Why Are Americana & Jews Resistant to Demographic Collapse?

In this enlightening conversation, explore the ways conservative and traditional rural cultures, particularly Americana and Jewish cultures, resist the influence of urban monoculture. Malcolm and Simone delve into America's surprising fertility rates compared to other countries and discuss how cultural pride plays a crucial role. Discover how behaviors encouraged at home but restricted by schools create a distinction between family life and the outside world, and how this concept parallels the defensive nature of Orthodox Jewish communities. The discussion touches on a piece by Cat Girl Kulak, examining the comparisons between American conservatives and Jewish conservatives regarding cultural immunity and fertility rates. Learn about the potential causes behind Mormon fertility decline and the significance of embracing nonconformity within Americana culture in securing long-term cultural survival. The episode concludes with a lighthearted conversation about family life and the dynamics of raising kids to cherish their unique culture.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing how you can better protect your culture, especially if you have a conservative or religious culture or in any way distinct culture from the urban monoculture. And I wanted to do it within the context of why Is Americana culture so resistant to the urban monoculture?

And it really hit me today because it is more resistant than other cultures. Like America's fertility rates, like 1. 66 now, whereas even like developing countries like Columbia, I was on a McKinsey call and on that call, this is McKinsey's sake, it had a fertility rate of 1. 02. You know, I was talking with some Italian reporters recently, and they were like at 1.

2 something. And I was like, this is just terrible. And you see this all over the world. So why is Americana culture alongside Jewish culture so resistant? And I will be pointing out that they are resistant almost in [00:01:00] exactly opposite ways. Like they both built a resistance, but that, well, there is one area in which it's a lot.

It is both fundamentally based on a pride in being different from the urban monoculture.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But. For Jews, this pride is in being Jewish in Americana culture, this pride is in upsetting the urban monoculture, basically an upsetting anybody who tells you what to do or who to be. That is more of it. And I see it, you know, represented in things like truck nuts.

And where this was handed. No, it is like, what's more like Trump or like real red. Well, let me explain

Simone Collins: this because I hadn't, I didn't see them until my adulthood. Truck nuts for those who are uninitiated. Literally a pair of balls that people hang from the trailer hitch of their trucks. Proceed.

Malcolm Collins: And it hit me when I had a, a tea The principal from Octavian school was talking to [00:02:00] me. And he's always getting in trouble at school. Because he does things that he's not allowed to do, like make poop jokes, make fart jokes, make guns with his hand you know, and the school is just apoplectic about all of this.

But all of this stuff is very much Americana, you know, Appalachian culture, like that's the cultural region my family's from. I'm not going to shame my kid for doing this stuff, so I explain to him the same way a Jewish family might. This type of behavior is for home and out in the world, you can't do this type of behavior.

But what's really important about what I'm doing here is so many cultures, when they realize that they can't do something at school, when they can't do something out in the world, they make bans against it at home to make lives easier for their kids out in the world. But, They maintain bans at home that they expect to also carry out into the world, i.

e. maybe a ban on being slutty or a ban on same sex marriages or [00:03:00] something like that, right? Don't, don't,

Simone Collins: don't. It's all about sacrifice. Don't, don't,

Malcolm Collins: don't. Because they're okay with adding don'ts, but they're not okay with taking away maintaining permissions that are unique to their culture.

Simone Collins: Mm hmm.

So they're inadvertently

Malcolm Collins: taking away amenities. Yeah, they're inadvertently taking away amenities. So my kids, because of this, they're learning a number of very important things. They're learning, one, that the outside world is different from the Collins family. There are things and behaviors allowed in the Collins family that aren't allowed in the outside world.

But two, they're immediately having, with the very first ways where they see the outside world as different than our family's culture, see it as more restrictive. More authoritarian and more controlling so they understand when they abandon My family's culture or like cultural groups that are adjacent to my family They [00:04:00] lose freedoms Rather than gain freedoms

Simone Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: this is core to the way americana culture has Fared so well against the urban monoculture is it highlights throughout it the additional freedoms you have By being a part of that culture that they do not have.

And here I wanted to read a piece that I thought really did a good job of explaining this. And better explaining why Mormonism is in a state of collapse. Doesn't have this feature. Whereas the Americana culture is doing so well. And it aligns with a really great study that we'll be going over later that was done by one of our fans.

That showed that being a Trump voter. Boosts fertility rates as much as being a mormon in utah. So if you are a non voter in utah You will have a slightly higher fertility rate than a non trump voting mormon and mormons are Increasingly non trump voting so we'll go over that in a [00:05:00] different video. It's so interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah

I I would put it So there, there's this relationship researching slash coaching group called the Gottman Institute, which we largely hate. There's one good point they have, which is a really good predictor of whether a relationship stays together is if the majority of the couple's interactions are positive versus negative.

And I think that kind of goes with pretty much anything. It's not necessarily a married couple thing. It's an anything thing. If the majority of your interactions. With a religion, or a friend, or a school, or a, an employer, are negative, and about no, and no, and you messed this up, and you can't do this, and you shouldn't do that, and you, how, how dare you, instead of, oh, guess what, you get to do this, this is a perk, oh, surprise.

Then you're going to break up. You're going to leave. You're going to detract. That is absolutely

Malcolm Collins: perfect. That's what's

Simone Collins: happening with the LDS religion. No, you can't wear this clothing. No, you can't drink coffee. No, you can't drink alcohol. No, you can't watch rated R movies. No, you can't [00:06:00] You know, take all your money home and not tithe 10%.

There's so much sacrifice and then the benefits seem to start easing away. But this

Malcolm Collins: is, this is what's fascinating to, to your point. There is what we are doing with our family. And what Americana culture does is it engineers a situation where my kids have additional negative events. When they're in urban monocultural environments, so they develop an intrinsically negative view of the urban monoculture from a young age.

When they go to school,