that when I started to go through many of the Jews who I know, or many people who are descended from Jewish cultural groups, they are really big, Unmaintaining friend networks. Whereas if I go through the people who are closer to me culturally, they very rarely have wide friend networks and they [00:04:00] really prefer to have strong relations with family members.

And when I say strong relations with family members, I might be on the extreme side of this because I'm from that backwoods American, like greater Appalachian culture mixed with some of the Puritan American culture. But like I started a company with my wife, my brother started a company with his wife when I was thinking when the Jewish guy was over and he's like, well, who in the area do you hang out was or would you feel comfortable with your kids spending time with?

Like, I would never take my kids to spend time with like a friend from school, but like my brother's family, of course my dad worked on a company with his sister. Before that, he worked in a company that his grandfather founded. Right now he gets dividends, which pay for his living expenses from a company, a cousin started that he invested in.

Like this idea of working and keeping it within the family is very and we've even looked at this ourselves. Like when we have our kids like play work games, you encouraged them to work together and I can play a little. clip here where they're making paper airplanes as a group to [00:05:00] sell because they decided they wanted money to do things together to get guns for the group so they could all shoot at each other.

Simone Collins: Yes, this was to buy XJOTGUN.

Speaker 5: And then it's gonna go to triangle one. So, and now we gotta fold the wing, right? and make anotheR one

I will get them.

Speaker 6: Oh, Torsten. Let's

Speaker 5: put this wizard on our place

Malcolm Collins: yes. So what I'm going to do in this video is I'm going to bring receipts for this because some people might be hearing this and they might be like, if you don't know a lot about Jewish culture, you might be like, maybe he's exaggerating how much friends are invited. We're going to then go deeper into Christian culture, at least the Christian culture I'm from, that is very sort of antagonistic to friends outside the family.

We're going to then go over other Christian cultural groups, which do the same thing. And then we're going to contrast these with other religious and cultural groups that are actually closer to Jews in terms [00:06:00] of, you know, The Christian cultural groups that do this are actually quite unique. There's very few cultures on earth that are this focused on extended family networks in their traditions itself.

Simone Collins: I'm excited to dive into this.

Malcolm Collins: Some Christians may hear this and they'll be like, Oh no, no, no, like what about going to church? That's engaging with people who aren't your family. And I'd say, you haven't gone to a historic American church recently, have you? If you go to American churches that are over 100 years old, What you will notice is that they are laid out so that each family had a private booth where you would not interact with people outside of your family.

Well,

Simone Collins: not necessarily. I mean, there would be like the family pew, and you always sat in the same spot. I would, I see it as akin to having that lunch table. In high school, where it's like, no, no, this is the popular girls table. You don't sit there. That's for

Malcolm Collins: them.

Simone Collins: It's not necessarily

Malcolm Collins: even in the face of a religious gathering, isolate people based on family networks.

Like these, these pews had doors to them. You would open a door and then go into a walled [00:07:00] pew. So you could see the priest, but you didn't have to look at any of the other churchgoers.

Simone Collins: So,

Malcolm Collins: when I went to AI and asked about this, it said, Jewish holidays and celebrations often emphasize the concept of Oh, trim or trim which I'm pronouncing it totally. You're going to butcher this.

Yeah. Which translates to welcoming guests, which is considered a significant mitzvah commandment in Judaism. This practice extends beyond family to include friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. Examples of Jewish holidays that encourage guest invitations. Passover Seder. It's common for Jewish families to invite friends, colleagues, or even strangers to their Passover Seder.

This practice aligns with Haggadah's instructions to, quote, Let all who are hungry come and eat, end quote. And I note here, we've seen this a lot. I've had lots of Jewish friends, despite them only making up, like, 1. 5 percent of the American population, we regularly get invitations to Jewish religious gatherings.

I don't think I've gotten an [00:08:00] invitation to a Christian religious gathering in years at this point. I, I've had people suggest maybe you should go to your local ex church, but I haven't had a personal invitation to come to my family's, this event, like come to our family's.

Simone Collins: like services, church services.

Malcolm Collins: Next Rosh Hashashana. Many Jewish families invite their friends and acquaintances to their Rosh Hashashana meals, which is seen as a way to start the new year. Rosh Hashanah. I know I can't pronounce anything, okay? These foreign words are caustic to my tongue. Sukkot. During this week long festival, it's customary to invite guests called ushpinzin to share meals in the Sukkot.

This often includes both family and non family members. Shabbat dinners. Our family

Simone Collins: is never going to be confirmed as Jewish ever. Yeah, Shabbat dinners.

Malcolm Collins: Weekly Shabbat meals are frequently the occasions for inviting friends, colleagues, or newcomers to the community. [00:09:00] And then you also have the Minyam. Which is, if you're not familiar with how Jewish practice works, you need at least 10 other Jews in your area where you get together and worship together and worship in a way through your communion with this group which is not a family group.

Often, in addition to that, if you look at the way that they do a lot of the teaching of their stuff, instead of having.

One knowledgeable person stand on stage and talk and everybody's just supposed to like listen and learn from that Which is the way a lot of christian communities work. They'll have individual debates between two non family members where they will talk amongst themselves and build a greater understanding now, let's contrast the ways traditional american christian celebrations you have christmas.

It would be really weird to bring somebody who wasn't extended family to christmas Yeah, And bringing somebody to Christmas, at least in my family tradition, is an indication that you plan on marrying that person.

Simone Collins: It's more official than a proposal.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, it's much more official than the [00:10:00] proposal. If I propose to someone but I haven't taken them to a family Christmas that, that proposal means nothing.

Next you have Easter. Easter Sunday often involves extended family gatherings for meals and religious observances. In fact, the only part of Easter where I have ever heard of people bring non family members is a Easter egg hunt. But that's usually a community Easter egg hunt. If I'm thinking about family Easter egg hunts, like my family did Easter egg hunts every Easter.

You've done Easter egg hunts with me every Easter. I would never invite non family to that. It'd be super weird.

Simone Collins: No, only if friends happen to be staying with us, perhaps, during the holiday.

Malcolm Collins: That would

Simone Collins: just be some weird

Malcolm Collins: happenstance. And I think if you're not, if you haven't grown up in one of these cultures, you may not understand how weird this is.

It would be culturally weirder for me to have a non family member at Christmas than it would be for me to sleep with someone other than my wife. Like it would be probably about 50 percent weirder. This is why sometimes I hear about some other family, which we'll talk about from different Christian groups where they're like, [00:11:00] Oh, I invite like homeless people over for Christmas.

And I'm like, what are you doing? Like, that's really weird.

And there'll be like, well, you know, I like to do it. And it's like an act of charity for someone who's down and out. And that to me sounds almost like somebody being like, yeah, well, you know, sometimes my wife and I invite homeless people to sleep with us because, you know, they don't have a lot of stuff and it's nice that sometimes they get to screw my wife and I'm here like, bro, that is so creepy sounding like, what are you doing?

There are other ways you can be nice to homeless people

and I'm telling you this so that you can better model if you are not from a family centered cultural background, the way that people from family centered cultural backgrounds think about things. And perhaps better understand or predict the way they might react to something, because I understand not obviously not all Christians are like this, , Christian groups who we'll get to in a second. Are totally okay. Who is inviting homeless people do their Christmas dinners. , it's just that for me, the emotional response that, that evokes when I hear [00:12:00] that. Is.

Parallel to the emotional response I would hear of, sometimes I invite homeless people to sleep.

Was my wife. And the excuse of, well, we do it to be nice because they're down and out. Evokes of the same emotional response of EFI. Guffawed at the first thing. Well, I let them sleep with my wife because they're down and out. I'm like, well that doesn't explain it. There's other ways you can be nice to them.

Anyway, and then finally Thanksgiving, which an American Christian is, is it's not a technically a Christian tradition, but it's very part of the American Christian sort of folklore set of holidays. You would generally not invite non extended family members to that.

So, and I, and now I want to reflect more on just the Jewish friends that we have. So like, when I think about like one of our good friends, who's Jewish he lives like his house is connected to a friend's house and they like share parenting responsibilities. And we had actually talked about doing this with him.[00:13:00]

Like he, he was like, Oh, well, I might move where you guys are and do this with you guys. But and we're like, oh cool because people know that we do this with the people who who live next to us We give them a house in exchange for child care help, right? But he's like, Oh, and I would like to ensure that like, if we do this, you're going to have time to like, have regular dinners with us.

Right? Like maybe at least a couple dinners a week. And Simone and I are like looking at each other. No, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no. We would have a strong and I mentioned this because you know, in our society, we often forget this people I think are biologically impacted by their traditions pretty strongly.

Oh, yeah. And I can see members of my culture who were more like gregarious towards outsiders being much more likely to leave the culture and people from potentially different cultures like Simone, who are much less gregarious towards outsiders, finding this culture and way of living very appealing, which can lead to genetic concentration.

Now, if you look at how we work [00:14:00] with the people who help us raise our kids, we have. Basically no conversations with them outside of business ventures. It's like, Hey, we might be able to help you make money here. We might be able to help you make money here. We need help with this.

These are people who have been living next to us and caring for our kids every day for over a year at this point. I still don't know what religion they are. They don't know that we are pro natalist advocates. They don't know our religious beliefs but I really would not want to have like small talk with them.

I'd find that to be very painful for me. To be fair, you don't like to have small talk with anyone. True, but this is also, if you consider like Jewish celebrations for anyone who's not familiar, and I can put some video on the screen here, a lot of them involve like parties,

Speaker 7: Oh,

Speaker 8: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:15:00] Yeah. Yeah.

Music

Malcolm Collins: like a party that is If I was going to put it on a level between the type of Christian gatherings that I grew up with, and remember, I grew up in a Calvinist sect of Christianity, so it's going to be on the stream at the end of this, but I also went to Catholic events, I also went to, so like, let's put it on like a more middling Christian group, like a Catholic, if I compare it with like, You're, you're regular, extremely Orthodox Jewish celebration was a generic Catholic celebration.

It's like 50 percent on the way to being a rave. Like, it's, it's insane.

Speaker 10: [00:16:00] Transcription by ESO. Translation

Malcolm Collins: And Jews may think that this is. Would elevate their culture to me, but no i'm like, oh my god. Somebody's gonna touch me if I go there I'm gonna get like a random hug. I'm gonna get like, you know, this looks like way too much fun.

Simone Collins: Yes

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, somebody's gonna go up and expect me to like treat them with geniality even though they haven't proven themselves to me Like oh my god, uh that that squeaks me out

And I think some people might hear this. And because they have so oriented their value system to the value system that the urban mono culture provides them. They may think I am exaggerating or putting on a show here, but. I am not, this is genuinely horrifying to me asking me to go to one of these events is like singing.

Would you like to. Walk through these hot coals without shoes on. , it is not, it does not look pleasant to me, but, and [00:17:00] this isn't true of all religious celebrations. If somebody asks me to go to, for example, an Amish barn raising where I don't talk to people and I just do honest labor for a few hours.

And then the. The women go and bake nice foods and bring that to us with lemonade. After a long, honest labor, I would love that that'd be a lot of fun to do. Whereas, and I actually note it's not just the partying of religious celebrations that squeezes me out like Latin mass. Oh my God. The pointlessness of it.

I don't even understand what they're saying. So it's not that I feel just this way about Jewish celebrations, also anything that reeks to me of pointless ceremony, where nothing productive at achieved that also really squeezes me out and in. And drives me crazy. But, , I think in society you can say, oh, Latin mass drives me crazy.

And people were like, oh, I get why that would drive someone crazy. And you're like, but these parties also drive me crazy and they're like, I can't understand. Or you must be fronting. [00:18:00] Or you must not really mean that because in our society today, in that scene in a movie where, , you know, somebody from the dance floor walks out and puts out their hand and tries to bring the person onto the dance floor who really doesn't want to be dancing. Well, the convention is they take their hand, they go on the dance floor and then they really enjoyed themselves.

That is not me. That has never been me. I go on the dance floor and I am weirded out and it's not that I'm a bad dancer. I just don't like doing that.

Speaker 13: Prepare to interact socially. Reaction hologram on. I am reacting appropriately to the thing you just said. Small talk acknowledged.

Speaker 14: Ha ha, who's an anti social weirdo now? Not the girl who invented robot arms to hug strangers. Oh my god, I sound insane.

Malcolm Collins: and if you're and so do you have further comments on this?

Simone Collins: Well, I guess just for me, any [00:19:00] sort of social event means I just have to work extra hard to mask because me being around people is not natural in any sense.

So it's just exhausting. I don't get it. I don't understand.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we end up having to sleep a ton after I interact with people as well. It like really overcharges. My processing

Simone Collins: and I think on a genetic level, there are definitely people who are introverts and extroverts with introvert and extrovert being defined as whether being around people gives you mental energy or draws it away from you.

And I wonder if, on a religious level, there are some people who, like, let's, let's say your theory holds true and Judaism is a religion that really features a lot more socializing. Would then people who've genetically been Jewish for hundreds and hundreds of years. On average, be more extroverted. You would expect so, but I also am not sure because there's so much monasticism.

No, because there's another

Malcolm Collins: thing that's [00:20:00] counterfactual in this. Okay. So we were talking with this guy, very conservative, you know, he knows a lot of various like Chabad Jewish groups. These are the ones who dress weird, everything like that. Right. From a you know, average American's perspective.

Yeah.

And he mentioned that he hadn't heard a CPS being called on any of them.

And I thought this was very weird. Keep in mind, CBS has been called on 34 percent of American families, and I know virtually no one cultural group who's like a white American Protestant who hasn't had CPS called on them. And so I was thinking about what could cause this, and then I began to reflect on something else I've noticed about our Jewish friends kids.

Is that they are dramatically more timid and less risk taking than our kids. Our kids are very aggressive. Like, for example, when I had to punish my kid because he stole some other kid's game that is not the type of thing that any of our Jewish friends kids would do. They wouldn't just go up to another kid, Take their toy from them and, like, push them to the ground and start playing with [00:21:00] it.

They wouldn't, you know, when we've been out playing in dangerous places they don't get close enough to the creek to fall in. They don't, you know, pick up the extra big rock and accidentally drop it on their sister. They don't, you know, just this risk taking behavior is much lower. And I think that both of these might be downstream of the same thing, which is Jews might be more socially gregarious, but less risk taking more broadly.

And I think this might have to do with being overly the Jewish faction that survived. Now, we argue in our book this wasn't true of the older Jewish factions, but the Jewish faction that's dominant today was a Urban center focused culture and really specialized in being in urban centers. That's why they've been able to keep their fertility rates up, we argue, because they were exposed to the urban monoculture long before any other cultural group and they developed resistance to it.

But what it means is if you are a kid growing up in urban centers for many generations, and even today, I think it's something like 98 percent of Jews live in an urban center. You are going to be [00:22:00] like evolutionarily rewarded for being less likely to play on the street, being less likely to accidentally push around another kid who might be in a gang, be much less likely to be more gregarious socially, but in a very polite way, right?

And I think that this might also lead to the stereotype that is common. . Of the sort of Weasley Jewish kid that you have in a lot of media,

Speaker 11: I'm gonna make you a deal. What? That kid over there is having a really hard time right now, so I'm going to offer you 40 to not rip on him. 40 bucks?! Cartman, no Jew jokes. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and you've got 40 bucks. Can you do it? It could be tough, but I'll give it a shot.

Alright. It's a real dry cold. That's the problem. The cold air makes me wheeze. Kyle, this is Cartman. He's my sort of friend ish. Nice to meet you, Cartman. You know, I saw that same jacket you're wearing at Bosco's for 29. 95. How much was yours? I'm just wondering if Bosco's is a rip off. Oh, man.

Oh, well, I grew up in the city. I really don't care for it. I come [00:23:00] from a Jewish family, which of course you already know because Kyle's from the same family.

I like to read, oh my god, I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it. I realize we're in the mountains, but do we have to freeze today?

Speaker 12: Now Kyle, I need you to be quiet. In my class, you need to be able to concentrate.

Speaker 11: Maybe we'll have to send him to concentration camp. Ah! Dammit, dammit, dammit!

Malcolm Collins: Which is

if you have this high gregarious, high timidity genetic cluster being selected for because of multi generation urban living you might come off as.

Obsequious or nerdy to other kids who are from more rough and tumble cultures And I also note this in terms of jewish kids ability to like focus and study One of the things I was noting is that our jewish friends kids when contrasted with our own kids at similar age ranges Are much better at like sitting down and studying for long periods of time Which is you know what they need to do if we sent our kids because we've even thought of doing this to like a local You something like that [00:24:00] to be trained the way the Jewish kids are they would just stand up and run off.

Like you'd say, sit in the chair and they'd be like, why? Like, are you gonna hit me? And they'd be like, no. And they'd be like, well, then why would I sit in the chair? I'm, I'm not off. Which is the way that they react to this stuff. And it's just a strong cultural difference. And then here I'd note if you're like, okay, so then what are, what is the ancestor of cultures like ours?

Like, you're talking much more like extended, Family networks where that is your social circle it is the people who are your cousins or your your second cousins you typically don't really talk to anyone outside of this network and when you do you generally distrust them and the reason that you're talking to them is generally because you want to ensure your kids have access to potential wives, or husbands or You're looking for a wife or husband

So as a note here, if you. In one episode I did, that was called something like we used to like our parents. , [00:25:00] I read from a book that my great, great, great grandfather wrote. , which I think does a good job of showing how in this culture, people related to families because throughout the entire book, I don't think he mentioned a single human being by name, who he's not related to yet.

He not only. Copious James mentioned his family members and how family members helped him out, like how his brothers. , helped pay for him to go get his law degree who worked at the local mills so that somebody in the family could be educated. Or how his uncle gave him a loan so that he could move his wife to Texas. But it doesn't just mention family members and not mention anyone, none of the family.

At the end of the book, there is a list of every living person. If it's related to. , just this really long list and what they do at slash have done. And then at the end of the list, he takes a great deal of pride and says, and I haven't noticed any degree in criminality in any of the Collins bloodline, , and, , This is apparently important [00:26:00] to him that all other family members and none of them had any degree of criminality.

I thought that that was interesting.

But there is one to note of a party in the book and it was, , like a square dance type party that he went to two. Originally meet the woman who he ended up marrying. So it's not that you would never go to a party at all, but then you go to a party with an instrumental purpose, which is finding the type of person that you would end up marrying.

For a movie that depicts this cultural group, you can look to the original home alone. In the original home alone, everyone who the family knows is part of their extended family network. And it may seem like a plot hole that when they are on vacation with their extended family network, they don't have literally a single acquaintance who they are not related to in their town.

They can go check on their house or in their kid. But if you are from this cultural group, that seems fairly natural to you. Also, , you can see. Traits that are common in this cultural group depicted in that movie. For example. , the protagonist [00:27:00] extreme level of confidence and cockiness when he goes and talks to somebody like the Santa Claus at the mall where he's like, Hey. I know how it works.

You're not fan of Claus. You work for Santa Claus. Now let's talk this through. , or that he immediately goes to a church when he is feeling unsure of himself. Or that his solution to literally any problem appears to be murder.

And I actually hypothesize That this notion we see commonly in America today that everyone is supposed to have lots of friends outside of their family, and that that is the culturally normative way to be, which the urban monoculture pushes really, really strongly. All this power of friendship stuff and everything like that.

I actually think that that is culturally an anathema. to most American cultural groups throughout their history and them attempting to overly adapt to this historic anathema [00:28:00] causes them a lot of distress. As to why they are attempting to adapt to this and where this misconception has come from, first, for the urban monoculture to deconvert somebody needs to push them away from their support network, which is going to be their family, which means it's going to create, or the iterations of it that create this narrative of, Friends good friends matter more than family found family, etc That's gonna do much better at spreading than the iteration which is like no you really should you know Honor your parents and stay with your family and everything like that so that's one thing is the urban monoculture pushes it but then secondarily, two groups which seem to outcompete other groups in america are Jews, Jews just get to higher positions faster in like media and stuff like that.

So their culture is going to predominate media at a higher rate than it otherwise would, and a group that I'm going to call the High Catholics. Now there are, and I don't mean this in terms of like, like, like, High Church Catholics. I mean this, like the [00:29:00] high elves, I'm going to divide the Catholics into high Catholics and, and low Catholics, like the wood Catholics or the, the Christian Catholics.

What's the difference? What's the differentiating line?

They are super, super different. And I actually hadn't realized it until I was prepping for this video. Because I hadn't been able to point to this before I would look at an individual like Nick Fuentes, who is a high Catholic, and I'd be like, why are you complaining about immigrants coming into our country?

They're majority Catholic. You want to. Create a worldwide Catholic government. Like, why would that be a problem for you? And what you want is a country that is all Catholic ruled by Catholics. What I realized is no, they're not Catholic. I mean, superficially, like the high elves are like, yeah, I mean, we're kind of the same thing as the wood elves, but like, let's be honest.

We f*****g hate the wood elves and look down on them. And I wouldn't let a wood elf live in a high elf city. Or certainly not one of Santy's crusty elves live in a high elf city. I'm like, what are we even talking about here? [00:30:00] Whereas the other elves, the low elves, I guess I'll call them are the Catholic group that we're much more friends with, which are often Hispanic Catholics.

Or they represent Other Catholic girls throughout history like the ones who formed the mafia or the mob and these groups high Catholics are very low on family. Like they are very pro

Simone Collins: and great at networking

Malcolm Collins: Outside the family very pro networking the community oriented Yeah, and very intellectualist often.

Simone Collins: That makes that makes so much sense. I never really thought about it that way, but I did have this sort of to evoke sets for Catholics in my mind, one being extended family, very family reunion, like oriented, very clan based, and then the other being.

Extremely community oriented, constantly doing things related to their church community or a broader network. And those don't really work well together. Yeah, they're, they're [00:31:00] really maybe I feel now, though, like, a lot of our Catholic friends would be saying. No, we absolutely do both. I'm super involved in my community, and we also do everything with our family, so I don't know, maybe they would disagree.

No, no,

Malcolm Collins: no. They, when they say that, they mean that the same way a Jew does. By that, what I mean is Jews are both, it's not like Jews don't care about their family. Yeah, the family

Simone Collins: gatherings that friends come to are still family gatherings.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they still have family gatherings, but they're much closer to high Catholics in that regard.

Like when I imagine a modern high Catholic in America meeting one of their maybe. Mob family or mafia, family ancestors. , it's sort of like.

A high elf meeting, Christmas elves.

Speaker 3: What the fudge are you wearing?

Speaker: Oh, these are my iron silk robes. Light as a feather, but stronger than You look

Speaker 3: ridiculous, is what I'm saying. He does! He does! You ever [00:32:00] see an elf wear something like this before? That long cape, that'll get stuck in a toy machine for sure. Your foreman lets you wear that? Okay,

Speaker: all the elves in Kalendil wear iron silk,

Speaker 3: dad. If you can call them real elves. Wow.

Speaker 2: Tell us all about Calendule.

Speaker: The shining jewel of the East, where a multitude of voices rise to sing the secrets of the moon to the forest. .

Speaker 3: What do you do in the big city, huh? What do I do? I

Speaker: forge fallen stars into the blades of champions. I whisper enchantments into the shields that guard the realms of men.

Speaker 3: You make money off of that? Jingle. I'm curious. I don't understand. How do people pay for that?

Speaker: You know, maybe I don't make a toy maker's salary dad, but at least I'm not a slave to a fat human.

Oh, oh, oh! Oh!

Speaker 3: You couldn't just be a normal elf.

Speaker: Whoa, okay. Hold up. Hold up, hold up. What is a normal elf to you? [00:33:00] I'm a normal elf. That's super racist.

Speaker 3: Huh? Oh, I guess everything's racist now. Hi elves.

Speaker: North Pole Elves, Wood Elves,

Malcolm Collins: And if we talk about how family focused some low Catholic groups are like the, and I, and I should say, I mean low, like I think high, more highly of the low Catholics than I think of the high Catholics. I'm not saying low as a derisive term. I'm saying it more that when I imagine high Catholics, They remind me of high elves just very sparkly buildings, like thinking they're, they're very high and mighty, all that.

So, the low cast like friends we have, like I think of one who's an immigrant from Latin America and he jokes that his family calls him. simply because he talks to people who are non family. He's like, yeah, mostly we just talk to family members in the family. And it's actually considered quite weird to have friends who are outside your family.

And that is somewhat weird was in my family. Like most of the friendships you have outside the family are supposed to be for some form of utility as people have even [00:34:00] seen from like my bigger philosophical takes around this. So before I go further, anything you want to add? No. Now I want to talk about another weird thing that I was thinking about, which is that family oriented culture, like clan oriented culture, family oriented is the wrong way to put it.

I'll put it like clan oriented culture. The way it relates to family is much less hierarchical in a way than the way that Let's call it friendship oriented culture relates to family. So what I mean by this is in for example jewish families When the family is vetting a potential spouse Which is common in conservative jewish families of the the parents, do that that is done by the parents whereas in the culture that I come from that is done primarily by the siblings You What your siblings think of a potential spouse matters a lot more or girlfriend or boyfriend Matters a [00:35:00] lot more than what your parents think of it and that when we're raising our kid because I was thinking like Oh what you know it's so weird that in jewish culture like when we were talking with him There's this focus on do I approve of who they're married?

Like do I approve of like earning their parents approval? whereas I was thinking, well, I would never care about, like, approving who my kids are marrying in a big way. Like, that's mostly going to be their siblings. And if you're not familiar with this trope, think of if you're used to, like, a story about an Appalachian family where somebody was dating in it or like a rural American family that somebody was dating in typically it's their brothers who are gonna beat you up if you do something wrong to the girl.

It is the

Simone Collins: I mean, I'm not sure I agree. Because most of the tropes still center around fathers vetting. Like, the classic Protestant father interviewing boyfriends before [00:36:00] they go on a date with a daughter.

Malcolm Collins: I have seen that in some stereotypes, but just in my real life, but I've seen more, especially in families with lots of kids.

It is a sibling's job. And, and there's actually a reason why it's the sibling's job. It's not like a completely, like I was even explained to my parents. This is why parents don't vet their children's wives. Or in my case, wife in our cultural group. And they said, because if we did and we disapproved of a wife, but then you ended up marrying her anyway.

We could end up being cut out of your life and our grandkids life. So it's much more important that your siblings take on that role than we take on that role. It's our job to make a new spouse feel welcomed. This is avoided in jewish culture because when ultra conservative jews are dating Typically the dating prospect is vetted by the parents before they ever meet the person they're going to date

But this has the negative externality You Of leading you to go through like hours of [00:37:00] betting from parents before you even get to meet the person and you're like, Oh, I immediately didn't click with this person.

I could have known that after three minutes. And this is why you don't do that in, in Jewish culture.

This optimization is actually fascinating to me because both cultures have optimized around the same problem in radically different ways due to just reword how Jewish culture handles this in extremely conservative Jewish culture. You typically need to be approved by the parents before you can date someone that way.

There is no risk of quote unquote catching feelings for someone who the parents wouldn't approve of. Whereas in Appalachian culture, parents generally are indifferent to, or always welcoming of who you are dating, unless they're like an absolute no, no, no, you shouldn't be with this person. And the core job of protecting somebody from making bad decisions around who they date are married, is left to the siblings.

And it's also the sibling's job to enforce [00:38:00] that. Both of these fix, the problem of somebody gets married to somebody who created a beef, was one of the families and ends up splitting the culture. Intergenerationally speaking.

, but does it in completely opposite ways almost.

So I thought that that was really interesting as well. Now here I wanted to talk about other cultures. So Mormons are another culture that is very focused on friends, like community friends depending on the group of Mormons who you're interacting with.

So some Mormons are like only the Mormon church. Like if you're talking to somebody outside the Mormon church, you better be trying to convert them. Because if you are not, then you are contaminating yourself. However, they are very gregarious within the church community itself. And in addition to that they have what they call a culture of inviting.

And this is partially to convert people as well, where they do shared meals , attend church services that are not family segregated and read religious texts as [00:39:00] groups. And

Simone Collins: Yeah, in my experience, With people who are active in the LDS church is that they would, you would get a calling and your calling would involve volunteering, even like, from the age of being a fairly young team, you'd be playing a piano or you'd be helping out of the daycare services.

You wouldn't be doing everything with your family. You'd actually be separated. from your family by duty during normal church services to do your part to help the community. So I feel like that sort of actively by design is breaking people up and encouraging people to make inter community friends.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, absolutely. And the, the if you talk about Muslims as another cultural group, despite some Muslim cultures being very family focused because if you talk about like rural Muslim cultures, a number of them are very family first focus Islam as a religion is very, very friendship focus and our family focus.[00:40:00]

So, if you look at something like Ramadan celebrations you hope in open iftars fast breaking dinners where they invite friends, neighbors and community members and I have been to these myself. Where, like, a local rich person will just have a group of people come in, like, have a feast, and then the next group comes in, and they'll do this with, like, five groups in a row.

Like, they are so gregarious focused. But it's very much focused on the wealthy being gregarious to the less wealthy. That's a big part of Muslim gregariousness. Where it's, like, they're establishing their local status by doing this. Yeah. So it's not as similar as, as, as Jewishness where it's very not like a status thing to be inviting people.

It's very much like a I genuinely want to involve myself with the community. There really is this elevation of friendship as a value is in Jewish culture.

And then you also have community based stuff within some Muslim celebrations, like Eid celebrations and stuff like that which can be more, I think, [00:41:00] like wider community based than many Christian celebrations. So,

with all of this being the case, I wanted to talk about, like, the positives and negatives of these two cultural situations. First is just that some are going to appeal much more to people with some, like, pre level genetic selection than others. A culture like ours is just gonna heavily, heavily, heavily appeal more to introverts than non introverts.

Oh, for sure.

And when I say introverts and people might be like, Malcolm, you're pretty gregarious. Like you talk to a lot of people. Yeah. But I forced myself to, I would always rather be at home with my wife.

Simone Collins: We're hardline introverts. There's no getting around it. We can't being around people is like.

shoving a fist into an ice bucket. We can handle it with each passing second. We're like,

Malcolm Collins: Oh, even talking to people who aren't you like makes me actively angry if [00:42:00] they're not saying something that is of utility to me. Like when I'm talking to somebody, I'm like, what's going on in my head is always, okay, what's your point?

Like, what's the piece of information I'm supposed to be taking with this? Cause I want to leave. I want to be out of here. Okay. That's when I'm not on performance mode. Sometimes when I go to like, nights out and stuff, I basically go to performance mode, or I'm like, okay, I'm basically doing a performance to get these people to like me.

Which And you're, you're gone. You're not even there. Yeah, like, you and me are like, totally masking at those, like Yeah.

You know, you're thinking about the way people typically describe introvert versus extrovert. And neither really fits Simone or myself where they will say that you are extroverted. If you get sort of emotionally recharged by interacting with people and you are introverted. If you get emotionally recharged by being alone, where I realize on multiple occasions, Dimona have had this conversation with me where it's like, well, we really get the most emotional recharge. In time that we spend together, , specifically Simone and I, or with the kids, [00:43:00] not anyone else. , and it's had me realize that. Maybe there's a third category here, which has like family verts, , which is to say that you get emotionally recharged by spending time with family. But not with friends.

Strangers. Acquaintances. , or anything else like that?

, and I say that for Simone and I were probably a bit union. You need a bit of time with family, a bit of time alone. , and without that, we would feel really drained, but I could live my entire life, not talking to another person again.

So I, I think that one, just each of them, but for like some people, they may come from a culture and then see these Jewish celebrations where like everyone's drinking and singing and everything like that.

And they're like,

Simone Collins: sign me up for that. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Sign me up for that. That looks like a lot of fun. Or they see, See them all like laughing and reading stuff to each other, engaging with each other. And they're like, Oh, that looks really fun. Like it's really for some people. Absolutely. Just not a, yeah. So I think there's that too.

[00:44:00] I think it likely helps them in terms of and we mentioned this in our, Episode on Jewish iq. And, and we argue that it's a myth that Jews have a significantly higher iq. And I argue that actually the reason why they perform so much better is just they're much more likely to cold email people or cold reach out to new people.

And I think that that is downstream of this, this cultural appreciation. of making friends with people in a wider network. And I'd even put this to you, Simone. We have fans reach out to us all the time. Well over 50 percent of the fans that reach out to us are Jews. I'd say probably like 60 to 70% of the fans that reach out to us are Jews.

So True. Which is definitely not representative of our audience. So people who reach out to inte disproportionately, they are

Simone Collins: Catholic and

Malcolm Collins: Jewish. Yeah, they're not Jewish. They're Catholic almost entirely. And I think that this is also like the, the Catholic group has outperformed [00:45:00] other groups as we mentioned.

In the United States, especially high Catholics. Like you look at the Supreme court and stuff like that, just hugely overrepresented. And I think that this might be that these two groups are just much more likely to decide to cold email and influencer who they like. Which I think in our previous world system provided you was a lot of power.

I don't know if it's going to continue to be as high utility with the rise of sort of disintermediated social networks that we have online. But it might, I think it hugely basically made it easier for Jewish and Catholic high Catholics to compete in an environment in which the media that you consumed was mediated by social networks, like who could get their own news show, who could become a talking head on a platform who could you know, I think that in that world, these two communities were given a huge handicap.

In terms of competing. I don't know if it's going to continue to matter as much a core challenge of [00:46:00] being this gregarious to outsiders is that it's pretty unlikely to convert new people I haven't heard of that many people who've converted to catholicism because of this even though high catholics do invite people to stuff a lot however it is very likely to infect your community with external ideas and the Catholic Church, especially the high Catholic Church, has been really infected by the urban monoculture.

As to why Jewish communities have been more resistant to this? Well, what I'd say is the ones who had any degree of susceptibility basically washed out. I mean, what are reformed Jews if not highly infected by the urban monoculture iteration of Judaism, which has significantly sort of dropped any rule or cultural custom they had, which conflicted with the desires of the urban monoculture.

And people may see that as offensive, but it's like, objectively true. That's like, broadly what it means to be a reformed Jew these days is that You're Jewish, except where Judaism conflicts with the mainstream cultural [00:47:00] value system of the far left. Which is the urban monocultural value system.

So, ideas here, Simone.

Simone Collins: I can't think straight when there's a baby crying.

I, I struggled to see where there's really this difference across. I think that there are plenty of, we'll say low Catholic families who engage a ton of their community and network a lot. And even like within that mafia stereotype, there is a ton of, examples of the mafia bosses being super involved with the community, engaging with others, et cetera, to build the network that they need to have a successful family business.

So, I just, I don't think the distinguishing It's very,

Malcolm Collins: very different. Really? So, when these sorts of clan cultures are engaging with outsiders like in these mafia families and stuff like that, it's generally, It's generally Somewhat similar to the Muslim situation I was describing, where you are giving to your community to sort of show your status and your family status where, but you're not engaging them as human beings.

[00:48:00] You are inviting them to events. You are giving them food. You are giving them the opportunity to maybe go to a party or something like that. But they are not the same as family members. And they will never be trusted like a family member. And that a lot of this is, is downstream of, and I think to an extent you Simone grew up in one of these cultures that was broken because you were raised in a family that was of one of these cultures as a single child, which means that you just didn't see this as much.

You wouldn't have seen the strong family connections. I still had cousins. I still had. Which you said you played with all the time, and they were like some of your best friends growing up when we were talking about this this morning. That's not normal for a lot of people.

Also, your family was heavily fallen to the urban monoculture by the time they met you.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I mean they were already into like polyamory and you know, animal masks. I was [00:49:00] time, they didn't even have a word at the time. It was more like, I guess is what it was referred to at the time. Your mom was training to become a shaman When I met her.

Her,

Simone Collins: yes. The degree

Malcolm Collins: to which they had fallen from their cultural roots almost cannot be overstated. There was a great amount of drip. Yes. And so it might be that you just. grew up without any, even an echo or whisper of what your culture used to be. And so all you have is the genetic imprint of that.

Actually, I was talking to her about it this morning again, and I was like, you know, what's remarkable to me that your family even put on Christmases for you. And she goes, oh, well, they didn't do that voluntarily. I made them do Christmas every year. And I was like, oh, okay. So they were really trying to systemically erase any connection.

She had to any sort of, , ancestral culture.

Which is really interesting to me. Whereas for me,

Simone Collins: there's a lot of things that we've taken on as new traditions that feels so much more natural to me than how I grew up. And I think a lot of [00:50:00] people who get God or otherwise take on new traditions, like the track. First generation Catholics, I think, are feeling something really similar.

Like, the way they grew up didn't feel right to them, and now suddenly it does. But, let's wrap this up, because Emmy's crying,

Malcolm Collins: and I need to beat her before we move on. Okay well, I think the final thing I'd note here, because I've also been thinking about this, is in terms of religious ceremonies I have been to The group where I have gone to the most is actually Muslim which might surprise people.

And the reason is, is because they both invite you a lot, and they're not community focused, and they're generally giving you something, like a really nice meal, or access to someone in a position of power. With the Jewish ones, You might get a meal, but you know you're going to have to talk to somebody.

And I'm not as interested in that. And then with, it's interesting with the next one I've gone to most is Jewish ones. And then like, if I think about non Protestant [00:51:00] Christian ones, very few. And if you can be like, what do you mean? Like you don't want to go to a high demand religious thing. Well, think about your Mormon friends when they invite you to a religious thing.

Do you go to that? Are you like, oh my god, this is going to be like so high demand? No,

Simone Collins: yes, I go because they're wholesome and amazing and typically they're related to Christmas because that's when people can get me to go to anything.

Malcolm Collins: All right, love you to death, Simone. Have a spectacular day.

Simone Collins: I love you too.

I love Envy too and she's so sad.

Just FYI I think all she really needs is she basically didn't drink when she was supposed to.

Malcolm Collins: Side note on my part, I love that video you sent really good on, you know, watchers and view hours matter so much more than subscribers

Simone Collins: don't count,

Malcolm Collins: I guess, but they do count in terms of getting good guests on.

And they do count in terms of the, the watchers perception.

And I mean, I've always told you from the beginning I'm after watch hours and not, that's why I'm concerned. Totally true. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You saw [00:52:00] how. Effectless and meaningless subscribers, not to say anyone subscribing doesn't count and I subscribe to a lot of channels and watch them religiously.

Please subscribe, I

Malcolm Collins: really want to hit the 30, 000 number by Christmas or New Year's at least.

Simone Collins: The watch hours are really, yeah. What YouTube uses to determine whether or not a channel is worthy of getting a bump in the algorithm. So, helpful recondextualization for me.

Malcolm Collins: And we can have a longer strategic discussion about how we might utilize that.

Simone Collins: And I'm still curious as to what the drone mystery is. It has not been resolved yet. The drones that are flying over our area. With your brother saying that there wasn't any because I can't believe we don't have A Geiger counter and he does.

Malcolm Collins: I love my brother like walking around with like a radiation meter.

He's like, I'm checking, but I'm not, you know, he's a very paranoid person.

Simone Collins: Well, no, he's just prepared. And we should get one. All right.

Malcolm Collins: He's a Geiger counter. I'm sure some of our audience owns Geiger counters and they're like, you [00:53:00] guys are the worst preppers ever. How do you not own a Geiger counter?

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, it's, it's actually useful. I mean, for example, here's this instance in which across our geographic area,

Malcolm Collins: you get to choose what you spend your time and money on. And for example, you right now have been on a kick of build it yourself, giant Faraday boxes.

Simone Collins: The only reason I'm going to build them myself is they're too expensive to buy.

And what's the point of having solar power generators for solar flares if they burn out when the solar. And so now you, you, you were like, Oh, well, we may not have power for weeks because of the solar flare. But thank goodness we invested in the solar powered generators throughout the house. And then we discover they've been fried just like everything else.

That's why they have to be in Faraday cages, but Faraday cages are too expensive, but surprise, surprise, heavy duty aluminum foil and foil taper enough to make a Faraday cage. He wanted to make a Faraday cage.

Malcolm Collins: Fortune, what you could do is buy just like a huge amount of Chromebooks, put [00:54:00] them in giant Faraday boxes and then wait till a solar flare happens.

Then put them up on a site like eBay or something. Because people would be like a manic to get those.

Simone Collins: Well, I was just watching the recent Danny Gonzalez video on Amazon returns and one by the. Person who kind of co did that video with as well. Maybe there's some way we can get a huge returns box of Chromebooks, you know, basically unused electronics.

Maybe that don't resell at really high prices and do that because also I'm starting to think because, you know, the, the earth is closer to the sun during the winter. So I imagine our solar flare risk is actually seasonal. Like it's higher now because we are closer physically to the sun at this time of year.

So it's, it's, it's, I really need to not put off making these Faraday boxes. You don't understand Malcolm. This is really important, but also I think your brother was, Smart to have a radiation meter [00:55:00] because there could have been a dirty bomb and that could be the reason why there are all these drones flying.

I wouldn't be surprised

Malcolm Collins: if his entire house is done like a Faraday cage, like the liver Kings.

Simone Collins: His wait, the liver King's house is like a Faraday cage.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. He'd be built his house into like a Faraday cage to like keep out signals. You don't know if it's true, but like, I

Simone Collins: know, but if I built a house. If I had the money to build a custom house, why not just make sure that, except how do you do the windows?

Right? All the walls can have foil in them. You don't need

Malcolm Collins: windows. Yeah. Okay. We'll get started. All right.

Simone Collins: Actually, you know what? There was a Zillow Gone Wild image of one, one room or no, actually the entire house, the entire house actually was metal on the inside. Do you remember seeing that one?

That one probably would functionally be a Faraday cage. I don't think it was advertised as such, but Oh,

Speaker 16: Show me what that is. What is that? Um, it's my paper airplane sign. And this is made out of paper. And right there, there's [00:56:00] a lot of paper airplanes I can sell. Okay, so you're going to go outside and you're going to show people your paper airplane sign. Yes, well I'm going to do that in two days because it's cold out there.

That makes sense. And um, when people see your paper airplanes and your paper airplane sign, they're going to give you money. Okay. Um, yes, I'm making money. And what are you going to do with the money? Um, I'm going to buy a remote control ball with it. Like anything. Yeah! I want a remote control ball! You want a remote control ball?

Yeah. It's a silly thing to want. Oh! Why I love you, Octavian. This is my paper airplane so everybody knows I'm my mom. Hey, Octavian, I really like how much [00:57:00] agency you're showing here. You wanted something, we said you needed money to do it, so you came up with a plan to make money. Yes! What are you doing jumping on me?

What are you doing? Oh!

Speaker 18: Hate the thought of party lights. Crowds and dancing give me fright. All I need is you tonight. No friends allowed, no social fights.

Brushed by strangers on the floor. Chatter that we both abhor. Close the door, let's ask [00:58:00] for more. In your arms, my spirit soars. No need for friends, just me and you. Silent nights, our love so true. Holding tight and breaking through. Together, always old and new. No more tipsy late night calls Running through the gossip halls Stay with me within these walls Love we have it never stalls Terrified of faceless crowds Conversations way too loud Hold my heart and not the crowd With your love I'm feeling proud No need for friends, just [00:59:00] me and you.

Silent nights, our love so true. Holding tight and breaking through. Together always, old and new.

No more tipsy late night calls. Running through the gossip halls. Stay with me within these walls Love we have, it never stalls No need for friends, just me and you Silent nights, our love so true Holding tight [01:00:00] and breaking through Together always, old and new